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Clearer Thinking with Spencer Greenberg

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Spencer Greenberg

Clearer Thinking is a podcast about ideas that truly matter. If you enjoy learning about powerful, practical concepts and frameworks, wish you had more deep, intellectual conversations in your life, or are looking for non-BS self-improvement, then we think you'll love this podcast! Each week we invite a brilliant guest to bring four important ideas to discuss for an in-depth conversation. Topics include psychology, society, behavior change, philosophy, science, artificial intelligence, math, economics, self-help, mental health, and technology. We focus on ideas that can be applied right now to make your life better or to help you better understand yourself and the world, aiming to teach you the best mental tools to enhance your learning, self-improvement efforts, and decision-making. • We take on important, thorny questions like: • What's the best way to help a friend or loved one going through a difficult time? How can we make our worldviews more accurate? How can we hone the accuracy of our thinking? What are the advantages of using our "gut" to make decisions? And when should we expect careful, analytical reflection to be more effective? Why do societies sometimes collapse? And what can we do to reduce the chance that ours collapses? Why is the world today so much worse than it could be? And what can we do to make it better? What are the good and bad parts of tradition? And are there more meaningful and ethical ways of carrying out important rituals, such as honoring the dead? How can we move beyond zero-sum, adversarial negotiations and create more positive-sum interactions?

#176

Mothers who harm their children for attention (with Andrea Dunlop)

[Read the full transcript here.] (https://podcast.clearerthinking.org/episode/176/#transcript) What is Munchausen syndrome? How does Munchausen syndrome differ from malingering? Does Munchausen usually correlate with lying or exaggerating in other contexts (i.e., pathological lying)? What is "Munchausen by Proxy" (AKA "factitious disorder imposed on another", or FDIA)? Why are women the offenders in the overwhelming majority of cases? What are some consistent patterns of behavior exhibited by people with MBP? What is a "reality distortion field"? How do people with MBP tend to deflect requests for facts? Do such people believe their own stories? How does MBP relate to sociopathy or psychopathy? How common is MBP? Andrea Dunlop is an author and podcaster based out of Seattle, WA with two decades of experience in book publishing. She is the author of four novels: Losing the Light (February 2016; Atria), She Regrets Nothing (February 2018; Atria), We Came Here to Forget (July 2019; Atria), and Women Are the Fiercest Creatures (March 2023; Zibby Books). Andrea is host and creator of the popular true crime investigative podcast about Munchausen by Proxy called Nobody Should Believe Me, which was a New & Noteworthy pick for Apple's Dark Side collection. Her non-fiction book on the same topic is forthcoming from St. Martin's Press. She is a member of the American Professional Society on the Abuse of Children's Munchausen by Proxy Committee and is the founder of Munchausen Support, which is dedicated to providing resources for frontline professionals, families, and survivors dealing with MBP. Learn more about her on her website, [andreadunlop.net] (https://www.andreadunlop.net/) . [ [Read more] (https://podcast.clearerthinking.org/episode/176/andrea-dunlop-mothers-who-harm-their-children-for-attention) ] ... Read more

20 Sep 2023

1 HR 20 MINS

1:20:07

20 Sep 2023

#175

Is evolutionary psychology just a bunch of "just so" stories? (with Geoffrey Miller)

[Read the full transcript here.] (https://podcast.clearerthinking.org/episode/175/#transcript) Why do even people who accept evolutionary explanations for most biological phenomena often push back against evolutionary explanations for human psychology? To what extent should humans adjust their behavior in light of evopsych findings? How do evopsych researchers avoid formulating "just so" stories to explain specific behaviors? What can we infer about human behavior from the behaviors of chimps, bonobos, gorillas, or orangutans? What is the evopsych view of incest (which most people seem to find disgusting but which is also one of the most popular porn categories)? Are emotions primarily shaped by evolution or by culture? How can evopsych findings be applied to everyday things like dating? A safely-aligned AI system should presumably support the majority of human values; so how should AI alignment researchers think about religious values, which are generally held by the majority of humans but which differ radically in their specifics from group to group? What are some other rarely-considered AI alignment blind spots? Geoffrey Miller is an evolutionary psychologist best known for his books The Mating Mind (2001), Mating Intelligence (2008), Spent (2009), and Mate (2015). He also has over 110 academic publications addressing sexual selection, mate choice, signaling theory, fitness indicators, consumer behavior, marketing, intelligence, creativity, language, art, music, humor, emotions, personality, psychopathology, and behavior genetics. He holds a B.A. in biology and psychology from Columbia University and a Ph.D. in cognitive psychology from Stanford University, and he is a tenured associate professor at University of New Mexico. Follow him on Twitter at @primalpoly, or find out more about him on his website, [primalpoly.com] (https://primalpoly.com) . [ [Read more] (https://podcast.clearerthinking.org/episode/175/geoffrey-miller-is-evolutionary-psychology-just-a-bunch-of-just-so-stories) ] ... Read more

