We’re a think tank dedicated to individual liberty, highlighting the threats from extremists and radical ideologies. Follow our work at Westminster-Institute.org
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Anticipating and managing exponential impact - hosts David Wood and Calum Chace Calum Chace is a sought-after keynote speaker and best-selling writer on artificial intelligence. He focuses on the medium- and long-term impact of AI on all of us, our societies and our economies. He advises companies and governments on AI policy. His non-fiction books on AI are Surviving AI, about superintelligence, and The Economic Singularity, about the future of jobs. Both are now in their third editions. He ...
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NextGen Marxism | Mike Gonzalez and Katharine Gorka
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A deep dive into the strategies and tactics used by the radical left in recent years to undermine the institutions of the United States, along with suggestions for how to counter their advances. Many Americans believe that the United States is in decline. They see a country that has become unrecognizable: where individuals are reduced to their race…
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Ukraine-Russia Debate | Herman Pirchner and Dr. Stephen Bryen
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Herman Pirchner is the president of the American Foreign Policy Council, which was founded back in 1982 in Washington to provide some well thought out perspectives on foreign policy questions. In 1982, Herman was the president of the American Foreign Policy Council, and today more than forty years later he remains as the president of this important…
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A narrow path to a good future with AI, with Andrea Miotti
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Our guest in this episode is Andrea Miotti, the founder and executive director of ControlAI. On their website, ControlAI have the tagline, “Fighting to keep humanity in control”. Control over what, you might ask. The website answers: control deepfakes, control scaling, control foundation models, and, yes, control AI. The latest project from Control…
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Gen AI cuts costs by 30%: lessons from a leading law firm, with David Wakeling
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Our guest in this episode is David Wakeling, a partner at A&O Shearman, which became the world’s third largest law firm in May, thanks to the merger of Allen and Overy, a UK “magic circle” firm, with Shearman & Sterling of New York. David heads up a team within the firm called the Markets Innovation Group (MIG), which consists of lawyers, developer…
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Will Javier Milei Succeed in Argentina?
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Will Javier Milei Succeed in Argentina? Mark Klugmann is a policy reforms strategist with four decades of experience advising political leaders in the United States and Latin America. Klugmann has advised seven presidents in Latin America and has helped their governments to design and win approval of multiple financial, regulatory, and infrastructu…
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Putin and Xi’s Strategic Relationship: How Long Can It Last?
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Putin and Xi’s Strategic Relationship: How Long Can It Last? Dean Cheng is a senior advisor to the China program at the U.S. Institute of Peace. He joined USIP from The Heritage Foundation, where he spent over a decade as a senior research fellow on Chinese political and security affairs. He has written extensively on China’s military doctrine, the…
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The Index of U.S. Military Strength
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The Index of U.S. Military Strength (Lt. Col. James Carafano) James Jay Carafano is Senior Counselor to the President and E.W. Richardson Fellow at The Heritage Foundation. A leading expert in national security and foreign policy challenges, Carafano previously served as the Vice President of Heritage’s Kathryn and Shelby Cullom Davis Institute for…
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The Devil and Communist China | From Mao Down to Xi
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The Devil and Communist China | From Mao Down to Xi (Steven W. Mosher) About the speaker Steven W. Mosher is an internationally recognized authority on China and population issues, as well as an acclaimed author, speaker. He has worked tirelessly since 1979 to fight coercive population control programs and has helped hundreds of thousands of women …
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Climate change and populism: Grounds for optimism? with Matt Burgess
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Our guest in this episode is Matt Burgess. Matt is an Assistant Professor at the University of Wyoming, where he moved this year after six years at the University of Boulder, Colorado. He has specialised in the economics of climate change. Calum met Matt at a recent event in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, and knows from their conversations then that Matt h…
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Rejuvenation biotech - progress and potential, with Karl Pfleger
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Our guest in this episode is Karl Pfleger. Karl is an angel investor in rejuvenation biotech startups, and is also known for creating and maintaining the website Aging Biotech Info. That website describes itself as “Structured info about aging and longevity”, and has the declared mission statement, “Everything important in the field (outside of aca…
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ChatGPT runs for president, with Pedro Domingos
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Our guest today is Pedro Domingos, who is joining an elite group of repeat guests – he joined us before in episode 34 in April 2023. Pedro is Professor Emeritus Of Computer Science and Engineering at the University of Washington. He has done pioneering work in machine learning, like the development of Markov logic networks, which combine probabilis…
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The rise of digital pandemics, with James Ball
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Our guest in this episode is the journalist and author James Ball. James has worked for the Bureau of Investigative Journalism, The Guardian, WikiLeaks, BuzzFeed, The New European, and The Washington Post, among other organisations. As special projects editor at The Guardian, James played a key role in the Pulitzer Prize-winning coverage of the NSA…
