The AI future where humans get paid to be creative

Most AI futures give us two options: mass unemployment, or a government handout to soften the blow. But what if there's a third option, one centered on completely new categories of creative work that don't yet exist, where people get paid for contributing to AI rather than replaced by it?In this episode, we talk with Jaron Lanier, pioneer of virtual reality and scientist at Microsoft Research. He proposes a radically different way of thinking about AI, and unpacks its consequences from AI safety to the future of the economy.We touch on:The case for thinking of AI not as an alien intelligence, but rather as a collaboration of human dataHow this reframe helps you understand the failures of current AI systems, and why so many of the industry's most powerful figures seem to be losing their grip on realityA practical approach to AI safety inspired by multi-factor authentication in cybersecurityWhy universal basic income is unstable, and why a creativity economy (where people earn from their contributions to AI) could be a better way of distributing the benefits of AIHow to be an optimist about technological progress while acknowledging the risks and being critical of certain developmentsWhy history gives us the most rational grounds for optimism about our future with AITimestamps:0:00 Cold open0:50 40 years in Silicon Valley: how tech became a pseudo world government4:19 Self-driving cars, Tesla, and the moral paradox of tech progress7:13 Why "artificial intelligence" is a marketing term, and how you should think about it instead15:16 AI as human collaboration: what it makes possible and how it makes you a better user21:37 From the Turing test to the truth crisis: how science shifted from seeking truth to performing it25:36 Data dignity: going back to the people to solve AI's biggest safety failures32:55 The alternate future worth building, and challenging the AI orthodoxy38:41 Why UBI won't work and why a creativity-based economy is more stable45:20 How to be an optimist about technological progress while acknowledging the risksOn the Existential Hope Podcast hosts Allison Duettmann and Beatrice Erkers from the Foresight Institute invite scientists, founders, and philosophers for in-depth conversations on positive, high-tech futures. Full transcript, listed resources, and more: https://www.existentialhope.com/podcastsFollow on X. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.