Future of Life Institute Podcast

Nov 08 2024 217 ep. 66 mins 726

Future of Life Institute Podcast artwork

The Future of Life Institute (FLI) is a nonprofit working to reduce global catastrophic and existential risk from powerful technologies. In particular, FLI focuses on risks from artificial intelligence (AI), biotechnology, nuclear weapons and climate change. The Institute's work is made up of three main strands: grantmaking for risk reduction, educational outreach, and advocacy within the United Nations, US government and European Union institutions. FLI has become one of the world's leading voices on the governance of AI having created one of the earliest and most influential sets of governance principles: the Asilomar AI Principles.

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Suzy Shepherd on Imagining Superintelligence and "Writing Doom"

Nov 08 2024 63 mins

Suzy Shepherd joins the podcast to discuss her new short film "Writing Doom", which deals with AI risk. We discuss how to use humor in film, how to write concisely, how filmmaking is evolving, in what ways AI is useful for filmmakers, and how we will find meaning in an increasingly automated world. Here's Writing Doom: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xfMQ7hzyFW4 Timestamps: 0

Andrea Miotti on a Narrow Path to Safe, Transformative AI

Oct 25 2024 88 mins

Andrea Miotti joins the podcast to discuss "A Narrow Path" — a roadmap to safe, transformative AI. We talk about our current inability to precisely predict future AI capabilities, the dangers of self-improving and unbounded AI systems, how humanity might coordinate globally to ensure safe AI development, and what a mature science of intelligence would look like. Here's the docu

Tamay Besiroglu on AI in 2030: Scaling, Automation, and AI Agents

Oct 11 2024 90 mins

Tamay Besiroglu joins the podcast to discuss scaling, AI capabilities in 2030, breakthroughs in AI agents and planning, automating work, the uncertainties of investing in AI, and scaling laws for inference-time compute. Here's the report we discuss in the episode: https://epochai.org/blog/can-ai-scaling-continue-through-2030 Timestamps: 00:00 How important is scaling? 08:03

Ryan Greenblatt on AI Control, Timelines, and Slowing Down Around Human-Level AI

Sep 27 2024 128 mins

Ryan Greenblatt joins the podcast to discuss AI control, timelines, takeoff speeds, misalignment, and slowing down around human-level AI. You can learn more about Ryan's work here: https://www.redwoodresearch.org/team/ryan-greenblatt Timestamps: 00:00 AI control 09:35 Challenges to AI control 23:48 AI control as a bridge to alignment 26:54 Policy and coordination for AI

Tom Barnes on How to Build a Resilient World

Sep 12 2024 79 mins

Tom Barnes joins the podcast to discuss how much the world spends on AI capabilities versus AI safety, how governments can prepare for advanced AI, and how to build a more resilient world. Tom's report on advanced AI: https://www.founderspledge.com/research/research-and-recommendations-advanced-artificial-intelligence Timestamps: 00:00 Spending on safety vs capabilities 09:

Samuel Hammond on why AI Progress is Accelerating - and how Governments Should Respond

Aug 22 2024 136 mins

Samuel Hammond joins the podcast to discuss whether AI progress is slowing down or speeding up, AI agents and reasoning, why superintelligence is an ideological goal, open source AI, how technical change leads to regime change, the economics of advanced AI, and much more. Our conversation often references this essay by Samuel: https://www.secondbest.ca/p/ninety-five-theses-on-ai

Anousheh Ansari on Innovation Prizes for Space, AI, Quantum Computing, and Carbon Removal

Aug 09 2024 63 mins

Anousheh Ansari joins the podcast to discuss how innovation prizes can incentivize technical innovation in space, AI, quantum computing, and carbon removal. We discuss the pros and cons of such prizes, where they work best, and how far they can scale. Learn more about Anousheh's work here: https://www.xprize.org/home Timestamps: 00:00 Innovation prizes at XPRIZE 08:25 Decidin

Mary Robinson (Former President of Ireland) on Long-View Leadership

Jul 25 2024 30 mins

Mary Robinson joins the podcast to discuss long-view leadership, risks from AI and nuclear weapons, prioritizing global problems, how to overcome barriers to international cooperation, and advice to future leaders. Learn more about Robinson's work as Chair of The Elders at https://theelders.org Timestamps: 00:00 Mary's journey to presidency 05:11 Long-view leadership 06:55

Emilia Javorsky on how AI Concentrates Power

Jul 11 2024 63 mins

Emilia Javorsky joins the podcast to discuss AI-driven power concentration and how we might mitigate it. We also discuss optimism, utopia, and cultural experimentation. Apply for our RFP here: https://futureoflife.org/grant-program/mitigate-ai-driven-power-concentration/ Timestamps: 00:00 Power concentration 07:43 RFP: Mitigating AI-driven power concentration 14:15 Open so

Anton Korinek on Automating Work and the Economics of an Intelligence Explosion

Jun 21 2024 92 mins

Anton Korinek joins the podcast to discuss the effects of automation on wages and labor, how we measure the complexity of tasks, the economics of an intelligence explosion, and the market structure of the AI industry. Learn more about Anton's work at https://www.korinek.com Timestamps: 00:00 Automation and wages 14:32 Complexity for people and machines 20:31 Moravec's parad