{"id":209596,"date":"2025-03-23T22:12:07","date_gmt":"2025-03-24T03:12:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2025\/03\/joscha-bach-and-anthony-aguirre-on-digital-physics-and-moving-towards-beneficial-futures"},"modified":"2025-03-23T22:12:07","modified_gmt":"2025-03-24T03:12:07","slug":"joscha-bach-and-anthony-aguirre-on-digital-physics-and-moving-towards-beneficial-futures","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2025\/03\/joscha-bach-and-anthony-aguirre-on-digital-physics-and-moving-towards-beneficial-futures","title":{"rendered":"Joscha Bach and Anthony Aguirre on Digital Physics and Moving Towards Beneficial Futures"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<p><iframe style=\"display: block; margin: 0 auto; width: 100%; aspect-ratio: 4\/3; object-fit: contain;\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/JcYNhOgQ29I?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope;\n   picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Joscha Bach, Cognitive Scientist and AI researcher, as well as Anthony Aguirre, UCSC Professor of Physics, join us to explore the world through the lens of computation and the difficulties we face on the way to beneficial futures.<\/p>\n<p>Topics discussed in this episode include:<\/p>\n<p>-Understanding the universe through digital physics.<br \/> \u2013How human consciousness operates and is structured.<br \/> \u2013The path to aligned AGI and bottlenecks to beneficial futures.<br \/> \u2013Incentive structures and collective coordination.<\/p>\n<p>Find the page for this podcast here: <a href=\"https:\/\/futureoflife.org\/2021\/03\/31\/j\">https:\/\/futureoflife.org\/2021\/03\/31\/j<\/a>\u2026 to be the FLI Podcast Producer here: <a href=\"https:\/\/futureoflife.org\/job-postings\/\">https:\/\/futureoflife.org\/job-postings\/<\/a> Follow the podcast on: Spotify: <a href=\"https:\/\/open.spotify.com\/show\/2Op1WO3\">https:\/\/open.spotify.com\/show\/2Op1WO3<\/a>\u2026 Apple Podcasts: <a href=\"https:\/\/podcasts.apple.com\/us\/podcast\">https:\/\/podcasts.apple.com\/us\/podcast<\/a>\u2026 SoundCloud: <img alt=\"\" class=\"\"> \/ futureoflife Have any feedback about the podcast? You can share your thoughts here: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.surveymonkey.com\/r\/DRBFZCT\">www.surveymonkey.com\/r\/DRBFZCT<\/a> Timestamps: 0:00 Intro 1:58 What is truth and knowledge? 11:39 What is subjectivity and objectivity? 15:13 What is the universe ultimately? 20:32 Is the universe a cellular automaton? Is the universe ultimately digital or analogue? 25:59 Hilbert\u2019s hotel from the point of view of computation 39:14 Seeing the world as a fractal 43:00 Describing human consciousness 57:46 Meaning, purpose, and harvesting negentropy 1:02:30 The path to aligned AGI 1:05:13 Bottlenecks to beneficial futures and existential security 1:16:01 A future with one, several, or many AGI systems? How do we maintain appropriate incentive structures? 1:30:39 Non-duality and collective coordination 1:34:16 What difficulties are there for an idealist worldview that involves computation? 1:37:19 Which features of mind and consciousness are necessarily coupled and which aren\u2019t? 1:47:47 Joscha\u2019s final thoughts on AGI This podcast is possible because of the support of listeners like you. If you found this conversation to be meaningful or valuable, consider supporting it directly by donating at: <a href=\"https:\/\/futureoflife.org\/donate\">https:\/\/futureoflife.org\/donate<\/a> Contributions like yours make these conversations possible.<\/p>\n<p>Apply to be the FLI Podcast Producer here: <a href=\"https:\/\/futureoflife.org\/job-postings\/\">https:\/\/futureoflife.org\/job-postings\/<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Follow the podcast on:<\/p>\n<div class=\"more-link-wrapper\"> <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2025\/03\/joscha-bach-and-anthony-aguirre-on-digital-physics-and-moving-towards-beneficial-futures\">Continue reading \u201cJoscha Bach and Anthony Aguirre on Digital Physics and Moving Towards Beneficial Futures\u201d | &gt;<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Joscha Bach, Cognitive Scientist and AI researcher, as well as Anthony Aguirre, UCSC Professor of Physics, join us to explore the world through the lens of computation and the difficulties we face on the way to beneficial futures. Topics discussed in this episode include: \u2013Understanding the universe through digital physics. \u2013How human consciousness operates and [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":661,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[219,6,1492,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-209596","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-physics","category-robotics-ai","category-security","category-space"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/209596","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/661"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=209596"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/209596\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=209596"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=209596"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=209596"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}