#116 — AI: Racing Toward the Brink

Only the first 48 minutes of this episode are available on the paywalled podcast version (the BLACK & WHITE podcast logo). If you’d like to hear the full 2 hours and 5 minutes of this episode and gain access to all full-length episodes of the podcast, you’ll need to SUBSCRIBE here. If you’re already subscribed and on the private RSS feed, the podcast logo should appear GOLD & WHITE. Sam Harris speaks with Eliezer Yudkowsky about the nature of intelligence, different types of AI, the “alignment problem,” IS vs OUGHT, the possibility that future AI might deceive us, the AI arms race, conscious AI, coordination problems, and other topics. Eliezer Yudkowsky is a decision theorist and computer scientist at the Machine Intelligence Research Institute in Berkeley, California who is known for his work in technological forecasting. His publications include the Cambridge Handbook of Artificial Intelligence chapter “The Ethics of Artificial Intelligence,” co-authored with Nick Bostrom. Yudkowsky’s writings have helped spark a number of ongoing academic and public debates about the long-term impact of AI, and he has written a number of popular introductions to topics in cognitive science and formal epistemology, such as Rationality: From AI to Zombies and “Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality.” He is also the author of Inadequate Equilibria: Where and How Civilizations Get Stuck. Twitter: @ESYudkowsky   Episodes that have been re-released as part of the Best of Making Sense series may have been edited for relevance since their original airing.