Joscha Bach on how to stop worrying and love AI

Joscha Bach (who defines himself as an AI researcher/cognitive scientist) has recently been debating existential risk from AI with Connor Leahy (previous guest of the podcast), and since their conversation was quite short I wanted to continue the debate in more depth. The resulting conversation ended up being quite long (over 3h of recording), with a lot of tangents, but I think this gives a somewhat better overview of Joscha’s views on AI risk than other similar interviews. We also discussed a lot of other topics, that you can find in the outline below. A raw version of this interview was published on Patreon about three weeks ago. To support the channel and have access to early previews, you can subscribe here: https://www.patreon.com/theinsideview Youtube: ⁠https://youtu.be/YeXHQts3xYM⁠ Transcript: https://theinsideview.ai/joscha Host: https://twitter.com/MichaelTrazzi Joscha: https://twitter.com/Plinz OUTLINE (00:00) Intro (00:57) Why Barbie Is Better Than Oppenheimer (08:55) The relationship between nuclear weapons and AI x-risk (12:51) Global warming and the limits to growth (20:24) Joscha’s reaction to the AI Political compass memes (23:53) On Uploads, Identity and Death (33:06) The Endgame: Playing The Longest Possible Game Given A Superposition Of Futures (37:31) On the evidence of delaying technology leading to better outcomes (40:49) Humanity is in locust mode (44:11) Scenarios in which Joscha would delay AI (48:04) On the dangers of AI regulation (55:34) From longtermist doomer who thinks AGI is good to 6x6 political compass (01:00:08) Joscha believes in god in the same sense as he believes in personal selves (01:05:45) The transition from cyanobacterium to photosynthesis as an allegory for technological revolutions (01:17:46) What Joscha would do as Aragorn in Middle-Earth (01:25:20) The endgame of brain computer interfaces is to liberate our minds and embody thinking molecules (01:28:50) Transcending politics and aligning humanity (01:35:53) On the feasibility of starting an AGI lab in 2023 (01:43:19) Why green teaming is necessary for ethics (01:59:27) Joscha's Response to Connor Leahy on "if you don't do that, you die Joscha. You die" (02:07:54) Aligning with the agent playing the longest game (02:15:39) Joscha’s response to Connor on morality (02:19:06) Caring about mindchildren and actual children equally (02:20:54) On finding the function that generates human values (02:28:54) Twitter And Reddit Questions: Joscha’s AGI timelines and p(doom) (02:35:16) Why European AI regulations are bad for AI research (02:38:13) What regulation would Joscha Bach pass as president of the US (02:40:16) Is Open Source still beneficial today? (02:42:26) How to make sure that AI loves humanity (02:47:42) The movie Joscha would want to live in (02:50:06) Closing message for the audience