Today’s disagreement is on Artificial Intelligence and Existential Risk.
In this episode, we ask the highly consequential question: Do rapidly advancing AI systems pose an existential threat to humanity?
To have this conversation, we’ve brought together two experts: a Silicon Valley AI entrepreneur and a world class computer scientist.
The Guests
Roman Yampolskiy is an associate professor of Computer Engineering and Computer Science at the University of Louisville. His most recent book is AI: Unexplainable, Unpredictable, Uncontrollable.
“No one knows how to control a super-intelligent machine…we cannot predict what they are going to do.” – Roman Yampolskiy
Alan Cowen is the Chief Executive Officer of Hume AI, a startup developing “emotionally intelligent AI.” His company recently raised $50M from top-tier venture capitalists to pursue the first fully empathic AI – an AI that can both understand our emotional states and replicate them. Alan has a PhD in computational psychology from Berkeley and previously worked at Google in the DeepMind AI lab.
“There won't be a single moment where we are all doomed and then [AI] destroys humanity.” – Alan Cowen
And…Behind-The-Scenes with Alex and EVI (Hume AI's chatbot)
This week we’ve also got a small behind-the-scenes peek from producing this episode. To record a small part of our intro, we enlisted the help of a digital friend…What was it like to direct an empathic AI? Take a listen.
Episode 17: AI and Existential Risk