Month: December 2022

Responsible AI: the challenge of ensuring that AI systems work for all of us. With Ray Eitel-Porter

Responsible AI: the challenge of ensuring that AI systems work for all of us. With Ray Eitel-Porter

The longer term concerns of AI safety and AI alignment Concerns about artificial intelligence tend to fall into two buckets. The longer term concern is that advanced AI may harm humans. In its extreme form, this includes the Skynet scenario from the Terminator movies, where a superintelligence decides it doesn’t like us and wipes us out. But an advanced AI doesn’t have to be malevolent, or even conscious, to do us great harm. It just has to have goals which conflict with ours. The paper-clip maximiser is the cartoon example: the AI is determined to make as many paper-clips as...
From data analysis to decision intelligence. With Steve Coates

From data analysis to decision intelligence. With Steve Coates

The paradox of modern AI There seems to be something of a paradox in modern AI. In academia and within the tech giants of the US and China, research is galloping ahead, but the deployment of modern AI in industry and government organisations is advancing at a more stately pace. One of the people trying to change that is Steve Coates. Steve dropped out of college to become a chef, but he switched again and took a degree in computer science, and then spent 20 years developing business strategies with Accenture and the Boston Consulting Group (BCG). Seven years ago...
What happens when everyone realises we can live much longer? We may find out as soon as 2025. With Aubrey de Grey

What happens when everyone realises we can live much longer? We may find out as soon as 2025. With Aubrey de Grey

Let’s not just cure cancer: let’s cure aging One of the most exciting areas of modern scientific research is the investigation of the causes and cures for aging. Not individual diseases like cancer and heart disease, but the processes which make us elderly and frail, and which thereby make us more susceptible to these diseases. Aubrey de Grey has been at the forefront of anti-aging research for more than 20 years. He founded the Methuselah Foundation in 2003, and the SENS Foundation (Strategies for Engineering Negligible Senescence) in 2009, Most recently, “Aubrey 3.0” is the LEV Foundation (Longevity Escape Velocity),...
When will we stop eating animals? With Jacy Anthis

When will we stop eating animals? With Jacy Anthis

Jacy Reese Anthis is a polymath and rising star in the fields of Effective Altruism (EA) and artificial intelligence (AI). He is a co-founder of the Sentience Institute and the author of the 2018 book “The End of Animal Farming”. EA is the project of identifying the most impactful strategies to help others, and the book grew out of EA research into the best ways to help animals. He explains his thinking on animals and AI in the latest episode of The London Futurist Podcast. Many people think that factory farming is one of the most pressing ethical problems in...
Breaking out of the Simulation. With Roman Yampolskiy

Breaking out of the Simulation. With Roman Yampolskiy

The Simulation Hypothesis In the 4th century BC, the Greek philosopher Plato theorised that humans do not perceive the world as it really is. All we can see is shadows on a wall. In 2003, the Swedish philosopher Nick Bostrom published a paper which formalised an argument to prove Plato was right. The paper argued that one of the following three statements is true: 1. We will go extinct fairly soon 2. Advanced civilisations don’t produce simulations containing entities which think they are naturally-occurring sentient intelligences. (This could be because it is impossible.) 3. We are in a simulation The...
How Insilico Medicine uses AI to accelerate drug development

How Insilico Medicine uses AI to accelerate drug development

Within the longevity research community, Alex Zhavoronkov is well-known for his relentless focus. He works seven days a week and takes no holidays. The hard work is paying off: In February, Insilico Medicine, the AI drug development company he founded, announced the first phase 1 clinical trials for a wholly AI-developed drug. Following a series of investment rounds in the rest of the year, the company is now well-funded, and its software is widely used in the pharma industry. Alex explains the company’s progress in the latest episode of the London Futurist Podcast. Three phases of drug development Drug development...