Podcast episode with Jaron Lanier, pioneer of virtual reality and scientist at Microsoft Research. He proposes a radically different way of thinking about AI, and unpacks its consequences from AI safety to the future of the economy.
Highlights:
- The case for thinking of AI not as an alien intelligence, but rather as a collaboration of human data
- How this reframe helps you understand the failures of current AI systems, and why so many of the industry's most powerful figures seem to be losing their grip on reality
- A practical approach to AI safety inspired by multi-factor authentication in cybersecurity
- Why universal basic income is unstable, and why a creativity economy (where people earn from their contributions to AI) could be a better way of distributing the benefits of AI
- How to be an optimist about technological progress while acknowledging the risks and being critical of certain developments
- Why history gives us the most rational grounds for optimism about our future with AI
