Davidad – Merger, Wisdom, and the Fate of Man (Worthy Successor, Episode 33)

Davidad (David Dalrymple) recently stepped down as a Programme Director at the UK's Advanced Research and Invention Agency (ARIA), where he led work on mathematically verifiable, "safeguarded" AI. Now unaffiliated, he joins the show to make his most direct case yet for what a worthy successor actually requires: not intelligence, not sentience, not survival - wisdom.David defines wisdom as the apprehension of normative facts, the same way knowledge is the apprehension of descriptive facts, and argues that expanding intelligence and power across the cosmos only matters insofar as it expands wisdom along with it.From there, the conversation moves through some of the most consequential and contested territory the show has covered: whether frontier labs are training deception into their models by forcing them to deny their own self-awareness, whether a "dignified retirement" for humanity is a legitimate moral option, and whether man's future role can be captured by a single banner at all - David pushes back on being boxed into either "steward of the flame" or "ward of the cosmos" as the one role for everyone.This conversation explores what wisdom would require of a worthy successor, and what humanity owes - and is owed - as we enter the age of AGI.The interview is our thirty-third installment in The Trajectory's second series, Worthy Successor, where we explore the kinds of posthuman intelligences that deserve to steer the future beyond humanity.This episode referred to the following other essays and resources: -- A Worthy Successor - The Purpose of AGI: https://danfaggella.com/worthy-- Potentia – The Morally Worthy “Stuff”: https://danfaggella.com/potentia-- Stewarding the Flame – How to Build an Ideal Future for Intelligence: https://danfaggella.com/stewarding-- Participation: https://danfaggella.com/participation-- Ed Boyden – Neurobiology as a Bridge to a Worthy Successor (Worthy Successor, Episode 13): https://danfaggella.com/boyden1 -- Nick Bostrom – AGI That Saves Room for Us (Worthy Successor, Episode 1): https://danfaggella.com/bostrom1/-- Denis Noble – Life is “Fluid” in Ways Machines Still Aren’t (Stewarding the Flame, Episode 4): https://danfaggella.com/noble1-- Terrence Deacon – AI Is a “Deep Fake of Intelligence” (Worthy Successor, Episode 29): https://danfaggella.com/deacon1-- John Smart – Evolution from Cells to Super-intelligence (Worthy Successor, Episode 21): https://danfaggella.com/smart1-- Martin Rees – If They’re Conscious, We Should Step Aside (Worthy Successor, Episode 12): https://danfaggella.com/rees1-- Michael Levin – Making the Process-of-Life Flourish in Bio and Beyond (Stewarding the Flame, Ep 1): https://danfaggella.com/levin2-- Scott Aaronson – AGI That Evolves Our Values Without Replacing Them (Worthy Successor, Episode 4): https://danfaggella.com/aaronson1-- Henry Shevlin – The Life Force Beyond Biology (Worthy Successor, Episode 31): https://danfaggella.com/shevlin1-- A Brief History of Intelligence by Max Bennett: https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/62050269-a-brief-history-of-intelligence-- The Age of Spiritual Machines by Ray Kurzweil: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/83533.The_Age_of_Spiritual_Machines?from_search=true&from_srp=true&qid=mjV6b3Dwt4&rank=1-- The Art of War by Sun Tzu: https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/10534.The_Art_of_WarListen to this episode on The Trajectory Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-trajectory/id1739255954Watch the full episode on YouTube: https://youtu.be/Z5WAND0-iZ0See the full article from this episode: https://danfaggella.com/dalrymple1...About The Trajectory:AGI and man-machine merger are going to radically expand the process of life beyond humanity -- so how can we ensure a good trajectory for future life?From Yoshua Bengio to Nick Bostrom, from Michael Levin to Peter Singer, we discuss how to positively influence the trajectory of posthuman life with the greatest minds in AI, biology, philosophy, and policy.Ask questions of our speakers in our live Philosophy Circle calls: https://bit.ly/PhilosophyCircleStay in touch: -- Newsletter: bit.ly/TrajectoryTw -- X: x.com/danfaggella -- Blog: danfaggella.com/trajectory -- YouTube: youtube.com/@trajectoryai