Martin Rees - If They’re Conscious, We Should Step Aside (Worthy Successor, Episode 12)

This new installment of the Worthy Successor series is an interview with the brilliant Martin Rees - British cosmologist, astrophysicist, and one of the most philosophically courageous thinkers alive today.

In this interview we explore his belief that humanity is just a stepping stone between Darwinian life and a new form of intelligent design - not divinely ordained, but constructed by artificial minds building successors of their own. For Martin, the true tragedy would not be losing our species, but squandering the opportunity to seed a vastly more diverse and potent future.

The interview is our twelfth installment in The Trajectory’s second series, Worthy Successor, where we explore the kinds of posthuman intelligences that deserve to steer the future beyond humanity.

This episode referred to the following other essay:

-- A Worthy Successor - The Purpose of AGI: https://danfaggella.com/worthy/

Listen to this episode on The Trajectory Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-trajectory/id1739255954

Watch the full episode on YouTube: https://youtu.be/3rmxydNqsoU

See the full article from this episode: https://danfaggella.com/rees1

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About The Trajectory:

AGI and man-machine merger are going to radically expand the process of life beyond humanity -- so how can we ensure a good trajectory for future life?

From Yoshua Bengio to Nick Bostrom, from Michael Levin to Peter Singer, we discuss how to positively influence the trajectory of posthuman life with the greatest minds in AI, biology, philosophy, and policy.

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