Prosthetic Gods

Episode 44 - Magnificent Humanity This week, J and Nir talk to Father Michael Baggot about Pope Leo XIV’s recent encyclical, Magnifica Humanitas, which outlines Catholic positions on AI and other emerging technologies. Father Michael Baggot is an Associate Professor of Bioethics at the Vatican’s Pontifical Athenaeum Regina Apostolorum in Rome, a member of the Scholarly Advisory Board for Magisteri...

Episode 43 - Brain-Computer Interfaces This week on Prosthetic Gods, Nir and J discuss the ethics of brain-computer interfaces. What role do they play in the futurist imagination, and what is the reality of their current use? How quickly will they be available for consumer use, and what ethical issues do they pose? Show Notes: The Philosophy of Brain-Computer Interfaces Conference - UMass Boston -...

Live from Cambridge: Existential Risk In this special live episode, recorded before an audience at Long Now Boston, Nir and J dig into existential risk. J takes seriously the prospect of catastrophic AI outcomes even absent consciousness or agency in any rich sense, while Nir worries less about civilization-ending scenarios than about a quieter, lowercase existential threat: the erosion of what ma...

Episode 42 - Who Really Needs Ozempic Anyway? This week on Prosthetic Gods, Nir and J discuss the tradeoffs of GLP1 drugs. Their use has reversed the obesity epidemic and has proven to have myriad medical and psychological benefits. But they also come with risks, and are seen as a technofix replacing the need for diets. Are GLP1s another step to the posthuman body, and is that a good or bad thing?...

Episode 41 - Disgust This week on Prosthetic Gods, Nir and J discuss the role of disgust in morality. Neuroscience suggests that feelings of disgust underlie many moral judgments, especially in the treatment of sexuality. Conservatives have long defended disgust as a source of moral intuition, while liberals seek to minimize it. Can we suppress disgust? Should we? Show Notes: Hiding from Humanity:...

Episode 40 - Nicholas Christakis - Technology and Contagion Dr. Nicholas Christakis is the Sterling Professor of Social and Natural Science at Yale University and the Director of the Human Nature Lab. His research sits at the intersection of the social, biological, and computational sciences, exploring how our evolutionary biology and social network structures shape human behavior, health, and soc...

Live from Portsmouth: Artificial Intelligence and Human Values In this special live episode of Prosthetic Gods, we bring you a night of big ideas recorded on April 2nd at the Music Hall in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. Presented as part of the University of New Hampshire's Sidore Lecture Series, "Artificial Intelligence and Human Values" gathered three leading thinkers to explore what AI means for ho...

Episode 39 - Sven Nyholm on the Ethics of AI This week on Prosthetic Gods we are talking to Sven Nyholm about his new book The Ethics of Artificial Intelligence. If our thinking relies on external media, where do we stop and the AIs start? What is the moral status of LLMs? Are they sentient? Are AI relationships any good? And should we raise robots like children?   Sven Nyholm is Professor of the...

Episode 38 - Humanoid Robots This week on Prosthetic Gods, Nir and J talk about the distinctive ethical issues raised by the humanoid robots coming to homes and workplaces. Their presence and human-like form elicit unique responses compared to those of non-embodied AI. The appearance of a robot can manipulate human empathy and consent; robotic caregiving could be used as a pretext to dismantle the...

Episode 37 - Anthropic's Conflict with the Pentagon: A Conversation with Alan Rozenshtein This week on Prosthetic Gods, J and Nir are talking to Alan Rozenshtein, professor of Law at the University of Minnesota, senior editor of Lawfare, fellow at Brookings, and former attorney at the Justice Department specializing in national defense. We talked about the legal and political implications of the T...

Episode 36 - Buddhism and the Self This week on Prosthetic Gods, Nir is interrogating an essay by J. on Buddhism, enhancement, and the self. They discuss the appeal of Buddhism for teenage Hughes, and how Buddhism reconciles a radical deconstruction of the self with moral commitment and principles. Show Notes: Buddhism and Our Posthuman Future - J. Hughes Cyborg Buddha - A conversation with transh...

Episode 35 - Pluribus This week on Prosthetic Gods, Nir and J are discussing the hit Apple TV show Pluribus. Created by Vince Gilligan, the show runner of Breaking Bad, the show explores a world taken over by a very nice hive mind that wants to give you anything you want. Would you take advantage of the perks, appreciate that the hive reduced humanity’s suffering, or fight like hell to give us all...

Episode 35 - Simulations This week on Prosthetic Gods, Nir and J. discuss the simulation hypothesis, the idea that we may actually be living in the Matrix. We discuss its religious and philosophical precedents, Bostrom’s classic argument, and the contemporary physics that some think supports the idea.  Show Notes: The Simulation Argument Are we living in a computer simulation? I don’t know. Probab...

