Artificial Intelligence and Our Future

Live Presentation and Open Discussion This Sunday, 2 pm



Artificial Intelligence and Our Future

Please join my live Webinar, Artificial Intelligence and Our Future, this Sunday, from 2 - 4:30 pm EST (8 - 10:30 pm CET; 11 am - 1:30 pm PST). This event is $12; free for paid subscribers of this newsletter (code to follow in separate email).

Sign up here.

Over the last months, I have been writing about the ongoing explosion of next-generation Artificial Intelligence in this newsletter. The AI explosion raises many profound and troubling questions, while also offering some extraordinary possibilities for our future. In this live webinar, I will present some of my current, rapidly evolving thoughts on AI. We will then have an open discussion about these topics. 

Main themes to explore: 

1. Economic and Political Implications of AI
   

   1. Will AI cause massive job loss? What industries will be particularly impacted? 
      

   2. How can people prepare for social dislocations caused by AI?
      

   3. Phishing and AI: AI's facility in imitating humans makes massive phishing scams inevitable. 
      

   4. Governments' Role in Regulating AI
      

   5. Large Language Models and Truth / Bullshit: Will this further degrade our information ecology? 
      

2. Is AI Becoming Self-Aware or Conscious, in some sense? 
   

   1. Some reflections on the nature of consciousness: Does it have a biological substrate (Roger Penrose, Bernardo Kastrup) or is it based on what Douglas Hofstadter called a "strange loop" of self-recursive awareness. 
      

   2. Recent dialogues with AI that suggest it is developing self-reflection.
      

   3. Ethical implications of "Synthetic Consciousness," if this is indeed what is evolving
      

      1. Do we need a new model of "digital personhood?"
         

      2. Should there be an ethical code of conduct in our treatment of AIs?
         

3. The Future of Culture and AI 
   

   1. AI's capacity to create virtual worlds 
      

   2. Threats to artists 
      

   3. Changing meaning of human culture in a time of artificial sentience