If you want a weekend being scared sh*tless about the near future, this new series by Missing Cryptoqueen podcaster Jamie Bartlett will do just that.
A collaboration between The Observer and The Future of Life Institute, it looks at the deepest, darkest threats posed by the rise of artificial general intelligence, from unstoppable machines and killer robots to eventual societal collapse. The fact that even the people investing trillions in such advanced artificial intelligence refer to it as a risk, calling it “the biggest coin toss in human history” is alarming.
Bartlett unpacks in layman terms what AGI is (“Machines that can do pretty much any cognitive task we can do, as well or better than we can”) and why there is such investment in the technology in the first place, such as medical breakthroughs and food production efficiency, but also how serious the risk of it all going wrong is.
“A self-professed AI optimist who has a PhD in AI and a decade's experience thinks there is only a 10% chance of some kind of catastrophe arising from AGI,” says Bartlett. “Don't know about you, but I find that rather alarming.”