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Thinking more athletically about the future, with Brett King and Rob Tercek
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In this episode, we have not one guest but two – Brett King and Robert Tercek, the hosts of the Futurists Podcast. Brett King is originally from Australia, and is now based in Thailand. He is a renowned author, and the founder of a breakthrough digital bank. He consults extensively with clients in the financial services industry. Robert Tercek, bas…
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The low-cost future of preserving brains, with Jordan Sparks
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Our guest in this episode is Jordan Sparks, the founder and executive director of Oregon Brain Preservation (OBP), which is located at Salem, the capital city of Oregon. OBP offers the service of chemically preserving the brain in the hope of future restoration. Previously, Jordan was a dentist and a computer programmer, and he was successful enoug…
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Surveillance and diversity: surprising insights from the Gulf, with Holly Joint
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Our guest in this episode is Holly Joint, who was born and educated in the UK, but lives in Abu Dhabi in the UAE. Holly started her career with five years at the business consultancy Accenture, and then worked in telecomms and banking. The latter took her to the Gulf, where she then spent what must have been a fascinating year as programme director…
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The double-edged sword of technology, with Wendell Wallach
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How do we keep technology from slipping beyond our control? That’s the subtitle of the latest book by our guest in this episode, Wendell Wallach. Wendell is the Carnegie-Uehiro fellow at Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs, where he co-directs the Artificial Intelligence & Equality Initiative. He is also Emeritus Chair of Technolog…
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Stop cryocrastinating! with Emil Kendziorra
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Our guest in this episode is Dr. Emil Kendziorra. Emil graduated summa cum laude, which means, with the highest honours, from the University of Göttingen in Germany, having previously studied at the University of Pécs in Hungary. For several years, he then devoted himself to cancer research with the hope of contributing to longevity science. After …
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Introducing Conscium, with Daniel Hulme and Ted Lappas
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This episode is a bit different from the usual, because we are interviewing Calum's boss. Calum says that mainly to tease him, because he thinks the word “boss” is a dirty word. His name is Daniel Hulme, and this is his second appearance on the podcast. He was one of our earliest guests, long ago, in episode 8. Back then, Daniel had just sold his A…
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Taming the Machine, with Nell Watson
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Those who rush to leverage AI’s power without adequate preparation face difficult blowback, scandals, and could provoke harsh regulatory measures. However, those who have a balanced, informed view on the risks and benefits of AI, and who, with care and knowledge, avoid either complacent optimism or defeatist pessimism, can harness AI’s potential, a…
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AI Impacts Survey - The key implications, with Katja Grace
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Our guest in this episode grew up in an abandoned town in Tasmania, and is now a researcher and blogger in Berkeley, California. After taking a degree in human ecology and science communication, Katja Grace co-founded AI Impacts, a research organisation trying to answer questions about the future of artificial intelligence. Since 2016, Katja and he…
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Cryonics, cryocrastination, and the future: changing minds, with Max More
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Our guest in this episode is Max More. Max is a philosopher, a futurist, and a transhumanist - a term which he coined in 1990, the same year that he legally changed his name from O’Connor to More. One of the tenets of transhumanism is that technology will allow us to prevent and reverse the aging process, and in the meantime we can preserve our bra…
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Stem cells, lab-grown meat, and potential new medical treatments, with Mark Kotter
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Our guest in this episode is Dr. Mark Kotter. Mark is a neurosurgeon, stem cell biologist, and founder or co-founder of three biotech start-up companies that have collectively raised hundreds of millions of pounds: bit.bio, clock.bio, and Meatable. In addition, Mark still conducts neurosurgeries on patients weekly at the University of Cambridge. We…
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The economic case for a second longevity revolution, with Andrew Scott
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The public discussion in a number of countries around the world expresses worries about what is called an aging society. These countries anticipate a future with fewer younger people who are active members of the economy, and a growing number of older people who need to be supported by the people still in the workforce. It’s an inversion of the usu…
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Can AI be conscious? with Nicholas Humphrey
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In this episode we return to the subject of whether AIs will become conscious, or, to use a word from the title of the latest book from our guest today, whether AIs will become sentient. Our guest is Nicholas Humphrey, Emeritus Professor of Psychology at London School of Economics, and Bye Fellow at Darwin College, Cambridge. His latest book is “Se…
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Progress with ending aging, with Aubrey de Grey
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Our topic in this episode is progress with ending aging. Our guest is the person who literally wrote the book on that subject, namely the book, “Ending Aging: The Rejuvenation Breakthroughs That Could Reverse Human Aging in Our Lifetime”. He is Aubrey de Grey, who describes himself in his Twitter biography as “spearheading the global crusade to def…
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What’s it like to be an AI, with Anil Seth
