Prosthetic Gods
Welcome to “Prosthetic Gods,” the podcast where bioethicist James Hughes and philosopher Nir Eisikovits engage in spirited debates on the ethics and politics of emerging technologies. Hughes, a pro-technology transhumanist, and Eisikovits, with his Luddite stance, explore topics from brain-computer interfaces to artificial intelligence. Tune in and explore the promise and perils of technological advancements with us!
Episodes
This week on Prosthetic Gods, Nir and J. speak with Stephen Marche, author of most recently The Next Civil War and Death of an Author. He has begun to write about his collaborative process using AI tools, comparing it to the advent of hip-hop and sampling.
Show Notes:https://www.stephenmarche.com/
Stephen Marche. “The Future of Writing Is a Lot Like Hip-Hop”...
This week on Prosthetic Gods, Nir and J wrestle with creativity in the age of generative AI. Are there aesthetic or moral reasons to avoid AI art? Can copyright law protect artists from being displaced by AI slop?
Show Notes:The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction
AlphaEvolve: A Gemini-powered coding agent for designing advanced algorithms
This week Nir and J discuss the hottest topic in fantasy ecoscience, the genetic resurrection of extinct species. In particular we are discussing the work of Colossal, a firm working on modern versions of the mammoth, dire wolf, thylacine and dodo.
Show Notes:Amazon in White House crosshairs over report of displaying tariff costs
Credits:Hosted by James Hughes and Nir Eisikovits Pr...
This week on Prosthetic Gods, Nir and J discuss the ethics of parents being able to choose the genetic characteristics of their children. Is “germinal choice” good for parents, children, society?
Show Notes:He Jiankui and Gene-Edited Babies
Sandel Michael J. 2007. The Case Against Perfection: Ethics in the Age of Genetic Engineering. Cambrige: Harvard University Press
C...This week on Prosthetic Gods Nir and J discuss the problem, and opportunity, of “cognitive off-loading,” our tendency to forget knowledge and skills once we have reliable digital tools. Is it possible to educate ourselves and our students to use these tools in ways that enrich and extend their cognitive skills and productivity? Along the way, we discuss Ted Chiang’s short story “The Truth of Fact...
In this episode of Prosthetic Gods Nir and J. discuss Dario Amodei’s essay “Machines of Loving Grace,” which lays out the best case scenario for AI’s impact on health, economics and world peace.
Links:Richard Brautigan “All Watched Over By Machines Of Loving Grace”
This week on Prosthetic Gods Nir and J. are joined by Damien G. Walter, a writer and a storyteller who has written for The Guardian, the BBC, Wired, The Independent, Aeon, and others. He teaches The Rhetoric of Story and Writing the 21st-Century Myth to over 35,000 students worldwide, and is the host of the Science Fiction Podcast. We discuss the interaction between the ...
Griefbots (also called deathbots, AI ghosts, AI clones, death avatars, and postmortem avatars) are large language models built on available information about the deceased, such as social media, letters, photos, diaries, and videos. Nir and J debate whether they are just another way to commemorate our loved ones or a violation of human dignity.
Links:
This week on Prosthetic Gods, Nir and J discuss the pros and cons of life-tracking or “self-quantification,” with tools like health watches, and the “life-hacking” that these tools encourage, from dieting and exercise to sleep and meditation. How do we know when we are being distracted and made miserable by all this self-knowledge, and when it is helpful? Could AI life coaches, track...
On this week’s Prosthetic Gods Nir and J. discuss the ethics of life extension and anti-aging therapies. Is there a benefit to involuntary death? Would getting very old necessarily be boring or depressing? How can we ensure that everyone benefits?
Links:Zuckerberg removes fact-checking from Facebook
Bezos imposes ban on criticism of Trump/Musk at WashPo
J and Nir talk to Tal Hassner, formerly of Amazon and Meta, about Deep Fakes, AGI, and whether there is such a thing as a tech-proof job.
Links:Find out more about Tal here: https://talhassner.github.io/home/
Credits:Hosted by James Hughes and Nir Eisikovits Produced by Jake Burley Music by Jake Burley
Nir and J. talk about facial recognition. Topics covered include considerations of bias, the role of privacy, and whether facial recognition is substantially different from other identification technologies.
Links:“Halt the use of facial-recognition technology until it is regulated" by Kate Crawford
Credits:...Nir and J. talk about the prospects for tech policy under Trump's second term. They discuss the new administration's attitudes toward content moderation, what the next four years mean for Artificial Intelligence, and Elon Musk's potential influence on tech policy moving forward.
Credits: Hosted by James Hughes and Nir Eisikovits Produced by Jake Burley Music by Jake Burley
Nir and J. discuss ethical issues surrounding so-called super soldiers and human augmentation in warfare.
Additional Resources:Credits:
Hosted by James Hughes and Nir Eisikovits Produced by Jake Burley Music by Jake Burley
In this episode, Nir and J. discuss whether machines can be moral. What does it take for something to be a moral patient or moral subject? Can morality be distilled down to a set of rules? Is the red-teaming and safety testing of large language models a way to teach machines morality?
Additional Resources:- Moral Machines by Colin Allen and Wendell Wallach
Prosthetic Gods: Artificial General Intelligence
In this episode of Prosthetic Gods, J. Hughes and Nir Eisikovits dive into artificial general intelligence (AGI), AI that has reached a human level of consciousness and common sense. Is AI currently a "philosophical zombie," mimicking human behavior without true awareness? Will AGIs be the perfect 24/7 slaves, replacing expensive humans in workplace? Would AGI be the beginning of AI ...
AI Clones
This week Drs. Nir and J. discuss the concept of AI clones with postdoctoral fellow Cody Turner, and in particular the short podcast series Shell Game from journalist Evan Ratliff. Will AI clones augment or disorient us? Our bonus round discusses J’s recent piece of “free IVF.”
Links:
Shell Game podcast https://www.shellgame.co/podcast
Vapi voice clone: https://vapi.ai/
“Digital Duplicates and the Scarcity Problem: Mig...
Can There Be Bad Knowledge?
In medical ethics there are debates about when people should be encouraged to get tested for diseases or conditions for which there is no therapy, such as Alzheimer’s disease. In the case of knowing you have a risk or diagnosis of incurable disease, is ignorance really bliss, or does “true happiness” require knowledge? What are the ethics of these "bad knowledge" situations?
Taiwan’s Experiments with E-democracy:
Can AI be good for democracy? Taiwan has been experimenting with digital democracy for a decade. In this week’s Prosthetic Gods Nir and J review the advantages and disadvantages of using electronic tools for citizen participation in politics. And we also talk about the Harris Zoom rallies and the Google anti-trust case.
Tools for Citizen Participation:
ieet.org/white-papers
www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/experimentations/202407/what-if-artificial-intelligence-replaces-human-therapists
www.npr.org/transcripts/1247296788
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