13 Sep 2023

1 HR 12 MINS

1:12:42

13 Sep 2023

#174

Systems of governance built on prediction markets (with Robin Hanson)

[Read the full transcript here.] (https://podcast.clearerthinking.org/episode/174/#transcript) What is futarchy? Why does it seem to be easier to find social innovations rather than technical innovations? How does it differ from democracy? In what ways might a futarchy be gamed? What are some obstacles to implementing futarchy? Do we actually like for our politicians to be hypocritical to some degree? How mistaken are we about our own goals for social, political, and economic institutions? Do we enjoy fighting (politically) more than actually governing well and improving life for everyone? What makes something "sacred"? What is a tax career agent? Robin Hanson is associate professor of economics at George Mason University and research associate at the Future of Humanity Institute of Oxford University. He has a doctorate in social science from California Institute of Technology, master's degrees in physics and philosophy from the University of Chicago, and nine years experience as a research programmer at Lockheed and NASA. He has over ninety academic publications in major journals across a wide variety of fields and has written two books: The Age of Em: Work, Love and Life When Robots Rule the Earth (2016), and The Elephant in the Brain: Hidden Motives in Everyday Life (2018, co-authored with Kevin Simler). He has pioneered prediction markets, also known as information markets and idea futures, since 1988; and he suggests "futarchy" as a form of governance based on prediction markets. He also coined the phrase "The Great Filter" and has recently numerically estimated it via a model of "Grabby Aliens". Learn more about Robin at [his GMU page] (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robin_Hanson) or follow him on the-website-formerly-known-as-Twitter at [@robinhanson] (https://twitter.com/robinhanson) . [ [Read more] (https://podcast.clearerthinking.org/episode/174/robin-hanson-systems-of-governance-built-on-prediction-markets) ] ... Read more

07 Sep 2023

1 HR 26 MINS

1:26:19

07 Sep 2023

#173

Using metacognitive therapy to break the habit of rumination (with Pia Callesen)

[Read the full transcript here.] (https://podcast.clearerthinking.org/episode/173/#transcript) What is metacognitive therapy? How does MCT differ from CBT, DBT, and other mental health therapy paradigms? How do we know we're spending time worrying about the right things? How much time spent worrying is actually useful? How aware are we of our own tendencies to ruminate on certain negative thoughts? Does MCT avoid all content-based problem-solving? What is the state of the evidence for MCT? Dr. Pia Callesen is one of Denmark's most educated and experienced metacognitive psychologists. She has more than 25 years of experience as a therapist and has completed the official 2-year metacognitive certification training in Manchester at the MCT Institute and the subsequent 1-year advanced level masterclass in Oxford by Professor Adrian Wells. At the end of 2016, she completed her PhD at Manchester University with Professor Adrian Wells. The PhD contained a large randomised controlled trial with research into the effects of metacognitive therapy treatment for depression. Resources: --- [CEKTOS: Pia's clinic that offers online 1:1 and groups] (https://cektos.dk/uk/) --- [The international list of MCTI Registered therapists] (https://mct-institute.co.uk/mct-registered-therapists/) [ [Read more] (https://podcast.clearerthinking.org/episode/173/pia-callesen-using-metacognitive-therapy-to-break-the-habit-of-rumination) ] ... Read more

30 Aug 2023

48 MINS

48:04

30 Aug 2023

#172

How quickly is AI advancing? And should you be working in the field? (with Danny Hernandez)

