The Last Instrumental Century
On the possibility — and the possible forms — of a human future
Tag
civilization
4 texts across all collections.
The Possibility of Superintelligence and the Void of Alignment
Nothing known prevents a superintelligence from existing; the technical path and the timeline are opaque; and the alignment problem is open while institutions are inadequate. An argument for cautious possibilism, neither doomerism nor complacency.
Science as a Civilizational Project
A tour of the frontiers of life, mind, matter, computation and the cosmos, and an argument that science, despite the systems that hobble it, remains humanity's noblest collective project.
Flesh and Entropy
An essay on consciousness in a universe of entropy: what depression sees, why we refuse Nozick's experience machine, and what art, free science and technology can and cannot do about suffering.
