Émile Torres on Transhumanism, Longtermism and Existential Risks

My goal with this podcast has always been to be a bit of a gadfly to your as well as my intellectual growth and, hopefully, a midwife to your best ideas rather than a disseminator of a specific movement or ideology. Thus, while I’ve never hidden my personal views, I don’t try to make you a believer and follower but simply to provide important and helpful people and ideas for your consideration. What you do then is, of course, entirely up to you. Émile Torres is a philosopher and historian whose work focuses on existential threats to humanity. During this 2-hour conversation with Émile, we cover a variety of exciting topics such as escatology and teleology; determinism and inevitability; Kurzweil’s timeline and the ultimate end of the Universe; ChatGPT and AGI; the Rapture and Émile’s Baptist upbringing; watching out for our own biases and blindspots; Transhumanism, Religion, and Eugenics; the problems with defining, measuring, and boasting about (your) intelligence; Nick Bostom’s racism, narcissism, integrity, and dubious math in papers such as Astronomical Waste; the nature and danger of existential risks; the dangers of (Radical) Longtermism. As always, you can listen to or download the audio file above or scroll down and watch the video interview in full. To show your support, you can write a review on iTunes or become a patron: https://www.singularityweblog.com/donate-and-support-singularity-weblog/