[Read the full transcript here.] (https://podcast.clearerthinking.org/episode/172/#transcript) Along what axes and at what rates is the AI industry growing? What algorithmic developments have yielded the greatest efficiency boosts? When, if ever, will we hit the upper limits of the amount of computing power, data, money, etc., we can throw at AI development? Why do some people seemingly become fixated on particular tasks that particular AI models can't perform and draw the conclusion that AIs are still pretty dumb and won't be taking our jobs any time soon? What kinds of tasks are more or less easily automatable? Should more people work on AI? What does it mean to "take ownership" of our friendships? What sorts of thinking patterns employed by AI engineers can be beneficial in other areas of life? How can we make better decisions, especially about large things like careers and relationships? Danny Hernandez was an early AI researcher at OpenAI and Anthropic. He's best known for measuring macro progress in AI. For example, he helped show that the compute of the largest training runs was growing at 10x per year between 2012 and 2017. He also helped show an algorithmic equivalent of Moore's Law that was faster, and he's done work on scaling laws and mechanistic interpretability of learning from repeated data. He is currently focused on alignment research. [ [Read more] (https://podcast.clearerthinking.org/episode/172/danny-hernandez-how-quickly-is-ai-advancing-and-should-you-be-working-in-the-field) ] ... Read more

23 Aug 2023

1 HR 08 MINS

1:08:47

23 Aug 2023

#171

Can we choose who we are? (with Gavin Leech)

[Read the full transcript here.] (https://podcast.clearerthinking.org/episode/171/#transcript) Can we really deeply change who we are? Can we choose our preferences, intrinsic values, or personality more generally? What are some interventions people might use to make big changes in their lives? Why might it be harder to be a generalist than a specialist? What are some of the most well-known "findings" from the social sciences that have failed to replicate? Do some replications go too far? Should we just let Twitter users take over the peer-review process? Why hasn't forecasting made major inroads into (e.g.) government yet? Why does it seem like companies sometimes commission forecasts and then ignore them? How worried should we be about deepfakes? Gavin Leech cofounded the consultancy [Arb Research] (https://arbresearch.com/) . He's also a PhD candidate in AI at the University of Bristol, a head of camp at the European Summer Programme on Rationality, and a blogger at [gleech.org] (http://gleech.org/) . He's internet famous for collecting hundreds of failed replications in psychology and for having processed most of Isaac Asimov's nonfiction of the mid-twentieth-century to score his predictive performance. Amendments: ---Gavin says: "Google shut down their 2007 market, Prophit, but they started another one in 2020 called [Gleangen] (https://cloud.google.com/blog/topics/solutions-how-tos/design-patterns-in-googles-prediction-market-on-google-cloud) . It's also not going well." Further reading: --- ["Long-term stability in the Big Five personality traits in adulthood"] (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/18028073/) by Johanna Rantanen, Riitta-Leena Metsäpelto, Taru Feldt, Lea Pulkkinen, and Katja Kokko [ [Read more] (https://podcast.clearerthinking.org/episode/171/gavin-leech-can-we-choose-who-we-are) ] ... Read more

16 Aug 2023

1 HR 07 MINS

1:07:19

16 Aug 2023

#170

Normalizing catastrophes and catastrophizing normalcy (with Mike Pesca)

[Read the full transcript here.] (https://podcast.clearerthinking.org/episode/170/#transcript) Besides the need to attract attention, what are some other drivers behind the news media's tendency to "catastrophize the normal"? To what extent does paltering take place on the politically left and right ends of the new media spectrum? Should journalists try to be as objective and unbiased as possible, or should they strive to make a difference in the world by highlighting particular issues that are important to them? Is the US on the verge of a civil war? Are prophecies of civil war self-fulfilling? Is it (and should it be) okay to reference certain taboo phrases by saying them explicitly? To what extent do journalists pull their punches because they fear angering the wrong crowd? Mike Pesca is host of The Gist, the longest running daily news podcast in history, consistently ranked in Apple's Top 20 Daily News charts. During his 10 years as a correspondent for NPR, Mike guest hosted All Things Considered and the news quiz Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me. His work has been featured on This American Life, Radiolab, and Planet Money. He has frequently appeared on MSNBC, CNN, and The PBS Newshour, and written for The Washington Post, The Guardian, GQ, Slate, and Baseball Prospectus. Listen to Mike on [The Gist] (https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-gist/id873667927) , or follow him on Twitter at [@pescami] (https://twitter.com/pescami) . [ [Read more] (https://podcast.clearerthinking.org/episode/170/mike-pesca-normalizing-catastrophes-and-catastrophizing-normalcy) ] ... Read more

