Physicist Max Tegmark on Life 3.0: What We Do Makes a Difference
Socrates / Featured Podcasts, Podcasts
Posted on: June 15, 2018 / Last Modified: March 18, 2024
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Some people say that renowned MIT physicist Max Tegmark is totally bonkers and refer to him as “Mad Max”. But, to quote Lewis Carroll from Alice in Wonderland, “All the best people are.” Furthermore, I am not sure if Tegmark is “mad” but I am pretty sure he is very much “fun” because I had a total blast interviewing him on my Singularity.FM podcast.
During our 90 min conversation with Max Tegmark we cover a variety of interesting topics such as: curiosity and being a scientist; reality and math; intelligence, AI and AGI; the technological singularity; Life 3.0: Being Human in the Age of Artificial Intelligence; populating the universe; Frank J. Tipler’s Omega Point; the Age of Em and the inevitability of our future; why both me and Max went vegan; the Future of Life Institute; human stupidity and nuclear war; technological unemployment.
My favorite quote that I will take away from this conversation with Max Tegmark is:
It is not our universe giving meaning to us, it is us giving meaning to our universe.
As always you can listen to or download the audio file above or scroll down and watch the video interview in full. To show your support you can write a review on iTunes, make a direct donation or become a patron on Patreon.
Who is Max Tegmark?
Max Tegmark is driven by curiosity, both about how our universe works and about how we can use the science and technology we discover to help humanity flourish rather than flounder.
Max Tegmark is an MIT professor who loves thinking about life’s big questions. He’s written two popular books, Our Mathematical Universe: My Quest for the Ultimate Nature of Reality and the recently published Life 3.0: Being Human in the Age of Artificial Intelligence, as well as more than 200 nerdy technical papers on topics from cosmology to AI.
He writes: “In my spare time, I’m president of the Future of Life Institute, which aims to ensure that we develop not only technology but also the wisdom required to use it beneficially.”
Previous Singularity.FM episodes mentioned during this interview:
Robin Hanson (part 2): Social Science or Extremist Politics in Disguise?!
Frank J. Tipler: The Laws of Physics Say The Singularity is Inevitable!
