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.

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.

Follow me on Facebook.

Advertisement

About Christopher Eppig, Ph.D.

I have a Ph.D. in biology and a passion for sharing my knowledge and understanding of the natural world with anyone who will listen. At a time where science is permeating public life more than ever, it is especially important that the public understand what science is, and how its findings intersect with their own lives. In addition to the more practical benefits of scientific literacy, I believe strongly that understanding the natural world enriches peoples lives. The man behind the curtain is not me — it is the real world, which we can discover through science, and it is beautiful. Let me show it to you.  Follow me on twitter @CGEppig. View all posts by Christopher Eppig, Ph.D.

Leave a Reply

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. Log Out /  Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. Log Out /  Change )

Connecting to %s

%d bloggers like this: