#59 - Torres on Existential Risk, Omnicidal Agents and Superintelligence

In this episode I talk to Phil Torres. Phil is an author and researcher who primarily focuses on existential risk. He is currently a visiting researcher at the Centre for the Study of Existential Risk at Cambridge University. He has published widely on emerging technologies, terrorism, and existential risks, with articles appearing in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Futures, Erkenntnis, Metaphilosophy, Foresight, Journal of Future Studies, and the Journal of Evolution and Technology. He is the author of several books, including most recently Morality, Foresight, and Human Flourishing: An Introduction to Existential Risks. We talk about the problem of apocalyptic terrorists, the proliferation dual-use technology and the governance problem that arises as a result. This is both a fascinating and potentially terrifying discussion.

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Show Notes0:00 – Introduction
3:14 – What is existential risk? Why should we care?
8:34 – The four types of agential risk/omnicidal terrorists
17:51 – Are there really omnicidal terror agents?
20:45 – How dual-use technology give apocalyptic terror agents the means to their desired ends
27:54 – How technological civilisation is uniquely vulernable to omnicidal agents
32:00 – Why not just stop creating dangerous technologies?
36:47 – Making the case for mass surveillance
41:08 – Why mass surveillance must be asymmetrical
45:02 – Mass surveillance, the problem of false positives and dystopian governance
56:25 – Making the case for benevolent superintelligent governance
1:02:51 – Why advocate for something so fantastical?
1:06:42 – Is an anti-tech solution any more fantastical than a benevolent AI solution?
1:10:20 – Does it all just come down to values: are you a techno-optimist or a techno-pessimist?

Relevant LinksPhil’s webpage
‘Superintelligence and the Future of Governance:?On Prioritizing the Control Problem at the End of History’ by Phil
Morality, Foresight, and Human Flourishing: An Introduction to Existential Risks by Phil
‘The Vulnerable World Hypothesis” by Nick Bostrom
Phil’s comparison of his paper with Bostrom’s paper
The Guardian orders the small-pox genome
Slaughterbots
The Future of Violence by Ben Wittes and Gabriela Blum
Future Crimes by Marc Goodman 
The Dyn Cyberattack 
Autonomous Technology by Langdon Winner
'Biotechnology and the Lifetime of Technological Civilisations’ by JG Sotos 
The God Machine Thought Experiment (Persson and Savulescu)
 
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