82 episodes

Hear This Idea is a podcast showcasing new thinking in philosophy, the social sciences, and effective altruism. Each episode has an accompanying write-up at www.hearthisidea.com/episodes.

Hear This Idea Fin Moorhouse and Luca Righetti

    • Science
    • 5.0 • 10 Ratings

Hear This Idea is a podcast showcasing new thinking in philosophy, the social sciences, and effective altruism. Each episode has an accompanying write-up at www.hearthisidea.com/episodes.

    Joe Carlsmith on Scheming AI

    Joe Carlsmith on Scheming AI

    Joe Carlsmith is a writer, researcher, and philosopher. He works as a senior research analyst at Open Philanthropy, where he focuses on existential risk from advanced artificial intelligence. He also writes independently about various topics in philosophy and futurism, and holds a doctorate in philosophy from the University of Oxford.

    You can find links and a transcript at www.hearthisidea.com/episodes/carlsmith

    In this episode we talked about a report Joe recently authored, titled ‘Scheming AIs: Will AIs fake alignment during training in order to get power?’. The report “examines whether advanced AIs that perform well in training will be doing so in order to gain power later”; a behaviour Carlsmith calls scheming.

    We talk about:


    Distinguishing ways AI systems can be deceptive and misaligned
    Why powerful AI systems might acquire goals that go beyond what they’re trained to do, and how those goals could lead to scheming
    Why scheming goals might perform better (or worse) in training than less worrying goals
    The ‘counting argument’ for scheming AI
    Why goals that lead to scheming might be simpler than the goals we intend
    Things Joe is still confused about, and research project ideas

    You can get in touch through our website or on Twitter. Consider leaving us an honest review wherever you're listening to this — it's the best free way to support the show. Thanks for listening!

    • 1 hr 51 min
    Eric Schwitzgebel on Digital Consciousness and the Weirdness of the World

    Eric Schwitzgebel on Digital Consciousness and the Weirdness of the World

    Eric Schwitzgebel is a professor of philosophy at the University of California, Riverside. His main interests include connections between empirical psychology and philosophy of mind and the nature of belief. His book The Weirdness of the World can be found here.

    We talk about:


    The possibility of digital consciousness
    Policy ideas for avoiding major moral mistakes around digital consciousness
    Prospects for the science of consciousness, and why we likely won't have clear answers in time


    Why introspection is much less reliable than most people think
    How and why we invent false stories about our own choices without realising
    What randomly sampling people's experiences reveals about what we're doing with most of our attention


    The possibility of 'overlapping minds'
    How and why our actions might have infinite effects, both good and bad
    Whether it would be good news to learn that our actions have infinite effects, or that the universe is infinite in extent


    The best science fiction on digital minds and AI

    You can get in touch through our website or on Twitter. Consider leaving us an honest review wherever you're listening to this — it's the best free way to support the show. Thanks for listening!

    • 1 hr 58 min
    Sonia Ben Ouagrham-Gormley on Barriers to Bioweapons

    Sonia Ben Ouagrham-Gormley on Barriers to Bioweapons

    Sonia Ben Ouagrham-Gormley is an associate professor at George Mason University and Deputy Director of their Biodefence Programme

    In this episode we talk about:


    Where the belief that 'bioweapons are easy to make' came from and why it has been difficult to change
    Why transferring tacit knowledge is so difficult -- and the particular challenges that rogue actors face
    As well as lastly what Sonia makes of the AI-Bio risk discourse and what types of advances in technology would cause her concern

    You can get in touch through our website or on Twitter. Consider leaving us an honest review wherever you're listening to this — it's the best free way to support the show. Thanks for listening!

    • 1 hr 54 min
    Bonus: 'How I Learned To Love Shrimp' & David Coman-Hidy

    Bonus: 'How I Learned To Love Shrimp' & David Coman-Hidy

    In this bonus episode we are sharing an episode by another podcast: How I Learned To Love Shrimp. It is co-hosted by Amy Odene and James Ozden, who together are "showcasing innovative and impactful ways to help animals".

    In this interview they speak to David Coman-Hidy, who is the former President of The Humane –League, one of the largest farm animal advocacy organisations in the world. He now works as a Partner at Sharpen Strategy working to coach animal advocacy organisations.

    • 1 hr 18 min
    Michelle Lavery on the Science of Animal Welfare

    Michelle Lavery on the Science of Animal Welfare

    Michelle Lavery is a Program Associate with Open Philanthropy’s Farm Animal Welfare team, with a focus on the science and study of animal behaviour & welfare.

    You can see more links and a full transcript at hearthisidea.com/episodes/lavery

    In this episode we talk about:


    How do scientists study animal emotions in the first place? How is a "science" of animal emotion even feasible?
    When is it useful to anthropomorphise animals to understand them?
    How can you study the preferences of animals? How can you measure the “strength” of preferences?
    How do farmed animal welfare advocates relate to animal welfare science? Are their perceptions fair?
    How can listeners get involved with the study of animal emotions?

    You can get in touch through our website or on Twitter. Consider leaving us an honest review wherever you're listening to this — it's the best free way to support the show. Thanks for listening!

    • 1 hr 27 min
    Richard Bruns on Indoor Air Quality

    Richard Bruns on Indoor Air Quality

    Dr Richard Bruns is a Senior Scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, and before that was a Senior Economist at the US Food and Drug Administration (the FDA).

    In this episode we talk about the importance of indoor air quality (IAQ), and how to improve it. Including:


    Estimating the DALY cost of unclean indoor air from pathogens and particulate matter
    How much pandemic risk could be reduced from improving IAQ?
    How economists convert health losses into dollar figures — and how not to put a price on life
    Key interventions to improve IAQ
    Air filtration
    Germicidal UV light (especially Far-UVC light)
    Barriers to adoption, including UV smog and empirical studies needed most


    National and state-level policy changes to get these interventions adopted widely

    You can get in touch through our website or on Twitter. Consider leaving us an honest review wherever you're listening to this — it's the best free way to support the show. Thanks for listening!

    • 1 hr 47 min

Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5
10 Ratings

10 Ratings

jgarfinkel ,

Thoughtful and interesting

Excellent guests and thoughtful questions. Thorough and probing, but done with respect for guests who are given time to explain their work and ideas. Good complement to 80000 Hours and podcasts like Tyler, Econtalk, Ezra Klein, Future of Life, Big Brains, Mindscape.

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