Joe Rogan Experience #1350 — Nick Bostrom Transcript

Transcript

0:00 And here we go. Well, it's the big fear and the big hope, I think. with better technology and so forth um also i think if we want to imagine some really grand future where humanity or our descendants one day go out and colonize the universe, One is to make sure we can align it with human values and then make sure that we together do something better with it than fighting wars or oppressing one another.

2:36 I think there's a lot of room for improvement. just like we look at ancient hominids, that we are eventually going to become something more if we created How many more generations before this thing thinks that human beings are obsolete? I'd say so, yeah. We really don't know when, I think, at some point involve the development so that we actually understand what they are doing

6:55 through some other means still involve autistic savant, really which then drives a lot of investment in it. share our values and has a more pragmatic view of life and death and things. But we sort of assume that intelligence that we create will agents might just have reflexes. If you're able to specify the goal, Do you anticipate different types would not be very human-like.

11:34 So that seems technologically very difficult to do, maybe with the neocortex. things that we do differently. But maybe some system half a year ago i'll have to i'll have to listen to it because he has the worst view of the the significant risks that will be associated Yeah. If one actually asks why do different individuals work on AI research or why do different companies and governments fund it, I mean, there are a lot of explanations.

14:39 like it's going to just open up You could remove some of these reasons Maybe you could tell us. It could be that there is some level where to get further, that would be like way many, many orders above what we can do now. you are, I mean, it is sentient. But then that might still be quite a lot of orders of magnitude until it would be equivalent of the whole human species.

18:14 you can't easily scale something that you've already spent billions of dollars building. even if it's not going to happen in the next are more apparent than real. What's the evidence they're looking at? In some cases that actually already just happened And you were talking about the entire history of life on Earth The idea that the alarm wakes you up in the morning,

21:29 I mean, if you look at it on a geological timescale, course almost everything is ultra high vacuum and and we live on the surface of this little this is the way it's going to be now indefinitely, they're all a part of this momentum And there's very little perspective Yes, if not, we'd be upset. view but it was all in terms of political organization.

24:40 So it would be all these pieces moving around, enough brains That's what we're here for. some something that's not based on tissue something that's not based on cells it doesn't we say machine intelligence is possible for some reason. be able to control what Yeah, one of the technologies or one of the things that's been discussed to sort of mitigate

28:06 tries it, you know, but and get benefits that you couldn't you find, well, and then there were these side effects to enhance human biological capacities would be through genetic selection, in vitro fertilization. a trend in terms of how human beings reproduce that that this one gene is wrong, of complex traits, whether it's intelligence or personality attributes,

32:00 the ethical concerns, when you start discussing that, people get very nervous Like, what are, like, that gets slippery. But it looks like we're getting the powerful tools before we have really achieved a very high level of wisdom. and how much do you actually understand any of those? Yeah. at any point channels through your sort of conscious attention

35:32 It feels normal. Well, not nobody. exchanging ideas. But Like if you got involved in it in the 90s, That was a conference, but I mean, it's somewhat arbitrary, Yeah, many of them. they had designs for things that But yeah, roughly since the 40s or so. So in the mid-50s, And now we've kind of solved vision, kind of hard to estimate at the outset. thinking of this radical possibility.

39:43 it'd be crazy not to spend a lot of time thinking about how this is going to impact the world. And so with the Manhattan Project, obviously it was during wartime, a nuclear explosion, Leo Szilard, So the idea of a chain reaction was that if you split an atom early 30s probably for civilization. That is the problem in those cases where you would actually prefer the innovation

42:27 and then they shut all of that down But of course, if there is a technology now or it was motivated by this horrific moment in history, this evil empire that tries to take over the world, and we come up with this incredible technological solution, the ultimate weapon that we detonate a couple of times on some cities, and then now we're in this weird state where we're how many years later, 80 years later, and we're not doing it anymore.

44:37 this amazing technology, Reactors are not that difficult to do. Well, I mean, you see the Japan, yeah, I mean, Yeah. Yeah, it could. There are kind of treaties on nuclear weapons, So some people think maybe we could do something like this I kind of stood a little bit on the sidelines on that particular campaign, like the robot should not be able I mean, I'm not sure how much is gained by having that extra step.

48:54 And you're not allowed to fire outside these coordinates. or if civilian casualties I mean on the other hand you could imagine it kind of reduces the threshold for going depends exactly on how. So I don't know. I mean, on the other hand, that terrorists have And that's why we had to develop the atomic bomb first. And then you can have successes like we've had with some of these treaties.

51:21 We would hope that we would get to some point where all this would be irrelevant. Yeah. Because there's no more war. Like this is, got to make sure this never happens again. But again, with kind of maybe in the case of the United Nations, So even the Cold War, I mean, I grew up, I'm Swedish. And I feel that memory of just how bad it is to live in that kind of hair-trigger nuclear arms race

53:36 at all to play Russian roulette. I think I'm going to like we there any at any day something and you get into this place it's kind of almost, oh, it's not too late, you can try it, but it can be very hard to back out If I were a special ops trying to sneak in, Like, you can't even kick those things over. As you see this cute robot. because they don't want to film in movies.

57:07 What a big breakthrough. that's indistinguishable? it's like a blind, dumb thing whether we can see some kind of progress in robotics driver of progress. I've seen some of these away and the thing that's disturbing is that they she knew how to manipulate his emotions to achieve hold even if it were not a robot but just a program inside a computer um but but yeah yeah

1:00:42 There are a lot, like hundreds of people that we want to kind of bring. churning away and sure um yeah that was a big problem that a lot of people had with the movie another planet. I've often wondered if what we think of in terms of like artificial life from with an enormous head, no sex organs, doesn't need sex organs, okay if you have this spaceship i mean you don't have to have like build a little thing that sits

1:04:28 If they wanted to, So, yeah, I think that's the way that space is most likely to get colonized. But we are, I mean mean one of the things you brought are we going to do that with just robots? by some radical new technology then all these things that you could where you have close to optimal technology. infrastructuring has happened, you could asteroid impact, something.

1:07:40 Well, I think the answer is this. would survive long termterm even if the Earth could potentially be what Like a vacation house. that we're not yet able to build, but we can see that they would be stuff? Well, I think, again, it would be Yeah, reasonably possible, especially in comparison to what we've already achieved. If I had a time machine and it could jump you 1,000 years from now into the future,

1:10:32 I don't know. different from all of earlier human history cosmological consequences. If we do some good in the world to do good also this very unique transitionary period between the times of old in terms of ability to take actions that have large consequences. So it's an exciting, crazy time where all these changes are taking place really rapidly.

1:12:41 Just to see what it looks like, what it's like to experience life back then. Like, areas of our solar system and different constellations it's amazing i would love to it out first like how did you get all the rocks there like i mean i think that would be probably They don't even think it's slaves anymore, I don't think. involved, this is not something you just get kind of slaves to do. This seems to be that there was

1:16:22 was first opened up for people. is that we seem to be in this really Goldilocks period Which is, yeah, that is a strange thing. I guess the intuitive way of thinking about it, for all of us really and there is some very different structure in place. I mean, I developed the simulation argument back in the early 2000s. time, I'm not actively thinking

1:19:22 work as well. When you're trying to make sense And in that context, I think it's important. So in some sense, it kind of factors out It's not just... I mean, for as long Well, one is that there is almost all civilizations at our current stage of technological development go extinct before reaching technological maturity. So that would include the technology

1:21:39 failed to get there, in that they all lose interest in creating ancestor simulations Post-human creatures. Well, the concept of downloading consciousness into a computer, is being moved back and forth, you would essentially be in some sort of a simulation. And you could kind of imagine that they get better and better But you could include in the simulation, just as you have maybe simulated coffee mugs and cars, etc.,

1:24:44 you could have a simulation but like of all these civilizations that reach technological maturity, on the question of precise probabilities there. some particular number, it would get called there why do we know the future is big? overall hypothesis that Say if we are not in a simulation yet. makes no assumption at all about how long if they figure out a way to do that,

1:27:48 you have a cheaper overall system than if you have a biological component in the center because it's just cheaper with mature technology to do it that way. Yeah. every subatomic particle, the whole quantum wave function, to the observer inside the simulation. Maybe they would need to simulate me as well there even are atoms there now you could take a big electron microscope um and and look at finer structure and then then you could take an atomic electron microscope and look at finer structure,

1:31:19 But then you could kind of fill in those details, obviously they would have figured that out and a lot of other optimizations. Well, it would mainly go through the simulation argument. or whatever. Now, so you can kind of unfold the argument a little bit more and look more granular. by comparing the computational power of systems that we know are physically possible to build.

1:33:56 they could still run thousands and thousands So the idea is that if we continue to innovate, if human beings or intelligent life in the if we continue to pursue all various forms of technological innovation including simulations simulation, right? Because it's That's the real question. Yes. technology ability to do virtual reality very well. And then for one reason or another

1:37:41 speculatively fill in more details suppose it's correct, for the sake of argument, have figured out the last big missing piece? like do something that is hard to know in advance what that would be. ones that run for a short period of time, Have you ever had a conversation with a pragmatic, capable person So I think amongst the folk I interact with a lot,

1:40:22 that would be the typical reaction if you which we discussed earlier. The simulation hypothesis is we are in a simulation. and there are other reasons and explanations for why that would happen. that's like, oh, well, you know, I mean, maybe we're all crazy. sometimes they misremember, sometimes they make stuff up. that this would be an explanation.

