Episode 41

The first of four episodes in which I quiz Eric Bruylant (my guest from episodes 16–19) on some follow-up issues related to our earlier discussion of the dangers of runaway artificial intelligence.

We start with Nick Bostrom's idea of Earth's "cosmic endowment", whether it's extreme human hubris or a perfectly reasonable view of things, then move on to debate the plausibility of creating biological lifeforms from scratch using nanotechnology.

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Some relevant links:

• artificial general intelligence
• Nick Bostrom
• Future of Humanity Institute
• N. Bostrom, Superintelligence: Paths, strategies and dangers (2014)
• Bostrom on Earth's "cosmic endowment"
• light cones
• "Russell's Teapot"
• Daevid Allen
• Gong, Flying Teapot (1973)
• nanotechnology
• von Neumann probe
• Basket Star (Gorgonocephallus eucnemis)