On Consciousness, Morality, Effective Altruism & Myth with Yuval Noah Harari & Max Tegmark

Neither Yuval Noah Harari nor Max Tegmark need much in the way of introduction. Both are avant-garde thinkers at the forefront of 21st century discourse around science, technology, society and humanity’s future. This conversation represents a rare opportunity for two intellectual leaders to apply their combined expertise — in physics, artificial intelligence, history, philosophy and anthropology — to some of the most profound issues of our time. Max and Yuval bring their own macroscopic perspectives to this discussion of both cosmological and human history, exploring questions of consciousness, ethics, effective altruism, artificial intelligence, human extinction, emerging technologies and the role of myths and stories in fostering societal collaboration and meaning. We hope that you'll join the Future of Life Institute Podcast for our final conversation of 2019, as we look toward the future and the possibilities it holds for all of us.

Topics discussed include:

-Max and Yuval's views and intuitions about consciousness

-How they ground and think about morality

-Effective altruism and its cause areas of global health/poverty, animal suffering, and existential risk

-The function of myths and stories in human society

-How emerging science, technology, and global paradigms challenge the foundations of many of our stories

-Technological risks of the 21st century

You can find the page and transcript for this podcast here: https://futureoflife.org/2019/12/31/on-consciousness-morality-effective-altruism-myth-with-yuval-noah-harari-max-tegmark/

Timestamps:

0:00 Intro

3:14 Grounding morality and the need for a science of consciousness

11:45 The effective altruism community and it's main cause areas

13:05 Global health

14:44 Animal suffering and factory farming

17:38 Existential risk and the ethics of the long-term future

23:07 Nuclear war as a neglected global risk

24:45 On the risks of near-term AI and of artificial general intelligence and superintelligence

28:37 On creating new stories for the challenges of the 21st century

32:33 The risks of big data and AI enabled human hacking and monitoring

47:40 What does it mean to be human and what should we want to want?

52:29 On positive global visions for the future

59:29 Goodbyes and appreciations

01:00:20 Outro and supporting the Future of Life Institute Podcast

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