"More than 20 years ago, futurist intellectual Nick Bostrom upended the psyches of tech bros the world around when he proposed in a 2003 Philosophical Quarterly paper that we all may be living in a computer simulation."
"Beloved by such strange bedfellows as Elon Musk, Bill Gates, and Sam Altman, Bostrom has released two other influential missives - 2014's " Superintelligence: Paths, Dangers, Strategies," which detailed the ways AI could become smarter than humans, and 2024's " Deep Utopia: Life and Meaning in a Solved World," which ponders on what will happen if AI fixes everything - in the interim."
"He also was embroiled in a minor controversy after a very racist email he sent in the 1990s was uncovered in 2023, and the following year, his Future of Humanity Institute at Oxford was shut down in what the philosopher lamented as " death by bureaucracy." Now, speaking from the other side of the AI boom of the past few years, Bostrom has begun seeing, as he told The London Standard, some of his predictions about AI start coming to fruition in real-time."
Nick Bostrom proposed the simulation hypothesis in 2003, suggesting humans might be living in a computer simulation. He authored Superintelligence (2014), which outlined pathways for AI to surpass human intelligence, and Deep Utopia (2024), which considered consequences if AI resolves major problems. A racist email from the 1990s surfaced in 2023, and the Future of Humanity Institute at Oxford was later closed amid claims of "death by bureaucracy." Recent AI progress has matched some earlier predictions, showing rapid development and apparent movement toward artificial general intelligence, while earlier warnings about existential risk have been qualified.
Read at Futurism
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