The Singularity Institute Blog

Just prior to Singularity Summit 2009, Singularity Institute President Michael Vassar did a podcast with “The Skeptics Guide to the Universe”, produced by the New England Skeptical Society in association with the James Randi Educational Foundation (JREF).

Skip to 26:00 to get past the news items. Here’s a funny tidbit of Michael talking about some of the poor thinking seen when people discuss how to make AI friendly:

We have a lot of silliness, such as worst moral of the story ever… Lilo and Stitch. “If you’re just nice enough to the fundamentally evil creature, it will have to love you.”

That’s at 31:50. Also check out 41:00, where Michael explains the whole reason for having a Singularity Summit and Singularity Institute. At 49:30: “So how do we keep it from deciding that it wants to make ice cream out of human brains?”