The Existential Hope Podcast
The Existential Hope Podcast
Podcast Description
The Existential Hope Podcast features in-depth conversations with people working on positive, high-tech futures. We explore how the future could be much better than today—if we steer it wisely.Hosts Allison Duettmann and Beatrice Erkers from the Foresight Institute invite the scientists, founders, and philosophers shaping tomorrow’s breakthroughs— AI, nanotech, longevity biotech, neurotech, space, smarter governance, and more.About Foresight Institute: For 40 years the independent nonprofit Foresight Institute has mapped how emerging technologies can serve humanity. Its Existential Hope program is the North Star: mapping the futures worth aiming for and the breakthroughs needed to reach them. This podcast is that exploration in public. Follow along and help tip the century toward success.Explore more: Transcript, listed resources, and more: https://www.existentialhope.com/podcastsFollow on X Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Podcast Insights
Content Themes
The podcast delves into themes including the potential of AI, nanotechnology, longevity biotech, neurotechnology, and smarter governance. For instance, episodes with David Deutsch focus on the principles of knowledge and progress, while discussions with David Pearce examine philosophical approaches to eliminating suffering and enhancing human potential.
The Existential Hope Podcast features in-depth conversations with scientists, technologists, and thinkers about the ideas that could shape a better future.
In contrast to both doom and hype narratives, we focus on what positive futures are possible through scientific and technological progress, and the decisions we make about it.
Existential Hope is an initiative of the Foresight Institute, an independent nonprofit that has been advancing technology for the benefit of life since 1986.
→ Show notes, transcripts and resources: https://www.existentialhope.com/podcasts
→ Join our newsletter to get the best ideas from our podcast and opportunities to help build great futures: https://theexistentialhope.substack.com/
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For 50,000 of generations, humans have passed civilization down to their children. We could be the first generation to hand its future to AIs instead. Should we? Or could the best AI be the kind that chooses to step back and leave some things to us?
In this episode we sit down with Stuart Russell, professor of computer science at UC Berkeley and co-author of the world's standard textbook on AI. He’s also a leading proponent of provably beneficial AI: systems that are safe by design because their only goal is to further human interests.
We talk about:
- How AI has changed over the past 50 years, from simple game-playing programs to today's large language models
- Why handing an AI a fixed objective becomes dangerous once it is more capable than us, and what a safer approach could look like
- How an AI might learn what we really want, even when we don't fully know ourselves
- How the race toward more powerful AI can still be steered somewhere safer
- What happens to human purpose as AI becomes more and more capable
Chapters:
0:00 Cold open
0:39 How AI has changed over the past 50 years, from chess to large language models
4:15 What is the standard model of AI and why does it fail?
12:08 What is provably beneficial AI?
17:49 Teaching AI to learn from humans, even when we make bad choices
20:11 How can we steer AI development in a safer direction?
28:01 International cooperation on AI safety
30:41 What a good AI future could look like
35:38 Protecting human purpose: should AI step back?
39:15 How young people can get involved in AI safety
40:47 Stuart Russell's best advice
On the Existential Hope Podcast hosts Allison Duettmann and Beatrice Erkers from the Foresight Institute invite scientists, founders, and philosophers for in-depth conversations on positive, high-tech futures.
Full transcript, listed resources, and more: https://www.existentialhope.com/podcasts
Follow on X.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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