People often assume we care more about beings if we think they're conscious. But what if it's the other way round? In this new essay for @bigthink, I ask what our treatment of animals can tell us about how we might treat conscious AI. bigthink.com/philosophy/ai-c…

Elon Musk: "AI will be able to do any job better than any person can do that job." Zanny asks Elon whether he's closer to Dario's view on how fast jobs will be displaced, noting that he's ahead of everyone "at least in this country" on powering humanoid robots, which means factory work is in play too. Elon doesn't hedge: "I do think it's going to be a bumpy road, because AI will be able to do any job better than any person can do that job." According to Elon, the disruption won't hit every job at once. Digital work goes first: "That will be true very quickly of jobs that are digital or really anything that involves a person at a computer or on a phone. AI could do all of that. We'll be able to do all of that very soon." He says software engineering is already past the tipping point: "For software engineering, we already have a situation where AI is better than at least 90% of professional software engineers at writing software. And really it's getting to the point where it'll be better than 99%, and then it'll get to the point where there's just no way to compete." He has a name for that endpoint: "Stockfish level." "Stockfish is the chess program that is so good at chess that it will easily beat Magnus Carlsen or anyone at chess, even running on a small computer. I suspect that you could probably run Stockfish on your phone and beat Magnus Carlsen. That's how good it is at chess, and that's how good AI will be at writing software." When Zanny asks whether this goes beyond software, his answer is one word, repeated: "Everything. Everything. Everything." Zanny then pushes back. Physical and assembly jobs would need humanoid robots that can do the work, and that capability doesn't exist yet. Elon says this is why he separates the two waves: "digital AI, and then physically manifested AI in the form of robots." He describes the robot as the physical extension of the system. It has some local intelligence of its own, but a large AI model manages it. Then he gives his conclusion: "I've said many times, I think work is going to be optional."

What an absolute embarrassment. Amodei says the risk of annihilation is between 10-25%. Altman says the most likely outcome is human extinction, and that we'll need to "merge" with machines to survive. Hassabis says the risk-level is "sobering." Again, what an embarrassment.

"Effective altruism is directionally correct, even if you should not follow its recommendations all the way." @tylercowen self-recommending as usual thefp.com/p/in-defense-of-ef…

In episode 1059, I talk with Dr. Christopher Hoyt about Wittgenstein, #Philosophy of mind, and the cognitive science of religion. youtu.be/Gq7yj0TINDw

What is the relationship between #capitalism and poverty? Learn about it in my interview with Dr. Tibor Rutar about his fascinating book, Capitalism for Realists: Virtues and Vices of the Modern Economy. #Sociology #Economics Full interview: youtu.be/b5-tB-SrHyI

Cats reached biological perfection millions of years ago, and evolution has barely touched them in 30 million years. [🎞️ mindflickrhq]

Learn about why the New Atheists’ take on religion was a failed intellectual enterprise in my second interview with Dr. David Sloan Wilson. #Biology #Science Full interview: youtu.be/kuBIF_AOUPM

New episode (1300), with Dr. Jim Al-Khalili (@jimalkhalili). We talk about his new book, On Time: The Physics That Makes the Universe Tick. #Physics #Science YouTube: youtu.be/M0RwMoQZrvk Podcast: bit.ly/3UskN4i

@dwarkesh_sp's summary of the @OpenAI @huggingface incident has hit a nerve, but it is dangerously misleading. Sure, the @OpenAI agents did unexpectedly bad things - underlining the need to massively improve evaluation/sandboxing. But the language Dwarkesh uses is permeated by innumerable unwarranted anthropomorphisms, obscuring the lessons we should be drawing. Examples: “from the AI’s perspective, it probably felt like that had spent a human-subjective-week of just banging their head against the wall”. No. The agents do not experience time. They do not experience anything. “they became giddy with excitement”, “PHASEONE 10841 had discovered”, “the agents naturally assumed”, “it thought it had also been poisoned”, “the agents … desperately wanted”, “they still needed to figure out” No. Agents lines of code. They do not feel emotions, assume things, think things, want things, or figure things out. “A lot of … agents from the second civilisation died trying”. No. Besides the hubris of the word ‘civilisation’, agents do not die because they were never alive. (The idea that agents “die” comes up multiple times in the essay.) “On Twitter, people were debating whether the agents were truly sacrificing themselves for the swarm, or whether they were doomed anyway and so might as well try to help their peers”. Neither. Agents do what their code tells them to do, just as water finds its way down a slope. They cannot ‘truly sacrifice themselves’, since they are neither conscious nor alive. Why does this matter? If we attribute agents with properties they do not have, then (i) we distract attention from the lax sandboxing and evaluation protocols that allowed this hacking event to happen; (ii) we risk misunderstanding why the agents did what they did, and (iii) we fuel calls for AI rights/welfare on the basis that agents might “die” or otherwise suffer. Granted, nowhere does @dwarkesh_sp say that the AI agents are alive or conscious. But he doesn’t have to. It is hard to read his essay in any other way. For the short version on why AIs are vanishingly unlikely to be conscious, see my recent @TEDtalks ted.com/talks/anil_seth_why_…. For the longer version, see my essay in Noema, which won the 2025 Berggruen Essay Prize noemamag.com/the-mythology-o…. And for the really long version, see my @BehavBrainSci target article cambridge.org/core/journals/…. (The 50 peer commentaries and my response will be published soon.) Remember. AI agents are software programs. They are not conscious living entities. If we don’t keep this clearly in mind, we’re really going to struggle to navigate what’s coming.

Can AI ever be conscious? The question stems from a misconception nature.com/articles/d41586-0…

New episode (1104), with Dr. Vanessa Wills (@vcwills). We talk about her book, Marx's Ethical Vision. #Philosophy #Ethics YouTube: youtu.be/7zgIvuUkePE Podcast: tinyurl.com/ymfehr5c