Radio Bostrom

By Nick Bostrom.

Translated by Jill Drouillard.

Abstract:
The good life: just how good could it be? A vision of the future from the future.

Read the full paper:
https://www.nickbostrom.com/translations/utopie.pdf

More episodes at:
https://radiobostrom.com/

By Nick Bostrom.

Abstract:
This note introduces the concept of a "singleton" and suggests that this concept is useful for formulating and analyzing possible scenarios for the future of humanity.

Read the full paper:
https://nickbostrom.com/fut/singleton

More episodes at:
https://radiobostrom.com/

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Outline:

(00:18) Abstract

(00:32) 1. Definition

(01:35) 2. Examples and Elaboration

(05:42) 3. Advantages with a Singleton

(08:02) 4. Disadvantages with a Singleton

(10:14) 5. The Singleton Hypothesis

By Carl Shulman and Nick Bostrom.

Abstract:
Human capital is an important determinant of individual and aggregate economic outcomes, and a major input to scientific progress. It has been suggested that advances in genomics may open up new avenues to enhance human intellectual abilities genetically, complementing environmental interventions such as education and nutrition. One way to do this would be via embryo selection in the context of in vitro fertilization (IVF). In this article, we analyze the feasibility, timescale, and possible societal impacts of embryo selection for cognitive enhancement. We find that embryo selection, on its own, may have significant (but likely not drastic) impacts over the next 50 years, though large effects could accumulate over multiple generations. However, there is a complementary technology – stem cell-derived gametes – which has been making rapid progress and which could amplify the impact of embryo selection, enabling very large changes if successfully applied to humans.

Read the full paper:
https://nickbostrom.com/papers/embryo.pdf

More episodes at:
https://radiobostrom.com/

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Outline:

(00:28) Abstract

(01:42) Policy Implications

(03:27) From carrier-screening to cognitive enhancement

(07:42) Impact of cognitive ability

(11:20) How much cognitive enhancement from embryo selection?

(13:56) (Text Resumes)

(19:16) Stem-cell derived gametes could produce much larger effects

(21:55) Rate of adoption and public opinion

(24:35) (Text Resumes)

(27:17) Total impacts on human capital

(32:30) (Text Resumes)

(35:32) Conclusions

By Nick Bostrom.

Abstract:
The good life: just how good could it be? A vision of the future from the future.

Read the full paper:
https://nickbostrom.com/utopia

More episodes at:
https://radiobostrom.com/

By Nick Bostrom.

Abstract:
Technological revolutions are among the most important things that happen to humanity. Ethical assessment in the incipient stages of a potential technological revolution faces several difficulties, including the unpredictability of their long‐term impacts, the problematic role of human agency in bringing them about, and the fact that technological revolutions rewrite not only the material conditions of our existence but also reshape culture and even – perhaps – human nature. This essay explores some of these difficulties and the challenges they pose for a rational assessment of the ethical and policy issues associated with anticipated technological revolutions.

Read the full paper:
https://nickbostrom.com/revolutions.pdf

More episodes at:
https://radiobostrom.com/

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Outline:

(01:22) 1. Introduction

(06:28) 2. ELSI research, and public concerns about science and technology

(16:29) 3. Unpredictability

(32:50) 4. Strategic considerations in S&T policy

(47:37) 5. Limiting the scope of our deliberations?

(01:04:59) 6. Expanding the scope of our deliberations?

By Nick Bostrom and Julian Savulescu.

Abstract:
Are we good enough? If not, how may we improve ourselves? Must we restrict ourselves to traditional methods like study and training? Or should we also use science to enhance some of our mental and physical capacities more directly?

Over the last decade, human enhancement has grown into a major topic of debate in applied ethics. Interest has been stimulated by advances in the biomedical sciences, advances which to many suggest that it will become increasingly feasible to use medicine and technology to reshape, manipulate, and enhance many aspects of human biology even in healthy individuals. To the extent that such interventions are on the horizon (or already available) there is an obvious practical dimension to these debates. This practical dimension is underscored by an outcrop of think tanks and activist organizations devoted to the biopolitics of enhancement.

