Prosthetic Gods

Life-Hacking, or The Examined Life?

Episode 12 - Life-Hacking, or The Examined Life?
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, tracking every vital, help us live happier, longer lives? 
Links:
Self-Absorption in the Digital Era: A Review of "Self-Improvement Technologies of the Soul in the Age of Artificial Intelligence" by Mark Coeckelbergh 
“Know Thyself, Improve Thyself: Personalized LLMs for Self-Knowledge and Moral Enhancement,” Julian Savulescu
Trump administration directs federal health agencies to pause communications
Stargate AI Iniatitive, Spurned by Musk, Trumped by Chinese DeepSeek Breakthroughs
China’s cheap, open AI model DeepSeek thrills scientists
Why everyone in AI is freaking out about DeepSeek
OpenAI Unveils A.I. Agent That Can Use Websites on Its Own
Credits:
Hosted by James Hughes and Nir EisikovitsProduced by Jake BurleyMusic by Jake Burley

Do You Want to Live Forever?

Episode 11 - Death
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
Sam Altman moves up the timelines for AGI and ASI
Journal abstracts written by asking LLMs to summarize papers are perceived as more authentic, clear and compelling than those created solely by academics.
 
Credits:
Hosted by James Hughes and Nir EisikovitsProduced by Jake BurleyMusic by Jake Burley

Can We Do Anything that Computers Can’t?

Episode 10 - Can We Do Anything that Computers Can’t?
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 EisikovitsProduced by Jake BurleyMusic by Jake Burley
 
 
 

Facial Recognition

Episode 9 - Facial Recognition
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
On Liberty by John Stuart Mills 
The Two Cultures and the Scientific Revolution by C.P. Snow
Credits:
Hosted by James Hughes and Nir EisikovitsProduced by Jake BurleyMusic by Jake Burley

Tech Policy Under Trump 2

Episode 8 - Tech Policy Under Trump 2
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 EisikovitsProduced by Jake BurleyMusic by Jake Burley

Supersoldiers

Episode 7 - Supersoldiers 
Nir and J. discuss ethical issues surrounding so-called super soldiers and human augmentation in warfare.
Additional Resources:
Human Augmentation - The Dawn of a New Paradigm
Can A.I. Be Blamed for a Teen’s Suicide?
 
 
Credits:
Hosted by James Hughes and Nir EisikovitsProduced by Jake BurleyMusic by Jake Burley

Moral Machines

Episode 6 - Moral Machines
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
 
Credits:
Hosted by James Hughes and Nir EisikovitsProduced by Jake BurleyMusic by Jake Burley

Artificial General Intelligence

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 evolving beyond human control? 
Also, check out this week’s Ethics in Action podcast conversation with philosopher Susan Schneider: https://ethics.podbean.com/e/ai-consciousness-and-the-future-mind-a-conversation-with-susan-schneider/
Hosted by: James Hughes and Nir EisikovitsProduced by: Jake BurleyMusic by: Jake Burley

AI Clones

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: Might AI Make Us Less Scarce and Therefore Less Valuable?” by John Danaher & Sven Nyholm   https://philpapers.org/rec/DANDDA-3
“Free IVF? Technoprogressive policy and reproductive rights” by J. Hughes https://ieet.substack.com/p/fertility-assistance-reproductive
 

Bad Knowledge

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?
How early is too early to find out you've got an incurable disease?https://www.wired.com/story/alzheimers-disease-dementia-medicine-prediction-ethics/
 
The Woman Who Could Smell Parkinson’shttps://www.nytimes.com/2024/06/14/magazine/parkinsons-smell-disease-detection.html
 
Lightning Round
Google hires Character.AI foundershttps://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2024/08/02/google-character-ai-noam-shazeer/
https://www.reuters.com/technology/google-appoints-former-characterai-founder-co-lead-its-ai-models-2024-08-23/