09 Aug 2023

1 HR 26 MINS

1:26:45

09 Aug 2023

#169

What's wrong with society, and how can we fix it? (with Tim Urban)

[Read the full transcript here.] (https://podcast.clearerthinking.org/episode/169/#transcript) What's wrong with society? And what can we do to fix it? Centuries ago, a person's grandparents lived in a world that was basically identical to that person's world; but what are the implications of living in a time when the rate of technological change is such that our grandparents' world was almost nothing like ours, and ours will be almost nothing like our grandchildren's? How do Tim's concepts of the "primitive mind" and the "higher mind" map onto System 1 and System 2 thinking types? What thinking styles exist along the spectrum from primitive mind to higher mind? Why are there either lots of Nazis or virtually none at all? Are there more "golems" or "genies" in the world right now? Are the American political left and right wings just equal but opposite groups, or are there significant asymmetries between them? How does social justice activism differ from "wokeness"? What is "idea supremacy"? Does liberalism need to be destroyed and rebuilt from scratch (perhaps as something else entirely) or merely repaired and revamped? Is illiberalism the biggest threat facing the world right now — bigger even than AI, climate change, etc.? Tim Urban is the writer/illustrator and co-founder of Wait But Why, a long-form, stick-figure-illustrated website with over 600,000 subscribers and a monthly average of half a million visitors. He has produced dozens of viral articles on a wide range of topics, from artificial intelligence to social anxiety to humans becoming a multi-planetary species. Tim's 2016 TED main stage talk is the third most-watched TED talk in history with 67 million views. In 2023, Tim published his bestselling book What's Our Problem? A Self Help Book for Societies. [ [Read more] (https://podcast.clearerthinking.org/episode/169/tim-urban-what-s-wrong-with-society-and-how-can-we-fix-it) ] ... Read more

02 Aug 2023

1 HR 25 MINS

1:25:32

02 Aug 2023

#168

AI creativity and love (with Joel Lehman)

[Read the full transcript here.] (https://podcast.clearerthinking.org/episode/168/#transcript) Where does innovation come from? How common is it for "lone wolf" scientists to make large leaps in innovation by themselves? How can we imbue AIs with creativity? Or, conversely, how can we apply advances in AI creativity to our own personal creative processes? How do creative strategies that work well for individuals differ from creative strategies that work well for groups? To what extent are models like DALL-E and ChatGPT "creative"? Can machines love? Or can they only ever pretend to love? We've worried a fair bit about AI misalignment; but what should we do about the fact that so many humans are misaligned with humanity's own interests? What might it mean to be "reverent" towards science? Joel Lehman is a machine learning researcher interested in algorithmic creativity, AI safety, artificial life, and intersections of AI with psychology and philosophy. Most recently he was a research scientist at OpenAI co-leading the Open-Endedness team (studying algorithms that can innovate endlessly). Previously he was a founding member of Uber AI Labs, first employee of Geometric Intelligence (acquired by Uber), and a tenure track professor at the IT University of Copenhagen. He co-wrote with Kenneth Stanley a popular science book called Why Greatness Cannot Be Planned on what AI search algorithms imply for individual and societal accomplishment. Follow him on Twitter at [@joelbot3000] (https://twitter.com/joelbot3000) or email him at [lehman.154@gmail.com] (https://podcast.clearerthinking.orgmailto:lehman.154@gmail.com) . Further reading: --- ["Machine Love" by Joel Lehman] (https://arxiv.org/abs/2302.09248) [ [Read more] (https://podcast.clearerthinking.org/episode/168/joel-lehman-ai-creativity-and-love) ] ... Read more

26 Jul 2023

1 HR 02 MINS

1:02:47

26 Jul 2023

#167

Glimpses of enlightenment through nondual meditation (with Michael Taft and Jeremy Stevenson)

