Nick Bostrom rose to prominence for predicting artificial intelligence doom more than a decade ago — garnering support from figures like Elon Musk, Sam Altman and Bill Gates. But now he’s retreating from those warnings, focusing his attention on a more complex question: What if A.I. succeeds beyond humanity’s wildest imaginations? Will we be bored out of our minds? Are we too infantile to understand what’s coming?
Guest host Spencer Klavan, the associate editor at the Claremont Review of Books, presses Bostrom on the potential uses and abuses of superintelligence, rationalist ethics and what makes us human. Below is an edited transcript of an episode of “Interesting Times.”
Bostrom says his outlook hasn’t changed fundamentally, but the world has. When he started “Superintelligence” in 2008, people dismissed it as science fiction. Now it’s mainstream, so he’s shifting focus to the upside, which also has philosophically problematic aspects.
On probabilities like P(doom), Bostrom says there’s no math behind them — they’re subjective. He calls himself a “fretful optimist,” excited about the upside but worried we might not get there.
Source: New York Times Top Stories · Summarized by HeadlinesBriefing