Superintelligent AI and meaning in life

The 14th session of the EPLab Permanent Seminar will be led by Adriana Placani (IFILNOVA), with a presentation titled “Superintelligent AI and meaning in life”. The session will take place on 10 November, at 10:30 (UTC), in room SD at Colégio Almada Negreiros (Campolide Campus), with online transmission, and will be held in English.

Anyone interested in attending, either in person or online, should contact the organisers: Inês Pinheiro (ines.pinheiro@campus.fcsh.unl.pt) and Devon Cass (devoncass@fcsh.unl.pt).

Abstract

This paper shows that superintelligent AI (ASI) poses a significant risk to meaning in human life by relying on Susan Wolf’s conception, according to which meaningful lives are lives of active engagement in projects of worth. The paper argues that ASI makes it less likely for humans to lead meaningful lives by reducing the possibility of human contribution and active engagement in what are deemed to be some of the most worthwhile projects of human life. The paper also criticizes Nick Bostrom’s and John Danaher’s views on how meaning may be retained in spite of this.

Bio

Adriana Placani is a research fellow at IFILNOVA. She writes in the areas of ethics and applied ethics, as well as political and legal philosophy. Her current research interests are in AI ethics, ethics of risk, and climate change ethics.

More information on the EPLab Permanent Seminar here.