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As artificial intelligence models become increasingly powerful, they both raise - and might help to answer - some very important questions about one of the most intriguing, fascinating aspects of our lives, namely consciousness. It is possible that in the coming years or decades, we will create conscious machines. If we do so without realising it, …
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Regulating Big Tech, with Adam Kovacevich
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Our guest in this episode is Adam Kovacevich. Adam is the Founder and CEO of the Chamber of Progress, which describes itself as a center-left tech industry policy coalition that works to ensure that all citizens benefit from technological leaps, and that the tech industry operates responsibly and fairly. Adam has had a front row seat for more than …
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The case for brain preservation, with Kenneth Hayworth
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In this episode, we are delving into the fascinating topic of mind uploading. We suspect this idea is about to explode into public consciousness, because Nick Bostrom has a new book out shortly called “Deep Utopia”, which addresses what happens if superintelligence arrives and everything goes well. It was Bostrom’s last book, “Superintelligence”, t…
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AGI alignment: the case for hope, with Lou de K
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Our guest in this episode is Lou de K, Program Director at the Foresight Institute. David recently saw Lou give a marvellous talk at the TransVision conference in Utrecht in the Netherlands, on the subject of “AGI Alignment: Challenges and Hope”. Lou kindly agreed to join us to review some of the ideas in that talk and to explore their consequences…
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The Political Singularity and a Worthy Successor, with Daniel Faggella
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Calum and David recently attended the BGI24 event in Panama City, that is, the Beneficial General Intelligence summit and unconference. One of the speakers we particularly enjoyed listening to was Daniel Faggella, the Founder and Head of Research of Emerj. Something that featured in his talk was a 3 by 3 matrix, which he calls the Intelligence Traj…
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The Longevity Singularity, with Daniel Ives
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In the wide and complex subject of biological aging, one particular kind of biological aging has been receiving a great deal of attention in recent years. That’s the field of epigenetic aging, where parts of the packaging or covering, as we might call it, of the DNA in all of our cells, alters over time, changing which genes are turned on and turne…
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Where are all the Dyson spheres? with Paul Sutter
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In this episode, we look further into the future than usual. We explore what humanity might get up to in a thousand years or more: surrounding whole stars with energy harvesting panels, sending easily detectable messages across space which will last until the stars die out. Our guide to these fascinating thought experiments in Paul M. Sutter, a NAS…
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Provably safe AGI, with Steve Omohundro
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AI systems have become more powerful in the last few years, and are expected to become even more powerful in the years ahead. The question naturally arises: what, if anything, should humanity be doing to increase the likelihood that these forthcoming powerful systems will be safe, rather than destructive? Our guest in this episode has a long and di…
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Robots and the people who love them, with Eve Herold
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In this episode, our subject is the rise of the robots – not the military kind of robots, or the automated manufacturing kind that increasingly fill factories, but social robots. These are robots that could take roles such as nannies, friends, therapists, caregivers, and lovers. They are the subject of the important new book Robots and the People W…
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Education and work - past, present, and future, with Riaz Shah
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Our guest in this episode is Riaz Shah. Until recently, Riaz was a partner at EY, where he was for 27 years, specialising in technology and innovation. Towards the end of his time at EY he became a Professor for Innovation & Leadership at Hult International Business School, where he leads sessions with senior executives of global companies. In 2016…
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What is your p(doom)? with Darren McKee
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In this episode, our subject is Uncontrollable: The Threat of Artificial Superintelligence and the Race to Save the World. That’s a new book on a vitally important subject. The book’s front cover carries this endorsement from Professor Max Tegmark of MIT: “A captivating, balanced and remarkably up-to-date book on the most important issue of our tim…
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Climate Change: There’s good news and bad news, with Nick Mabey
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Our guest in this episode is Nick Mabey, the co-founder and co-CEO of one of the world’s most influential climate change think tanks, E3G, where the name stands for Third Generation Environmentalism. As well as his roles with E3G, Nick is founder and chair of London Climate Action Week, and he has several independent appointments including as a Lon…
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Meet the electrome! with Sally Adee
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Our subject in this episode is the idea that the body uses electricity in more ways than are presently fully understood. We consider ways in which electricity, applied with care, might at some point in the future help to improve the performance of the brain, to heal wounds, to stimulate the regeneration of limbs or organs, to turn the tide against …
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Don't try to make AI safe; instead, make safe AI, with Stuart Russell
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We are honoured to have as our guest in this episode Professor Stuart Russell. Stuart is professor of computer science at the University of California, Berkeley, and the traditional way to introduce him is to say that he literally wrote the book on AI. Artificial Intelligence: A Modern Approach, which he co-wrote with Peter Norvig, was first publis…
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Are We Heading Towards World War III?
