Is AI going to ruin everything? (with Gabriel Alfour)

Read the full transcript here.

Is AI going to ruin everything? What kind of AI-related dangers should we be most worried about? What do good institutions look like? Should designing better institutions be a major priority for modern civilizations? What are the various ways institutions decay? How much should we blame social media for the current state of our institutions? Under what conditions, if any, should the flow of information be regulated? What are some of the lesser-known kinds of AI disalignment? What actions should we take in light of the lack of consensus about AI?

Gabe Alfour has a background in theoretical computer science and has long been interested in understanding and tackling fundamental challenges of advancing and shaping technological progress. Fresh out of university, he developed a new programming language and founded a successful French crypto consultancy. Gabe has long had an interest in artificial intelligence, which he expected to be a major accelerator of technological progress. But after interacting with GPT-3, he became increasingly concerned with the catastrophic risks frontier AI systems pose, and decided to work on mitigating them. He studied up on AI and joined online open-source AI community EleutherAI, where he met Connor Leahy. In 2022, they co-founded Conjecture, an AI safety start-up. Gabe is also an advisor with ControlAI, an AI policy nonprofit. Email Gabe at ga@conjecture.dev, follow him on Twitter / X at @Gabe_cc, or read his writings on his blog at site.cognition.cafe. Staff

Spencer Greenberg • — Host / Director Josh Castle • — Producer Ryan Kessler • — Audio Engineer Uri Bram • — Factotum WeAmplify • — Transcriptionists Igor Scaldini • — Marketing Consultant

Music

Broke for FreeJosh WoodwardLee RosevereQuiet Music for Tiny Robotswowamusiczapsplat.com Affiliates

Clearer ThinkingGuidedTrackMind EasePositlyUpLift[Read more]