EF11 (S1-E9): When the Lights Go Out: The Blinding Light of an Artificial Future

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(EF11) S1-E9: When the Lights Go Out The Blinding Light of an Artificial Future The Evolve Faster Podcast with Scott Ely Season One

(EF11) S1-E9: When the Lights Go Out: The Blinding Light of an Artificial Future (Season One, Episode Nine)

PLAY | DOWNLOAD AI may soon make humans seem as inferior as a regular light bulb is to the sun. Will this progress end with AI stripped of emotional baggage? Or might AI help evolve creativity and emotions even further to shine even brighter light into the human experience? More...

Can machines think, be creative or fall in love?

The big question driving Episode EF11 is … Can machines think, be creative or fall in love?  It’s obvious we’re witnessing the dawn of artificial intelligence (AI). As the generation living through and directing this big change, we have to feel both excited and nervous. What will the next step be? Will machines become a new race with their own rights to live, love and create? How might the change — potentially a quantum leap — affect humanity?

Another fact is that machines will be (or already are) more effective than humans in everything, maybe even creativity. So will humanity see this as a challenge to further evolve, or will we get overwhelmed by the unprecedented capability of a machine? Do we stand a chance when for everything humanity took centuries to perfect, AI can master in days or weeks? Can our ape-like brains even comprehend what might be around the next curve of this Next Evolution?

Episode EF11 Summary

Aldford Herbert, a famous science fiction writer, is on the brink of finishing his latest novel about a realistic, dark future of artificial intelligence. A stroke of luck provides him with an opportunity to talk to Cynthia Butler, the mastermind behind the world’s most bleeding edge AI company. Aldford sees this as the perfect opportunity to secretly learn how precise his fictional predictions might be. What he doesn’t know is that Cynthia might just have a mysterious, and even more insidious agenda than his own.

This episode of the Evolve Faster Podcast will investigate AI development from perspectives of deep learning to related neuroscience and several key technological advances in between. Technology and AI is rapidly evolving at a rate much faster than humanity ever did or could hope for. It’s not about if AI will achieve consciousness, but when will we be at least fooled into thinking it has? But does the rapid development automatically mean the end of humankind as we know it? Or is there an alternative route where co-existence is a brighter version of life as it is today?

Into The Rabbit Hole

SHOW NOTES: This episode is dedicated to Elon Musk. See the EF11 Show Notes for details of the dedication, inspirations, references, selected quotes and more. 

ABOUT THE EVOLVE FASTER PODCAST: Everything is changing, yet the questions that drive us remain the same. Will humanity face the absurdity of our collective existential crisis in time? Join Scott Ely as he takes us deep into the rabbit hole with philosophical tales to reboot your mind, upgrade your life and explore your soul. To Evolve Faster is to see the fact that you will die someday as a formidable challenge, instead of a source of immense fear. Create your reality…before it creates you. Isn’t it time for an upgrade? More episodes…

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