Future of Life Institute Podcast

William MacAskill is a senior research fellow at Forethought. He joins the podcast to discuss his Better Futures essay series. We explore moral error risks, AI character design, space governance, and persistent path dependence. The conversation also covers risk-averse AI systems, moral trade between value systems, and improving model specifications for ethical reasoning.

LINKS:
- Better Futures Research Series: https://www.forethought.org/research/better-futures
- William MacAskill Forethought Profile: https://www.forethought.org/people/william-macaskill


CHAPTERS:
(00:00) Episode Preview
(01:03) Improving The Future's Quality
(09:58) Moral Errors and AI Rights
(18:24) AI's Impact on Thinking
(27:17) Utopias and Population Ethics
(36:41) The Danger of Moral Lock-in
(44:38) Deals with Misaligned AI
(57:25) AI and Moral Trade
(01:08:21) Improving AI Ethical Reasoning
(01:16:05) The Risk of Path Dependence
(01:27:41) Avoiding Future Lock-in
(01:36:22) The Urgency of Space Governance
(01:46:19) A Future Research Agenda
(01:57:36) Is Intelligence a Good Bet?


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What is Future of Life Institute Podcast?

The Future of Life Institute (FLI) is a nonprofit working to reduce global catastrophic and existential risk from powerful technologies. In particular, FLI focuses on risks from artificial intelligence (AI), biotechnology, nuclear weapons and climate change. The Institute's work is made up of three main strands: grantmaking for risk reduction, educational outreach, and advocacy within the United Nations, US government and European Union institutions. FLI has become one of the world's leading voices on the governance of AI having created one of the earliest and most influential sets of governance principles: the Asilomar AI Principles.