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https://westminster-institute.org/events/are-we-heading-towards-world-war-iii/
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The Future of Ukraine: A Debate
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https://westminster-institute.org/events/the-future-of-ukraine-a-debate/ Stephen Bryen is a leading expert in security strategy and technology. He has held senior positions in the Department of Defense, on Capitol Hill and as the President of a large multinational defense and technology company. Dr. Bryen has 50 years of experience in government an…
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Aligning AI, before it's too late, with Rebecca Gorman
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Our guest in this episode is Rebecca Gorman, the co-founder and CEO of Aligned AI, a start-up in Oxford which describes itself rather nicely as working to get AI to do more of the things it should do and fewer of the things it shouldn’t. Rebecca built her first AI system 20 years ago and has been calling for responsible AI development since 2010. W…
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Shazam! with Dhiraj Mukherjee
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Our guest in this episode is Dhiraj Mukherjee, best known as the co-founder of Shazam. Calum and David both still remember the sense of amazement we felt when, way back in the dotcom boom, we used Shazam to identify a piece of music from its first couple of bars. It seemed like magic, and was tangible evidence of how fast technology was moving: it …
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The Politics of Transhumanism, with James Hughes
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Our guest in this episode is James Hughes. James is a bioethicist and sociologist who serves as Associate Provost at the University of Massachusetts Boston. He is also the Executive Director of the IEET, that is the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies, which he co-founded back in 2004. The stated mission of the IEET seems to be more impo…
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How to make AI safe, according to the tech giants, with Rebecca Finlay, CEO of PAI
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The Partnership on AI was launched back in September 2016, during an earlier flurry of interest in AI, as a forum for the tech giants to meet leaders from academia, the media, and what used to be called pressure groups and are now called civil society. By 2019 more than 100 of those organisations had joined. The founding tech giants were Amazon, Fa…
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Has Wokeness Weakened the U.S. Military?
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https://westminster-institute.org/events/has-wokeness-weakened-the-u-s-military/ Col. (Ret.) Grant Newsham is a Senior Fellow with the Center for Security Policy. He is also a Research Fellow at the Japan Forum for Strategic Studies, focusing on Asia/Pacific defense, political, and economic matters. He is a retired U.S. Marine Colonel and was the f…
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The shocking problem of superintelligence, with Connor Leahy
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This is the second episode in which we discuss the upcoming Global AI Safety Summit taking place on 1st and 2nd of November at Bletchley Park in England. We are delighted to have as our guest in this episode one of the hundred or so people who will attend that summit – Connor Leahy, a German-American AI researcher and entrepreneur. In 2020 he co-fo…
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Preparing for Bletchley Park: behind the scenes, with Ollie Buckley
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The launch of GPT-4 on the 14th of March this year was shocking as well as exciting. ChatGPT had been released the previous November, and became the fastest-growing app ever. But GPT-4’s capabilities were a level beyond, and it provoked remarkable comments from people who had previously said little about the future of AI. In May, Britain’s Prime Mi…
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The future of space-based solar power, with John Bucknell
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In the future, energy will be too cheap to meter. That used to be a common vision of the future: abundant, clean energy, if not exactly free, then much cheaper than today's energy. But a funny thing happened en route to that future of energy abundance. High energy costs are still with us in 2023, and are part of what's called the cost-of-living cri…
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Warfare in Peacetime: Proxies and State Powers
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https://westminster-institute.org/events/warfare-in-peacetime-proxies-and-state-powers/ Warfare in Peacetime: Proxies and State Powers Dr. Christopher Harmon is a professor at The Institute of World Politics. He formerly held the Bren Chair of Great Power Competition at Marine Corps University (MCU) in Quantico. Dr. Harmon also directed the counter…
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