Episode #16 - Anders Sandberg on the Ethics of Time Compression in Computing
Philosophical Disquisitions
English - December 20, 2016 10:26 - ★★★★★ - 20 ratingsPhilosophy Society & Culture Education Courses philosophy technology ethics morality artificial intelligence transhumanism digital religion Homepage Download Apple Podcasts Google Podcasts Overcast Castro Pocket Casts RSS feed
In this episode I talk to Anders Sandberg about the ethical implications of time compression - or the speeding up of computational tasks to quantum levels. Anders is research associate to the Oxford Martin Programme on the Impacts of Future Technology, the Oxford Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics, and the Oxford Centre for Neuroethics. His research at the Future of Humanity Institute centres on management of low-probability high-impact risks, societal and ethical issues surrounding human enhancement, estimating the capabilities of future technologies, and very long-range futures. He is currently senior researcher in the FHI-Amlin collaboration on systemic risk of risk modelling. I ask Anders about his latest research on time compression in computing, and about the effects this might have on human values and society.
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Show Notes0.00 – Introduction1:00 – the future of humanity in the face of the Trump election3:50 – the ethics and risks of time compression in computing – speed, space and Moore’s law9:50 – quantum computing and its limits, the Margolus Levitin limit, the Beckenstein Bound, algorithmic complexity & the ultimate laptop18:40 - limits of cryptography and light speed28:20 – why speed and time matter in human life – the economics of productivity36:35 – the value of temporal location – being first/being last – winner takes all markets – hyperbolic discounting46:15 - automated trading & high frequency trading algorithms – instability, speed and space – flash crashes – algorithms and their sense of humour56:00 – speed inequalities & mismatches, loss of control, hard take-off scenarios - technological unemployment1:12:50 - can we speed up humans?
Relevant Links
Anders' contribution to From Algorithmic States to Algorithmic Brains Anders' webpage at the Future of Humanity Institute, Oxford Richard Feynman – Plenty of Room at the Bottom (1959) Bernard Williams - The Makropulos case: reflections on the tedium of immortality Daniel Kahneman, Thinking, Fast and Slow