5 questions for Nick Bostrom

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With help from Derek Robertson

Welcome back to our regular Friday feature, The Future in Five Questions. Today we have Nick Bostrom, the author of “Superintelligence” — the New York Times bestselling book that united Elon Musk and Bill Gates over concerns about the existential risks of AI. His ongoing research focuses on, among other things, whether AI should have rights. Responses have been edited for length and clarity.

What’s one underrated big idea?

The moral status of future digital minds. The idea is that as AI systems become more sophisticated and match smaller mammals in their capabilities — and then even more so, as they approach human capabilities — that they might begin to have claims to moral status to match. This issue is very much on the fringes of the debate, even though it’s roughly now where AI safety was in the 2012-2014 period.

It would be premature for legislation to enter this area. There are still so many fundamental unknowns here. We don’t have a good grasp exactly of what the criteria would be for when a digital mind is conscious or when it has other properties that might grant moral status.

What’s a technology you think is overhyped?

A few years ago, I thought 3D printing was overhyped. Like, oh, in the future, everybody will have a 3D printer in their home! It always seemed implausible to me that you would want to print out your little plastic utensils and replace your china with that. Even if you could print out that coffee mug, how much of a limiting factor was getting a hold of a coffee mug for consumers in the first place?

What book most shaped your conception of the future?

K. Eric Drexler’s “Engines of Creation,” where he laid out his vision for the future of nanotechnology back in 1986. Then there was a book by a philosopher, John Leslie, “The End of the World,” which was an early example of trying to think about risks to our future. And also a book by Hans Moravec, “Mind Children,” that was an early discussion about the future of AI.

What could government be doing regarding tech that it isn’t?

Lawmakers and regulators should be more on top of the rapid advances in synthetic biology.

The culture in the field of nuclear physics looked very different after Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Nuclear physicists realized that what they were doing was not just creative science, but that they had some responsibility and a need for secrecy when their work could be used to manufacture nuclear weapons technology.

That same understanding is not very widespread in the biotech world. There is still an emphasis on democratizing access and open publishing and making tools available, but it is a field as dangerous as nuclear physics — more so, in fact, because even if you knew exactly all the designs, tools and tips needed to manufacture nuclear weapons, you could still not make one because you’d need very difficult-to-obtain raw materials, whereas in biology, you’re not really limited to any difficult ingredients — so all you require is the knowledge.

What has surprised you most this year?

The failure to fund the pandemic preparedness bill — specifically the failure to get it fully funded the first time around. I had thought, given COVID, this would be one of the few things that would have bipartisan support. I would have thought that a lot of political interests would have been served in pushing for this.

no cap?

POLITICO’s Morning Money had a report this morning on a proposal to have the Commodity Futures Trading Commission regulate crypto — and the internecine fight it’s touched off in the industry.

Blockchain Association Executive Director Kristin Smith told MM’s Sam Sutton and Kate Davidson that the legislative proposal “doesn’t seem to be totally ready for primetime yet,” reflecting the controversy that’s sprouted over a few potential key changes in a draft posted by crypto attorney Gabriel Shapiro.

One objection was fairly predictable: Some of those changes would more closely involve the SEC in crypto regulation, something that’s anathema to the industry. The other objection came from unlikely quarters, however: The progressive Center For American Progress, which had endorsed the bill in an attempt to persuade Democrats to back a measure that could at least provide some modicum of regulation and consumer protection for the industry.

Get the whole story, including a threat from CAP’s Todd Phillips that he could still “change [his] position on the bill and work to defeat it,” over at Morning Money. — Derek Robertson

the state of ai

As AI takes over the tech world, what do the investors with skin in the game think about the past year’s dizzying slate of developments and their potential policy implications?

The pithily titled “State of AI Report 2022,” from AI investors Nathan Benaich and Ian Hogarth, gives a little bit of insight. The document is packed with analysis of what’s been going on at the cutting edges of research and within the tech industry, but the “politics” section of the report has some particularly relevant insights, including:

Academia has almost entirely fallen behind industry when it comes to research, with implications for “AI safety, pursuing diverse ideas, talent concentration, and more”
AI is earning big investments in the defense industry, including Anduril’s $7 billion contract with the Department of Defense
China being cut off from NVIDIA and AMD chips could spark their own homegrown AI R&D

The report also tackles safety, noting that the UK and EU are far more proactive on the topic even as researchers across the globe grow increasingly concerned. — Derek Robertson

the future in 5 links

Take a look at some of the ways AI is already transforming artists’ craft.
Microsoft is giving a major boost to its investment in OpenAI.
Some Chinese manufacturers are already skirting the Biden administration’s chip bans.
A new age of bloody drone warfare is dawning in Ukraine.
A Web3 investor thinks Meta needs to pump even more money into the metaverse.