Are We Living in a Simulation? Nick Bostrom (2022)

Into the Impossible With Brian Keating

What if everything you know is just a simulation?

In 2022, I was joined by the one and only Nick Bostrom to discuss the simulation hypothesis and the prospects of superintelligence.

Nick is a Professor at Oxford University, where he heads the Future of Humanity Institute as its founding director. He is the most-cited professional philosopher in the world aged 50 or under and is the author of some 200 publications, including Anthropic Bias (2002), Global Catastrophic Risks (2008), Human Enhancement (2009), and Superintelligence: Paths, Dangers, Strategies (2014), a New York Times bestseller.

With a background in theoretical physics, computational neuroscience, logic, and artificial intelligence, there is no one better to answer this question than him!

Tune in.

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Key Takeaways:

• 00:00:00 Intro
• 00:00:44 Judging a book by its cover
• 00:05:22 How could an AI have emotions and be creative?
• 00:08:22 How could a computing device / AI feel pain?
• 00:13:09 The Turing test
• 00:20:02 The simulation hypothesis
• 00:22:27 Is there a "Drake Equation" for the simulation hypothesis?
• 00:27:16 Penroses' orchestrated objective reality
• 00:34:11 SETI and the prospect of extraterrestrial life
• 00:49:20 Are computers really getting "smarter"?
• 00:53:59 Audience questions
• 01:01:09 Outro

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Additional resources:

📚 Superintelligence by Nick Bostrom: https://a.co/d/fYC5DH0

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Into the Impossible with Brian Keating is a podcast dedicated to all those who want to explore the universe within and beyond the known.

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