Episode 33 - Moral Enhancement This week on Prosthetic Gods, J and Nir discuss “moral enhancement,” the use of drugs and devices to promote moral sentiments, cognition, and behavior. Is it any different from drinking coffee instead of alcohol when you go to work? What might the unintended consequences be of making ourselves more compassionate? Is happiness a virtue? Show Notes: Bernie and Hinton o...

Episode 32- Shoulda Put a Ring On It Should you be able to marry your chatbot? Should it be allowed to own property? In this episode of Prosthetic Gods, Nir and J discuss the proposed law in Ohio banning AI personhood. Listen before you make any rash decisions!  Show Notes: Ohio House Bill 469 Ohio House Bill 469 would label artificial intelligence as 'nonsentient entities' and block legal personh...

Episode 31 - 3I/Atlas, Aliens and Open Minds: A Chat with Avi Loeb This week on Prosthetic Gods Nir and J. chat with astronomer Avi Loeb about the mysteries of our interstellar visitor, 3I/Atlas. Is there a systemic bias in astronomy against the possibility of non-natural explanations for odd astronomical objects? What is the relationship of the search for extraterrestrial intelligence in our gala...

Episode 30 - Nuclear Nightmares This week on Prosthetic Gods, Nir and J discuss the Netflix movie House of Dynamite, a nuclear war drama by Kathryn Bigelow.   Show Notes: “The age of AI-powered cyberattacks is here” Meet Project Suncatcher, a research moonshot to scale machine learning compute in space. Anomalies of 3I/ATLAS, Organized by Likelihood by Avi Loeb Peter Thiel's fund offloaded Nvidia...

Episode 29 - Algorithms and Democracy with Jose Marichal This week on Prosthetic Gods, Nir and J chat with Jose Marichal, professor of political science at California Lutheran University, and author of You Must Become an Algorithmic Problem. He is, according to a chatbot, a critical-democratic institutionalist who focuses on everyday algorithmic power and citizen agency.   Find out more about Dr....

Episode 28 - Yuval Levin on Conservatism and Technology This week on Prosthetic Gods, Nir and J. speak with Yuval Levin, one of the most insightful and influential conservative thinkers in America today. As the Director of Social, Cultural, and Constitutional Studies at the American Enterprise Institute and the Editor-in-Chief of National Affairs, Levin's work consistently anchors contemporary pol...

Episode 27 - Mars This week on Prosthetic Gods, Nir and J. discuss the prospects for colonizing Mars and space in general. Why do people want to try? How feasible are space colonization schemes?  Show Notes: SpaceX Mars Colonization “Plan” The second major European open-source LLM is OUT, and it has been announced as multilingual and fully compliant with the EU AI Act. Meta launches AI-powered sma...

Episode 26 - Technology & Religion On this week’s Prosthetic Gods, Nir and J. discuss the role and history of technology in religious practice. Are emerging technologies just another means of interfacing with religion, or do they challenge the underpinnings of earnest engagement with religious belief?  Show Notes: Philosophy Prof. John Kaag Links AI with Famous Writers and Thinkers for 'Talkin...

Episode 25 - Technoprogressivism On this week’s Prosthetic Gods Nir and J. talk about J’s advocacy of “technoprogressivism.” What is it, and what is it supposed to accomplish? How is it different from techno-utopianism or other leftist ideologies? Show Notes: “Outlines of an historical view of the progress of the human mind” Marie Jean Antoine Nicolas Caritat de Condorcet, 1796 “Technoprogressivis...

Episode 24 - Longtermism This week on Prosthetic Gods, Nir and J. discuss the philosophical theory of longtermism, that we should take the interests of hypothetical future people as seriously as existing people. Plus! Listeners can contact us at prostheticgods@gmail.com ! Reach out with questions, topics you want to hear more about, or just to say hi. As Nir says, "All complaints go somewhere else...

Episode 23 - Trump's AI Action Plan This week on Prosthetic Gods, Nir and J. discuss the recent AI Action Plan released by the Trump administration, what it proposes, and whether it will be implemented.  Show Notes Winning the Race: America’s AI Action Plan The real winners from Trump’s ‘AI action plan’? Tech companies The Trumpification of AI: What Could Go Wrong? China calls for global AI cooper...

Episode 22 - AI and the Future of Higher Education This week on Prosthetic Gods, J and Nir discuss how AI will impact the demand for higher education, the structure of higher education institutions, and the way we teach and learn. Show Notes J. Hughes “The Deskilling of Teaching and the Case for Intelligent Tutoring Systems” (2021)   https://jeet.ieet.org/index.php/home/article/view/90 IEET White...