13 metaphors to give the flavor of why sufficiently advanced A.I. could be extremely dangerous

April 2, 2023

1. Suppose a new species evolves on earth with the same intellectual, planning, and coordination abilities relative to us that we have relative to chimps. Chimps are faster and stronger than most humans - why don't they run the show? 2. Suppose aliens show up on earth that are far smarter than the smartest among us at all cognitive tasks. They have specific goals that aren't fully aligned with ours, are completely unconstrained by human morality, and don't value our survival. What happens ne...

Important (present and future) real-world applications of academic philosophy

August 10, 2021

Many people think that academic philosophy is irrelevant to the real world. But it has increasingly important applications. Here's my list of some of the really interesting ones. Here's hoping philosophers will make further progress on some of these! 1. The Trolley Problem: self-driving cars will be put in situations where there is a choice between sacrificing the passenger to save two pedestrians. Or they might have to choose between killing a 5-year-old pedestrian vs. killing a 70-year-...

Thinkers Who Say the World Is Insane

August 26, 2020

Some thinkers see that the world is far more insane than is acknowledged, and that our narratives about society, the future, or the self don’t make sense. They develop a theory to explain things. Here’s a list of some of those theories (as I interpret them), explained in extremely concise terms as best as I could manage: The List of Thinkers and Their Core Ideas: 1. Peter Singer We would ruin expensive shoes to save a drowning child we walked by, but not forgo expensive shoes to sav...