"One of the most original thinkers in the world" (list of people who have said this at the bottom) is BACK for a second visit! Robin Hanson explains his "grabby aliens" idea.



This episode has a new jingle, by @trop1ce - who I found on Twitter. It contains a sample from a certain black hole sound published by NASA. Thank you! 



As usual, the podcast exists because of my amazing sponsors from www.patreon.com/runde 



Today let me highlight the following Patrons: 



Sunniva Gylver (welcome!)

Thomas Nøkleby (welcome!)

Katja

Beate Eiklid

Bjørnar Kristiansen

Joakim Kjenes



and in particular: 



Lars Ivar Igesund

Kyle Arumugam

Kyrre Matias Goksøyr

Are Edvardsen

Kristoffer Karlsen

Øyvind Grimstad Gryt

Andreas Døving

Berit Reppen Lorentzen



You patrons, you keep this going. Thank you. Remember to quit supporting whenever it should become a burden for you or if I just start making bad stuff. 



Here are the blurbs for Robin's book "Age of Em", which was the topic of our previous Robin Hanson-episode, but which i just found right now. This is wild. Look at what these people are saying. (Also, I wonder what Robin thinks about the gender balance in this list. Oh well.)

I'm reading a fascinating academic book, The Age of Em. .. It’s about brain emulation.

Ian McEwan, Winner of the Man Booker prize

Robin Hanson brings intelligence, imagination, and courage to some of the most profound questions humanity will be dealing with in the middle-term future. The Age of Em is a stimulating and unique book that will be valuable to anyone who wants to look past the next ten years to the next hundred and the next thousand.

Sean Carroll The Big Picture: On the Origins of Life, Meaning, and the Universe Itself

What happens when a first-rate economist applies his rigor, breadth, and curiosity to the sci-fi topic of whole brain emulations? This book is what happens. There's nothing else like it, and it will blow your (current) mind.

Andrew McAfee  The Second Machine Age

A highly provocative vision of a technologically advanced future that may or may not come true — but if it does, we'll be glad Robin wrote this book now.

Marc Andreessen  Netscape, Andreessen Horowitz

In this brilliant analysis, Robin Hanson shows that our hyper-smart `downloaded’ – or emulated – heirs will still have ambitions, triumphs and thwarted desires. They'll make alliances, compete, cooperate… and very-likely love… all driven by immutable laws of nature and economics. Super intelligence may be a lot more like us than you imagined.

David Brin  Hugo: Existence, The Transparent Society

Robin Hanson provides a richly detailed portrait of a future society where brain emulation is widespread. Drawing on physics, economics, sociology, history, and a host of other disciplines, he describes a world that is wonderfully strange and yet strikingly familiar. Far out? Yes. Fascinating? That too.

Hal Varian  Google

A fascinating thought experiment about the future, written with clarity and verve by somebody who thinks very deeply and freely.

Matt Ridley  The Times, The Evolution of Everything

Robin Hanson is one of the most important and original thinkers. His new tour de force will dazzle and delight you. Anyone who loves books should read The Age of Em.

Tyler Cowen  New York Times, The Great Stagnation

Robin Hanson has a remarkable mind and has written a remarkable book. He provides an encyclopedically-detailed analysis of a fascinating future dominated by brain emulations. Whether you agree or disagree with each of his specific predictions, each page will entice you to think more deeply.

Erik Brynjolfsson  The Second Machine Age

There are different paths to the Technological Singularity. In The Age of Em Robin Hanson explores one such possibility using methods and insight that all analysts of future technology can admire. With this book, Hanson owns the Em scenario. He casts a very bright light upon foothills of the Unknowable.

Vernor Vinge  Hugo: Rainbow’s End, A Fire Upon The Deep

Here we have a systematic attempt to envisage what could well be the next technological disruption of the human condition: a world after the ‘anthropocene’ which does not conform to the usual ecological scenarios. Drawing on current social and natural sciences, as well as artificial intelligence research, Robin Hanson envisages a future in which human beings are neither notably enhanced nor completely exterminated. Rather, we live in the margins of a world dominated by beings which will have been created from uploaded emulations of a selection of human brains. Hanson tackles all the issues that arise along the way: how the transition might happen and what will the world look like – both to us and to the ‘ems’ – on the other side of this great disruption. The reader does not need to agree with all the judgement calls in this expressly speculative enterprise to appreciate the great strides that Hanson has taken in specifying a world in which humans still flourish yet are no longer in the driver’s seat of epochal change. That his vision is ultimately a relatively benign one is an added bonus.

Steve Fuller  Humanity 2.0

Robin Hanson is the most brilliant mind I know, and the wait for his first book is finally over. The Age of Em combines Hanson’s expertise in social science and artificial intelligence to paint a stunning vision of the future of intelligent life. The result is a noble effort to subordinate science fiction to science.

Bryan Caplan  The Myth of the Rational Voter

Robin Hanson integrates ferocious future forces: robotics, artificial intelligence, overpopulation, economic stagnation – and comes up with a detailed, striking set of futures we can have, if we think harder. There's many an idea in this deft book, worth the time of anyone who thinks forward with hope.

Gregory Benford  Nebula: Timescape

Hanson is pioneering a new style of science fiction: using calculations rather than mere stories to imagine what a world of artificial humans would be like.

Kevin Kelly  Wired, The Inevitable: Understanding the 12 Technological Forces That Will Shape Our Future

Age of Em is a rare wonder: a book both fully intellectually rigorous, and boldly embracing of the radical possibilities the future holds. Hanson focuses his acute analytical mind on future scenarios in which most humans are digital 'brain emulations' rather than biological humans. He shows that many aspects of this sort of world can be understood fairly effectively by us old-fashioned biological humans right now, using tools from economics, logic, psychology, sociology and other disciplines. The result is a tour de force at the intersection of imagination and rationality. Far more clearly than from any work of mere science fiction, one gleans from Hanson's book a clear idea of what a future world dominated by brain emulations or 'Ems' might actually be like.

Ben Goertzel  Aidyia Holdings, Hanson Robotics, AGI Society, OpenCog Foundation

Robin Hanson is one of the most original thinkers in the world - and this fascinating account of our future society is like nothing you'll read anywhere else. Astonishing stuff.

Tim Harford  Financial Times, The Undercover Economist Strikes Back

The Age of Em is a fascinating and provocative book about a future that will blindside most humans – but that could easily be the world that most of our descendants inhabit. Robin Hanson has a unique combination of expertise in artificial intelligence. economics, signaling, and futurology. Nobody else could have explored the implications of whole-brain emulation in such visionary yet plausible detail. It's one of the most important books you'll ever read.

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