[Read the full transcript here.] (https://podcast.clearerthinking.org/episode/167/#transcript) How does nondual meditation differ from other forms of meditation? Is nonduality the sort of thing a person can just "get" immediately? What value is provided by the more effortful, less "sudden" forms of meditation? Is there such a thing as full or complete enlightenment? And what would such a state entail? To what extent do nondual meditation teachers agree about what nonduality is? Are glimpses of enlightenment available to everyone? How long does it usually take a person to stabilize their ability to return to a nondual way of seeing the world? What are some common ways people get "stuck" while learning nondual meditation? How important are meditation retreats? Though the paths themselves are obviously quite distinct from one another, do all forms of meditation ultimately share a common goal? How are all of these things related to spirituality or religion? Michael Taft is a teacher of nondual meditation and host of the Deconstructing Yourself podcast and website. He is the author of The Mindful Geek, and co-founder of The Alembic, a Berkeley-based center for meditation, movement, citizen neuroscience, and visionary culture. Having lived all over the world and practiced deeply in several traditions, Michael currently makes his home in California. Email him at [michaeltaft@gmail.com] (https://podcast.clearerthinking.orgmailto:michaeltaft@gmail.com) , or learn more about him at his website, [deconstructingyourself.com] (https://deconstructingyourself.com/) . Jeremy Stevenson hails from Adelaide, Australia, and has a PhD in clinical psychology with a dissertation focused on the effects of self-compassion on social anxiety. During his PhD he became intensely interested in meditation, sitting several shorter retreats which eventually culminated in sitting longer retreats, including a 3-month retreat in Nepal. He is now working as a clinical psychologist as well as doing research work for Spark Wave. His ongoing meditation interest is the perplexing skill of nondual mindfulness. Email him at [jeremy.david.stevenson@gmail.com] (https://podcast.clearerthinking.orgmailto:jeremy.david.stevenson@gmail.com) , or listen to his previous episode on this podcast [here] (https://podcast.clearerthinking.org/episode/003/jeremy-stevenson-meditation-and-enlightenment/) . [ [Read more] (https://podcast.clearerthinking.org/episode/167/michael-taft-and-jeremy-stevenson-glimpses-of-enlightenment-through-nondual-meditation) ] ... Read more

19 Jul 2023

1 HR 17 MINS

1:17:06

19 Jul 2023

#166

Crumbling institutions, culture wars, and the dismissal economy (with Ashley Hodgson)

[Read the full transcript here.] (https://podcast.clearerthinking.org/episode/166/#transcript) What is the New Enlightenment? What might it mean to improve our epistemics with regard to institutions? How should we fix imbalanced salience in contexts where misinformation is a problem (like news media)? How have the economics of institutions deteriorated? How can we continually reinvigorate systems so that they remain ungameable and resistant to runaway feedback loops? In the context of government in particular, how can we move away from "one dollar, one vote" and back towards "one person, one vote"? At what levels or layers should institutional interventions be applied? What can we do to increase trust across social differences and reduce contempt among groups? Under what conditions is it rational to feel contempt for an out-group? How can we make conflict and "dunking" less appealing, and make openmindedness and careful consideration more appealing? What is the "dismissal" economy? How can we deal with information overload? How might the adversarial economic model be used to improve academia? Ashley Hodgson is an Associate Professor of Economics and a YouTuber. She teaches behavioral economics, digital industries, health care economics, and blockchain economics. Her YouTube channel, The New Enlightenment, explores topics related to economics, governance, and epistemics — that is, the determination of truth and validity — in a world of social media and increasing power concentration. She also has another YouTube channel with her economics lectures. [ [Read more] (https://podcast.clearerthinking.org/episode/166/ashley-hodgson-crumbling-institutions-culture-wars-and-the-dismissal-economy) ] ... Read more

12 Jul 2023

1 HR 03 MINS

1:03:01

12 Jul 2023

#165

Virtual reality, simulation theory, consciousness, and identity (with David Chalmers)

