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Back to Peter Thiel: “We Need to Hit the Accelerator as Hard as Possible” on AI, with Peter Thiel.

Is Survival the Only Goal for Humanity?

Peter Thiel says survival cannot be the only goal for humanity. It is an extremely important goal, and he wants humanity both to survive and to flourish.

Humanity can survive if nothing changes, though things might go very haywire without growth. Silicon Valley is quite bad at the meaning of technology, and it may not be up to Silicon Valley to articulate a single meaning. Part of progress has to avoid existential risks, and technology can be a way to avoid them. Nuclear power is a carbon neutral technology to lean into so humanity can survive in a more carbon neutral way.

The long pause came from hearing a Luddite question underneath: why is it not good enough for things to continue as they are, without improvement that might be dangerous? Enlightenment science in the 17th and 18th centuries had the relief of man's estate as its project. Life was supposed to be more than nasty, brutish, and short. He does not see why it is not desirable to make life significantly longer, or at least to cure terrible diseases that still exist. Flourishing may not happen without progress.

Grokipedia·Peter Thiel·Silicon Valley

Transcript

Peter Thiel: “We Need to Hit the Accelerator as Hard as Possible” on AI ·

The Builders

More from this episode

  1. Will AI Make the Median Person Better Off?Peter Thiel expects AI to leave the median person better off, with the qualifier that nobody really knows and nobody can be certain.
  2. Should the United States Pause AI?Peter Thiel says the United States should not pause AI. He is not in the pause camp, and he says the country needs to hit the accelerator as hard as possible.
  3. How Likely Is an AI Doomsday?Peter Thiel does not think AI is going to kill everybody on the planet.
  4. What Does Peter Thiel Mean by the Antichrist?Peter Thiel means a medieval, biblical tyrant who would rule the whole world at the end of history.
  5. Why Does Peter Thiel Talk About the Antichrist?Peter Thiel talks about the Antichrist because the religious wording keeps one world government from winning without any questions.
  6. Are the People Building AI Good?Peter Thiel scores the people building AI companies as far more good than bad across the board.
  7. Is Evil Better Than Incompetence?Peter Thiel ranks good above evil, and evil above incompetence.
  8. Will AI Ever Be Conscious?Peter Thiel does not think AI is conscious, and he does not think it ever will be.

People

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