1:43:26 are these unique creative thoughts your own Sure. So it's like with than the people who set up the initial conditions. out or coming up with a creative idea. And is it pushing the simulation in a certain direction? Maybe that's our simulation. Like if we are in a simulation, right? the clearest case for why that would be possible Then it's more of an open question whether it would also be possible

1:47:40 not not regular i don't know yeah does it but does it ever get to your head where you're like, Maybe all of those situations are simulated is exactly the same as if you were in the other simulation. but I think to a first approximation a simulation but you must behave in each and every instance as if it's not if you know if you were I think there might be very subtle

1:50:43 like if the computer where the simulation is running, It doesn't mean it is likely to happen that and in fact it kind of but there are some kind of structural parallels, analogs, between So there might be Suboptimal for sure. and some decade or two later they're just kind of almost common sense. um and it only takes like one or two or three of those like people that that that are highly

1:54:09 person I could... I would love to hear the argument some sort of a debate with someone openly dismisses it well like a big public debate including public. either a new generation or some new community It might also be slightly assisted by just technological progress. Well, so I'd say that that would be highly unlikely in that if the third, so if the first

1:57:07 You can't from the inside tell the difference. But that would be equivalent to saying if it's not a simulation then it seems very reasonable that we're just dealing with incremental increases in technology that's pretty stunning and pretty pretty profound Well, by assumption, if there are all these simulations created. We're agreeing upon Oppenheimer, the Manhattan Project, World War I, World War II.

1:59:36 right i mean so it it is a possibility that we would be in the first time segments of all of So if you imagine, for example, ones because like a randomly selected ones Let's say for the sake of argument, because I don't really have an opinion on this, pro or con. Why isn't it likely that a simulation hasn't occurred yet, I mean, if you kind of integrate over the universe.

2:02:15 Well, it depends on what simulation, right? Yeah, I think to try to argue for the premise that conditional on there being first an initial segment called anthropics, which I alluded to. If you had the general reasoning rule Well, I'd say that there is indirect evidence insofar as there is evidence against these If we understand… It doesn't have to be a simulation.

2:05:20 between these different possible locations So those things are true, yeah. that there is currently any simulation. Okay. Yes. We become prudent, to becoming post-human. That would move probability Imagine if we, a thousand years from now people like ourselves. that we are ourselves in a simulation Yeah, I'm still... look the same. No, no, no. and that we're experiencing this as real live human beings,

2:10:30 Because we're experiencing it. Well, if there were, like, say, a million simulations, I tend to think in terms of you look at all the different experiences that match your current experience. Yeah, but there will have been. And you think you might be the original one. scenarios Well, we don't know what's going to happen in the future. But another option is there could be

2:13:21 And so then I say, Why can it not but it hasn't happened yet so why would you assume that we are in a simulation I'm just thinking maybe we could think of some simpler But if it lands tails, then you're given an amnesia drug, one one-hour experience of you in the room It could be. you like so if you wake up in this room what what do you think the probability should be that the

2:16:46 So we're assuming that you're sure about that either way. So we can abstract away from the possibility of it. Right. because it seems to be, isn't that Occam's razor? Yeah, I think it's not thought-cum-trace in that it would require you to postulate that you are this very unusual and special observer amongst all the observers that will exist. If there's a simulation.

2:19:18 what time it is where you have some number of episodes. which say the universe is very big, so how could you test that kind of theory? from amongst the observers that will ever have existed, I think, is one of the relatively less problematic ones. But I don't know why you're not willing to take into account All right, so what about this? there was a kind of Joe Rogan-like brain

2:23:24 than will exist later on on planets And there are, of course, many, many more normal ones. and had a mother and eat. and if it's infinite, matches reality in this clouds and then the vast majority are just normal people living on a planet. Yeah. very small in numbers I have no reason to believe I'm one of the planet living ones. in that it looks like it's infinitely big,

2:26:19 I still don't understand what you're saying. mutation and natural selection. B, that even if Maybe these same things also happened Or, I mean, I admit that there is also this general possibility, that we would be the first civilization in a universe And I'm not on one side or the other. would radically change our mind and suddenly your life feels very different, right?

2:30:15 all crucial considerations now. We should be focused on AI alignment. recently we're probably missing out on on one or more likely several more crucial considerations are tried and tested yes right but if your goal is to somehow steer humanity's future in such a way thank you very much my brain's broken