Prosthetic Gods
Welcome to “Prosthetic Gods,” the podcast where bioethicist James Hughes and philosopher Nir Eisikovits engage in spirited debates on the ethics and politics of emerging technologies. Hughes, a pro-technology transhumanist, and Eisikovits, with his Luddite stance, explore topics from brain-computer interfaces to artificial intelligence. Tune in and explore the promise and perils of technological advancements with us!
Episodes
This week on Prosthetic Gods, Nir and J discuss the pros and cons of life-tracking or “self-quantification,” with tools like health watches, and the “life-hacking” that these tools encourage, from dieting and exercise to sleep and meditation. How do we know when we are being distracted and made miserable by all this self-knowledge, and when it is helpful? Could AI life coaches, track...
On this week’s Prosthetic Gods Nir and J. discuss the ethics of life extension and anti-aging therapies. Is there a benefit to involuntary death? Would getting very old necessarily be boring or depressing? How can we ensure that everyone benefits?
Links:Zuckerberg removes fact-checking from Facebook
Bezos imposes ban on criticism of Trump/Musk at WashPo
J and Nir talk to Tal Hassner, formerly of Amazon and Meta, about Deep Fakes, AGI, and whether there is such a thing as a tech-proof job.
Links:Find out more about Tal here: https://talhassner.github.io/home/
Credits:Hosted by James Hughes and Nir Eisikovits Produced by Jake Burley Music by Jake Burley
Nir and J. talk about facial recognition. Topics covered include considerations of bias, the role of privacy, and whether facial recognition is substantially different from other identification technologies.
Links:“Halt the use of facial-recognition technology until it is regulated" by Kate Crawford
Credits:...Nir and J. talk about the prospects for tech policy under Trump's second term. They discuss the new administration's attitudes toward content moderation, what the next four years mean for Artificial Intelligence, and Elon Musk's potential influence on tech policy moving forward.
Credits: Hosted by James Hughes and Nir Eisikovits Produced by Jake Burley Music by Jake Burley
Nir and J. discuss ethical issues surrounding so-called super soldiers and human augmentation in warfare.
Additional Resources:Credits:
Hosted by James Hughes and Nir Eisikovits Produced by Jake Burley Music by Jake Burley
In this episode, Nir and J. discuss whether machines can be moral. What does it take for something to be a moral patient or moral subject? Can morality be distilled down to a set of rules? Is the red-teaming and safety testing of large language models a way to teach machines morality?
Additional Resources:- Moral Machines by Colin Allen and Wendell Wallach
Prosthetic Gods: Artificial General Intelligence
In this episode of Prosthetic Gods, J. Hughes and Nir Eisikovits dive into artificial general intelligence (AGI), AI that has reached a human level of consciousness and common sense. Is AI currently a "philosophical zombie," mimicking human behavior without true awareness? Will AGIs be the perfect 24/7 slaves, replacing expensive humans in workplace? Would AGI be the beginning of AI ...
AI Clones
This week Drs. Nir and J. discuss the concept of AI clones with postdoctoral fellow Cody Turner, and in particular the short podcast series Shell Game from journalist Evan Ratliff. Will AI clones augment or disorient us? Our bonus round discusses J’s recent piece of “free IVF.”
Links:
Shell Game podcast https://www.shellgame.co/podcast
Vapi voice clone: https://vapi.ai/
“Digital Duplicates and the Scarcity Problem: Mig...
Can There Be Bad Knowledge?
In medical ethics there are debates about when people should be encouraged to get tested for diseases or conditions for which there is no therapy, such as Alzheimer’s disease. In the case of knowing you have a risk or diagnosis of incurable disease, is ignorance really bliss, or does “true happiness” require knowledge? What are the ethics of these "bad knowledge" situations?
Taiwan’s Experiments with E-democracy:
Can AI be good for democracy? Taiwan has been experimenting with digital democracy for a decade. In this week’s Prosthetic Gods Nir and J review the advantages and disadvantages of using electronic tools for citizen participation in politics. And we also talk about the Harris Zoom rallies and the Google anti-trust case.
Tools for Citizen Participation:
ieet.org/white-papers
www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/experimentations/202407/what-if-artificial-intelligence-replaces-human-therapists
www.npr.org/transcripts/1247296788
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