Erik Hoel on the Threat to Humanity from AI

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4.7 • 4.3K Ratings

🗓️ 3 April 2023

⏱️ 85 minutes

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Summary

They operate according to rules we can never fully understand. They can be unreliable, uncontrollable, and misaligned with human values. They're fast becoming as intelligent as humans--and they're exclusively in the hands of profit-seeking tech companies. "They," of course, are the latest versions of AI, which herald, according to neuroscientist and writer Erik Hoel, a species-level threat to humanity. Listen as he tells EconTalk's Russ Roberts why we need to treat AI as an existential threat.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to Econ Talk, Conversations for the Curious, part of the Library of Economics and Liberty.
0:07.8	I'm your host, Russ Roberts of Shalem College in Jerusalem and Stanford University's Hoover
0:12.7	Institution.
0:13.7	Go to econtalk.org where you can subscribe, comment on this episode and find links down
0:18.6	the information related to today's conversation.
0:21.4	You'll also find our archives, but every episode we've done going back to 2006.
0:26.8	Our email address is mail at econtalk.org.
0:30.3	We'd love to hear from you.
0:31.5	Today is March 6, 2023.
0:39.9	My guest is neuroscientist, Eric Hoel.
0:42.4	He was last year in September of 2022, talking about effective altruism.
0:47.4	Today, we're going to talk about two recent essays of his on artificial intelligence and
0:52.5	chat, UBT, Eric Welcome Back to Econ Talk.
0:57.3	Thank you.
0:58.3	It's an absolute pleasure to be here.
0:59.3	I had a blast last time.
1:00.3	As did I.
1:01.3	I want to congratulate you.
1:02.9	You are the first person who has actually caused me to be alarmed about the implications
1:08.1	of AI, artificial intelligence and the potential threat to humanity.
1:13.0	Back in 2014, I interviewed Nicholas Postram, but he's a book super intelligence where
1:17.3	he argued AI could get so smart.
	...

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