Meeting Nick Bostrom

I got to meet Dr. Nick Bostrom a couple of weeks ago. He stopped in Chicago on his way to speak for Google, Microsoft and Berkeley, and he gave a talk for C2ST, where I work.

Dr. Bostrom is a professor of philosophy at Oxford University, and the founding director of the Future of Humanity Institute. He is probably best known for advancing the hypothesis that the universe we experience is really a computer simulation. He was on tour promoting his new book, Superintelligence: Paths, Dangers, Strategies, which discusses the possibility of humans facing an existential risk from an artificial intelligence that is smarter than us. He also cites one of my papers in it.

Page 311 of Superintelligence: Paths, Dangers, Strategies. My paper is at the top of the page.

I could go on, but I’ll let Dr. Bostrom give you the short version in this clip. I am off camera asking him the questions that he is answering.

And here is his full talk:

I got to speak with him after his talk. He’s very interested in helping people, and helping humanity move forward in a healthy and safe way. Humans certainly have no shortage of problems, and I’m glad we have smart people working on them.

Have a topic you want me to cover? Let me know in the comments or on twitter @CGeppig.

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Biomechanics

Sorry I haven’t written a new post in the last few weeks. I recently got a new job working for a nonprofit organization that educates the public about current science. I’ve spent most of the last year trying to get a job like this, and all of my work has paid off. Unfortunately, this upheaval in my schedule has made it very difficult to do any writing. I will continue writing here as often as I can, but I may be on a different posting schedule than before. Thanks for reading and for being patient.

In the mean time, I have something a little bit different for you. The organization I work for hosted a lecture a couple of weeks ago on the biomechanics of running. This was the first program they put on while I was working there, and I was given the opportunity to introduce the speaker. (Most of my opening remarks were edited out of the final version, but this isn’t about me.) Dr. Steven McCaw gave a great talk that I hope some of you will find interesting:

Update: Fixed link