Brendan McCord — AI and the Philosophy of Technology

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Mar 28, 2024

Brendan McCord, Founder of Cosmos Institute, explores AI & philosophy, AI schools of thought, existential risks, adaptive systems, & the philosophy-to-code pipeline. Discusses open-source tech, US-China situation, automation vs. augmentation, Russian realism, and cinematic visions of the future. Delve into the importance of understanding unintended consequences in complex systems and the intersection of science fiction and Russian realism in literature.

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INSIGHT

Logic Bottoms Out So Think Probabilistically

Deterministic, axiomatic reasoning has limits; thinkers like Lewis Carroll and Hume show logic bottoms out in assumptions.
McCord and Jim use Carroll's Tortoise and Agrippa's Trilemma to argue for probabilistic thinking and humility.

ADVICE

Train Technologists In Philosophy And Practice

Create practitioner-focused programs that pair philosophical texts with builders so ideas influence real systems.
Cosmos runs the Mill Fellowship, Oxford classes, and fellows from Anthropic/OpenAI to ship open-source projects embodying liberal ideas.

ANECDOTE

Biosphere Failure Shows Limits Of Control

Brendan points out the Biosphere (closed habitat) experiment failed despite top scientists and abundant funding, with insects and plant die-offs.
He uses it to illustrate that even idealized experiments struggle in closed, tightly controlled ecosystems.

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Brendan McCord is the founder of Cosmos Institute — a non-profit dedicated to exploring the intersection of AI and philosophy.

Brendan joins the show to discuss Cosmos' origins, the pursuit of philosophy as a technologist, the different schools of thought in AI, complex adaptive systems and MUCH more!

Important Links:

Show Notes:

The Genesis of the Cosmos Institute
Philosophy as a Quixotic Pursuit
The Man of the System Dilemma
Existential Risk & Scenario Agnosticism
The AI Schools of Thought
The Religious Nature of the E/Acc Movement
What Tocqueville Can Teach Us About AI
The Philosophy-to-Code Pipeline
"Cars ignited the Sexual Revolution" and Other Unexpected Occurrences
The Best Systems are Adaptive
Heterogeneity & Resilient Systems
Open Source and the US-China Situation
Automation, Augmentation & Open-Ended Generation
The Underrated Nuance of Russian Realism
Cinematic Visions of the Future
Great Talent & the Risk of the Tasmanian Devil
Brendan as Emperor of the World
MORE!

Books Mentioned:

Murray Rothbard, "For A New Liberty"
David R. Hawkins, "Power vs. Force"
Jung Chang, "Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China"
Jung Chang, "Mao: The Unknown Story"
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, "The Gulag Archipelago"
Arthur Koestler, "Darkness At Noon"
Adam Smith, "The Theory of Moral Sentiments"
Lewis Carroll, "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland"
Lewis Carroll, "What the Tortoise Said To Achilles"
Eliezer Yudkowsky, "Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality"
Marc Andreessen, "The Techno-Optimist Manifesto"
Alexis De Tocqueville, "Democracy in America"
'Pericles's Funeral Oration' quoted in Thucydides' "History of the Peloponnesian War".
Plato, "Theaetetus"
Plato, "The Republic"
Nietzsche, "The Gay Science"
C.P Snow, "The Two Cultures"
Elinor Ostrom, "Governing the Commons: The Evolution of Institutions for Collective Action"
James M. Buchanan, "Freedom in Constitutional Contract: Perspectives of a Political Economist"
Iain M. Banks, "Consider Phlebas" (Culture Series #1)
Chen Qiufan and Kai-Fu Lee, "AI 2041: Ten Visions for Our Future"
Christopher Buckley, "Thank You for Smoking"
John Stuart Mill, "On Liberty"