[Read the full transcript here.] (https://podcast.clearerthinking.org/episode/165/#transcript) What does philosophy have to say about virtual reality (VR)? Under what conditions is "normal" reality preferable to VR? To what extent are VR experiences "real"? How likely is it that we're living in a simulation? What implications would the discovery that we're living in a simulation have for our beliefs about reality? How common is Bayesian thinking among philosophers? How should we think about identity over time if selves can be split or duplicated? What might it look like for our conception of identity to undergo a "fall from Eden"? What do people mean when they say that consciousness is an illusion? Finding a grand unified theory of physics seems at least in principle the sort of thing that science can do, even if we haven't done it yet; but can science even in principle solve the hard problem of consciousness? Might consciousness just be a fundamental law of the universe, an axiom which we must accept but for which there might be no explanation? Is consciousness needed in order to attain certain levels of biological evolution? How conscious (or not) are our current AI models? Statistically speaking, what are the most prevalent views held by philosophers? David Chalmers is University Professor of Philosophy and Neural Science and co-director of the Center for Mind, Brain, and Consciousness at New York University. He is the author of The Conscious Mind (1996) and Reality+ (2022). He is known for formulating the "hard problem" of consciousness, which inspired Tom Stoppard's play The Hard Problem, and for the idea of the "extended mind," which says that the tools we use can become parts of our minds. Learn more about him at [consc.net] (https://consc.net/) . [ [Read more] (https://podcast.clearerthinking.org/episode/165/david-chalmers-virtual-reality-simulation-theory-consciousness-and-identity) ] ... Read more

05 Jul 2023

1 HR 19 MINS

1:19:02

05 Jul 2023

#164

Deep canvassing, street epistemology, and other tools of persuasion (with David McRaney)

[Read the full transcript here.] (https://podcast.clearerthinking.org/episode/164/#transcript) What is persuasion, and what is it not? How does persuasion differ from coercion? What is the Elaboration Likelihood Model (ELM) of persuasion? How are the concepts of assimilation and accommodation related to persuasion? Motivated reasoning is usually seen as a cognitive bias or error; but what if all reasoning is motivated? Are we motivated more by physical death or social death? How much evidence would Flat-Earthers need in order to be convinced that Earth is round? What are "deep" canvassing and "street" epistemology? In what contexts are they most effective? Under what conditions is persuasion morally acceptable? David McRaney is a science journalist fascinated with brains, minds, and culture. He created the podcast You Are Not So Smart based on his 2009 internationally bestselling book of the same name and its followup, You Are Now Less Dumb. Before that, he cut his teeth as a newspaper reporter covering Hurricane Katrina on the Gulf Coast and in the Pine Belt region of the Deep South. Later, he covered things like who tests rockets for NASA, what it is like to run a halfway home for homeless people who are HIV-positive, and how a family sent their kids to college by making and selling knives. Since then, he has been an editor, photographer, voiceover artist, television host, journalism teacher, lecturer, and tornado survivor. Most recently, after finishing his latest book, How Minds Change, he wrote, produced, and recorded a six-hour audio documentary exploring the history of the idea and the word: genius. Learn more about him at [davidmcraney.com] (https://www.davidmcraney.com/howmindschangehome) , or follow him on Twitter at [@davidmcraney] (https://twitter.com/davidmcraney) . [ [Read more] (https://podcast.clearerthinking.org/episode/164/david-mcraney-deep-canvassing-street-epistemology-and-other-tools-of-persuasion) ] ... Read more

28 Jun 2023

1 HR 20 MINS

1:20:06

28 Jun 2023

#163

Will AI destroy civilization in the near future? (with Connor Leahy)

[Read the full transcript here.] (https://podcast.clearerthinking.org/episode/163/#transcript) Does AI pose a near-term existential risk? Why might existential risks from AI manifest sooner rather than later? Can't we just turn off any AI that gets out of control? Exactly how much do we understand about what's going on inside neural networks? What is AutoGPT? How feasible is it to build an AI system that's exactly as intelligent as a human but no smarter? What is the "CoEm" AI safety proposal? What steps can the average person take to help mitigate risks from AI? Connor Leahy is CEO and co-founder of [Conjecture] (https://conjecture.dev) , an AI alignment company focused on making AI systems boundable and corrigible. Connor founded and led EleutherAI, the largest online community dedicated to LLMs, which acted as a gateway for people interested in ML to upskill and learn about alignment. With capabilities increasing at breakneck speed, and our ability to control AI systems lagging far behind, Connor moved on from the volunteer, open-source Eleuther model to a full-time, closed-source model working to solve alignment via Conjecture. [ [Read more] (https://podcast.clearerthinking.org/episode/163/connor-leahy-will-ai-destroy-civilization-in-the-near-future) ] ... Read more

21 Jun 2023

1 HR 25 MINS

1:25:26

21 Jun 2023

#162

Is AI development moving too fast or not fast enough? (with Reid Hoffman)

