Future of Life Institute Podcast
Latest Episodes
Dan Faggella on the Race to AGI
Dan Faggella joins the podcast to discuss whether humanity should eventually create AGI, how AI will change power dynamics between institutions, what drives AI progress, and which industries are implementing AI successfully. Find out more about Dan at htt
Liron Shapira on Superintelligence Goals
Liron Shapira joins the podcast to discuss superintelligence goals, what makes AI different from other technologies, risks from centralizing power, and whether AI can defend us from AI. Timestamps: 00:00 Intelligence as optimization-power 05:18 Will LLMs
Annie Jacobsen on Nuclear War - a Second by Second Timeline
Annie Jacobsen joins the podcast to lay out a second by second timeline for how nuclear war could happen. We also discuss time pressure, submarines, interceptor missiles, cyberattacks, and concentration of power. You can find more on Annie's work at https
Katja Grace on the Largest Survey of AI Researchers
Katja Grace joins the podcast to discuss the largest survey of AI researchers conducted to date, AI researchers' beliefs about different AI risks, capabilities required for continued AI-related transformation, the idea of discontinuous progress, the impac
Holly Elmore on Pausing AI, Hardware Overhang, Safety Research, and Protesting
Holly Elmore joins the podcast to discuss pausing frontier AI, hardware overhang, safety research during a pause, the social dynamics of AI risk, and what prevents AGI corporations from collaborating. You can read more about Holly's work at https://pausea
Sneha Revanur on the Social Effects of AI
Sneha Revanur joins the podcast to discuss the social effects of AI, the illusory divide between AI ethics and AI safety, the importance of humans in the loop, the different effects of AI on younger and older people, and the importance of AIs identifying
Roman Yampolskiy on Shoggoth, Scaling Laws, and Evidence for AI being Uncontrollable
Roman Yampolskiy joins the podcast again to discuss whether AI is like a Shoggoth, whether scaling laws will hold for more agent-like AIs, evidence that AI is uncontrollable, and whether designing human-like AI would be safer than the current development
Special: Flo Crivello on AI as a New Form of Life
On this special episode of the podcast, Flo Crivello talks with Nathan Labenz about AI as a new form of life, whether attempts to regulate AI risks regulatory capture, how a GPU kill switch could work, and why Flo expects AGI in 2-8 years. Timestamps: 00:
Carl Robichaud on Preventing Nuclear War
Carl Robichaud joins the podcast to discuss the new nuclear arms race, how much world leaders and ideologies matter for nuclear risk, and how to reach a stable, low-risk era. You can learn more about Carl's work here: https://www.longview.org/about/carl-r
Frank Sauer on Autonomous Weapon Systems
Frank Sauer joins the podcast to discuss autonomy in weapon systems, killer drones, low-tech defenses against drones, the flaws and unpredictability of autonomous weapon systems, and the political possibilities of regulating such systems. You can learn mo