If everything is automated, what's human purpose?

Professor Moshe Vardi thinks AI will kill us with kindness by automating away our jobs. I think they'll just kill us for real.

Who’s right? Tune into this episode and decide where you get off the Doom Train™.

Some highlights of Professor Vardi’s impressive CV:

* University Professor at Rice — a rare distinction that lets him teach in any department.

* 65,000+ citations, an H-index above 100, and nearly 50 years spent mechanizing reasoning, which makes him one of the most decorated computer scientists alive.

* He ran the ACM’s flagship publication for a decade, and now bridges CS and policy at Rice’s Baker Institute.

* He has been sounding the alarm on AI-driven job automation for over ten years.

* He signed the 2023 AI extinction risk statement, and calls himself “part of the resistance.”

Links

* Moshe Vardi’s Wikipedia — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moshe_Vardi

* Moshe Vardi, Rice University — https://profiles.rice.edu/faculty/moshe-y-vardi

* Baker Institute for Public Policy — https://www.bakerinstitute.org/

* Nick Bostrom, Deep Utopia: Life and Meaning in a Solved World — https://www.amazon.com/Deep-Utopia-Life-Meaning-Solved/dp/1646871642

* Joseph Aoun, Robot-Proof: Higher Education in the Age of Artificial Intelligence — https://www.amazon.com/Robot-Proof-Higher-Education-Artificial-Intelligence/dp/0262535971

Timestamps

00:00:00 — Cold Open

00:00:54 — Introducing Professor Vardi

00:02:01 — Professor Vardi’s Academic Focus: CS, AI, & Public Policy

00:07:18 — What’s Your P(Doom)™?

00:12:28 — We’re Not Doomed, “We’re Screwed”

00:16:44 — AI’s Impact on Meaning & Purpose

00:27:47 — Let’s Ride the Doom Train ™

00:35:43 — The Future of Jobs

00:39:24 — A Country of Geniuses in a Data Center

00:41:04 — Corporations as Superintelligence

00:45:49 — Agency, Consciousness, and the Limits of AI

00:50:07 — The Mad Scientist Scenario

00:54:02 — Could a Data Center of Geniuses Destroy Humanity?

01:03:13 — The WALL-E Meme and Fun Theory

01:04:01 — Why Professor Vardi Signed the AI Extinction Risk Statement

01:06:02 — Wrap-Up + 1 Way Ticket to Doom

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