#59 - Torres on Existential Risk, Omnicidal Agents and Superintelligence

05/09/19 • -1 min

In this episode I talk to Phil Torres. Phil is an author and researcher who primarily focuses on existential risk. He is currently a visiting researcher at the Centre for the Study of Existential Risk at Cambridge University. He has published widely on emerging technologies, terrorism, and existential risks, with articles appearing in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Futures, Erkenntnis, Metaphilosophy, Foresight, Journal of Future Studies, and the Journal of Evolution and Technology. He is the author of several books, including most recently Morality, Foresight, and Human Flourishing: An Introduction to Existential Risks. We talk about the problem of apocalyptic terrorists, the proliferation dual-use technology and the governance problem that arises as a result. This is both a fascinating and potentially terrifying discussion.
You can download the episode here or listen below. You can also subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher and a variety of other podcasting services (the RSS feed is here).

Show Notes

0:00 – Introduction
3:14 – What is existential risk? Why should we care?
8:34 – The four types of agential risk/omnicidal terrorists
17:51 – Are there really omnicidal terror agents?
20:45 – How dual-use technology give apocalyptic terror agents the means to their desired ends
27:54 – How technological civilisation is uniquely vulernable to omnicidal agents
32:00 – Why not just stop creating dangerous technologies?
36:47 – Making the case for mass surveillance
41:08 – Why mass surveillance must be asymmetrical
45:02 – Mass surveillance, the problem of false positives and dystopian governance
56:25 – Making the case for benevolent superintelligent governance
1:02:51 – Why advocate for something so fantastical?
1:06:42 – Is an anti-tech solution any more fantastical than a benevolent AI solution?
1:10:20 – Does it all just come down to values: are you a techno-optimist or a techno-pessimist?

Relevant Links

Phil’s webpage
‘Superintelligence and the Future of Governance: On Prioritizing the Control Problem at the End of History’ by Phil
Morality, Foresight, and Human Flourishing: An Introduction to Existential Risks by Phil
‘The Vulnerable World Hypothesis” by Nick Bostrom
Phil’s comparison of his paper with Bostrom’s paper
The Guardian orders the small-pox genome
Slaughterbots
The Future of Violence by Ben Wittes and Gabriela Blum
Future Crimes by Marc Goodman
The Dyn Cyberattack
Autonomous Technology by Langdon Winner
'Biotechnology and the Lifetime of Technological Civilisations’ by JG Sotos
The God Machine Thought Experiment (Persson and Savulescu)

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Show Notes

0:00 – Introduction
3:14 – What is existential risk? Why should we care?
8:34 – The four types of agential risk/omnicidal terrorists
17:51 – Are there really omnicidal terror agents?
20:45 – How dual-use technology give apocalyptic terror agents the means to their desired ends
27:54 – How technological civilisation is uniquely vulernable to omnicidal agents
32:00 – Why not just stop creating dangerous technologies?
36:47 – Making the case for mass surveillance
41:08 – Why mass surveillance must be asymmetrical
45:02 – Mass surveillance, the problem of false positives and dystopian governance
56:25 – Making the case for benevolent superintelligent governance
1:02:51 – Why advocate for something so fantastical?
1:06:42 – Is an anti-tech solution any more fantastical than a benevolent AI solution?
1:10:20 – Does it all just come down to values: are you a techno-optimist or a techno-pessimist?

Relevant Links

Phil’s webpage
‘Superintelligence and the Future of Governance: On Prioritizing the Control Problem at the End of History’ by Phil
Morality, Foresight, and Human Flourishing: An Introduction to Existential Risks by Phil
‘The Vulnerable World Hypothesis” by Nick Bostrom
Phil’s comparison of his paper with Bostrom’s paper
The Guardian orders the small-pox genome
Slaughterbots
The Future of Violence by Ben Wittes and Gabriela Blum
Future Crimes by Marc Goodman
The Dyn Cyberattack
Autonomous Technology by Langdon Winner
'Biotechnology and the Lifetime of Technological Civilisations’ by JG Sotos
The God Machine Thought Experiment (Persson and Savulescu)

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Next Episode

#60 - Véliz on How to Improve Online Speech with Pseudonymity

In this episode I talk to Carissa Véliz. Carissa is a Research Fellow at the Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics and the Wellcome Centre for Ethics and Humanities at the University of Oxford. She works on digital ethics, practical ethics more generally, political philosophy, and public policy. She is also the Director of the research programme 'Data, Privacy, and the Individual' at the IE's Center for the Governance of Change'. We talk about the problems with online speech and how to use pseudonymity to address them.
You can download the episode here or listen below. You can also subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, and a variety of other podcasting services (the RSS feed is here).

Show Notes

0:00 - Introduction
1:25 - The problems with online speech
4:55 - Anonymity vs Identifiability
9:10 - The benefits of anonymous speech
16:12 - The costs of anonymous speech - The online Ring of Gyges
23:20 - How digital platforms mediate speech and make things worse
28:00 - Is speech more trustworthy when the speaker is identifiable?
30:50 - Solutions that don't work
35:46 - How pseudonymity could address the problems with online speech
41:15 - Three forms of pseudonymity and how they should be used
44:00 - Do we need an organisation to manage online pseudonyms?
49:00 - Thoughts on the Journal of Controversial Ideas
54:00 - Will people use pseudonyms to deceive us?
57:30 - How pseudonyms could address the issues with un-PC speech
1:02:04 - Should we be optimistic or pessimistic about the future of online speech?