[Read the full transcript here.] (https://podcast.clearerthinking.org/episode/162/#transcript) Many people who work on AI safety advocate for slowing the rate of development; but might there be any advantages in speeding up AI development? Which fields are likely to be impacted the most (or the least) by AI? As AIs begin to displace workers, how can workers make themselves more valuable? How likely is it that AI assistants will become better at defending against users who are actively trying to circumvent assistants' guardrails? What effects would the open-sourcing of AI code, models, or training data likely have? How do actual or potential AI intelligence levels affect AI safety calculus? Are there any good solutions to the problem that only ethically-minded people are likely to apply caution and restraint in AI development? What will a world with human-level AGI look like? An accomplished entrepreneur, executive, and investor, Reid Hoffman has played an integral role in building many of today's leading consumer technology businesses including as the co-founder of LinkedIn. He is the host of the podcasts Masters of Scale and Possible. He is the co-author of five best-selling books: The Startup of You, The Alliance, Blitzscaling, Masters of Scale, and Impromptu. Note from Reid: Possible [the podcast] is back this summer with a three-part miniseries called "AI and The Personal," which launches on June 21. Featured guests use AI, hardware, software, and their own creativity to better people's daily lives. Subscribe here to get the series: [https://link.chtbl.com/thepossiblepodcast] (https://link.chtbl.com/thepossiblepodcast) [ [Read more] (https://podcast.clearerthinking.org/episode/162/reid-hoffman-is-ai-development-moving-too-fast-or-not-fast-enough) ] ... Read more

14 Jun 2023

1 HR 01 MINS

1:01:24

14 Jun 2023

#161

Where philosophy meets the real world (with Peter Singer)

[Read the full transcript here.] (https://podcast.clearerthinking.org/episode/161/#transcript) How have animal rights and the animal rights movement changed in the last few decades? How has the scale of animal product consumption grown relative to human population growth? On what principles ought animal ethics to be grounded? What features of human psychology enable humans to empathize with and dislike animal suffering and yet also eat animal products regularly? How does the agribusiness industry convince people to make choices that go against their own values? What are some simple changes people can make to their diets if they're not ready yet to go completely vegetarian or vegan but still want to be less responsible for animal suffering? What attitudes should vegetarians and vegans hold towards meat-eaters? When, if ever, is it possible to have done "enough", morally speaking? What are the things that matter intrinsically to humans and other sentient beings? What is the most complex organism that is apparently not conscious? Will we ever have the technology to scan someone's brain and measure how much pleasure or suffering they're experiencing? How uncertain should we be about moral uncertainty? What should we eat if it's eventually discovered that plants can suffer? Peter Singer is a philosopher and the Ira W. DeCamp Professor of Bioethics in the University Center for Human Values at Princeton University. His work focuses on the ethics of human treatment of animals; he is often credited with starting the modern animal rights movement; and his writings have significantly influenced the development of the Effective Altruism movement. In 1971, Peter co-founded the Australian Federation of Animal Societies, now called Animals Australia, the country's largest and most effective animal organization; and in 2013, he founded The Life You Can Save, an organization named after his 2009 book, which aims to spread his ideas about why we should be doing much more to improve the lives of people living in extreme poverty and how we can best do this. In 2021, he received the Berggruen Prize for Philosophy and Culture for his "widely influential and intellectually rigorous work in reinvigorating utilitarianism as part of academic philosophy and as a force for change in the world". He has written, co-authored, edited, or co-edited more than 50 books, including Animal Liberation, The Life You Can Save, Practical Ethics, The Expanding Circle, Rethinking Life and Death, One World, The Ethics of What We Eat (with Jim Mason), and The Point of View of the Universe (with Katarzyna de Lazari-Radek); and his writings have been translated into more than 25 languages. Find out more about him at his website, [petersinger.info] (https://petersinger.info/) , or follow him on [Facebook] (https://www.facebook.com/PeterSingerOfficialPage) , [Twitter] (https://twitter.com/PeterSinger) , or [Instagram] (https://instagram.com/peter__singer) . [ [Read more] (https://podcast.clearerthinking.org/episode/161/peter-singer-where-philosophy-meets-the-real-world) ] ... Read more

07 Jun 2023

1 HR 24 MINS

1:24:40