Read the full paper:
https://nickbostrom.com/ethics/human-enhancement-ethics.pdf

More episodes at:
https://radiobostrom.com/

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Outline:

(00:20) 1. Background

(08:46) 2. Enhancement in General

(24:14) 3. Enhancements of Certain Kinds

(43:48) 4. Enhancement as Practical Challenge

(47:48) 5. Conclusion

By Nick Bostrom and Matthew van der Merwe.

Abstract:
Sooner or later a technology capable of wiping out human civilisation might be invented. How far would we go to stop it?

Read the full paper:
https://aeon.co/essays/none-of-our-technologies-has-managed-to-destroy-humanity-yet

Links:
- The Vulnerable World Hypothesis (2019) (original academic paper)
- The Vulnerable World Hypothesis (2019) (narration by Radio Bostrom)

Notes:
This article is an adaption of Bostrom's academic paper "The Vulnerable World Hypothesis (2019)".

The article was first published in Aeon Magazine. The narration was provided by Curio. We are grateful to Aeon and Curio for granting us permission to re-use the audio. Curio are offering Radio Bostrom listeners a 25% discount on their annual subscription.

By Nick Bostrom.

Abstract:
Within a utilitarian context, one can perhaps try to explicate [crucial considerations] as follows: a crucial consideration is a consideration that radically changes the expected value of pursuing some high-level subgoal. The idea here is that you have some evaluation standard that is fixed, and you form some overall plan to achieve some high-level subgoal. This is your idea of how to maximize this evaluation standard. A crucial consideration, then, would be a consideration that radically changes the expected value of achieving this subgoal, and we will see some examples of this. Now if you stop limiting your view to some utilitarian context, then you might want to retreat to these earlier more informal formulations, because one of the things that could be questioned is utilitarianism itself. But for most of this talk we will be thinking about that component.

Read the full paper:
https://www.effectivealtruism.org/articles/crucial-considerations-and-wise-philanthropy-nick-bostrom

More episodes at:
https://radiobostrom.com/

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Outline:

(00:14) What is a crucial consideration?

(04:27) Should I vote in the national election?

(08:18) Should we favor more funding for x-risk tech research?

(14:32) Crucial considerations and utilitarianism

(18:52) Evaluation Functions

(19:03) Some tentative signposts

(20:35) (Text resumes)

(27:28) Possible areas with additional crucial considerations

(30:03) Some partial remedies

By Nick Bostrom.

Abstract:
With very advanced technology, a very large population of people living happy lives could be sustained in the accessible region of the universe. For every year that development of such technologies and colonization of the universe is delayed, there is therefore an opportunity cost: a potential good, lives worth living, is not being realized. Given some plausible assumptions, this cost is extremely large. However, the lesson for utilitarians is not that we ought to maximize the pace of technological development, but rather that we ought to maximize its safety, i.e. the probability that colonization will eventually occur.

Read the full paper:
https://nickbostrom.com/astronomical/waste

More episodes at:
https://radiobostrom.com/

By Nick Bostrom.

Abstract:
This paper argues that at least one of the following propositions is true: (1) the human species is very likely to go extinct before reaching a “posthuman” stage; (2) any posthuman civilization is extremely unlikely to run a significant number of simulations of their evolutionary history (or variations thereof); (3) we are almost certainly living in a computer simulation. It follows that the belief that there is a significant chance that we will one day become posthumans who run ancestor‐simulations is false, unless we are currently living in a simulation. A number of other consequences of this result are also discussed.

Read the full paper:
https://www.simulation-argument.com/simulation.pdf

More episodes at:
https://radiobostrom.com/

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Outline:

(00:19) Abstract

(01:11) Section 1. Introduction

(04:08) Section 2. The Assumption of Substrate-independence

(06:32) Section 3. The Technological Limits of Computation

(15:53) Section 4. The Core of the Simulation Argument

(16:58) Section 5. A Bland Indifference Principle

(22:57) Section 6. Interpretation

(35:22) Section 7. Conclusion

(36:53) Acknowledgements