Joshua Rothman
Appearances
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Why the Tech Giant Nvidia May Own the Future. Plus, Joshua Rothman on Taking A.I Seriously
You know, if it's the case that we get way better at building technical things, we should expect that the country that has the best AI will have the best robot army. We are worried about— We're seeing that already? We are.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Why the Tech Giant Nvidia May Own the Future. Plus, Joshua Rothman on Taking A.I Seriously
Right. And the U.S. government has a research program into automated fighter planes, for example. If we're worried about the incompetence of government on whatever side of that you situate yourself— we should worry about automated government. For example, an AI decides the length of a sentence in a criminal conviction, or an AI decides whether you qualify for Medicaid.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Why the Tech Giant Nvidia May Own the Future. Plus, Joshua Rothman on Taking A.I Seriously
Basically, we'll have less of a say in how things go, and computers will have more of a say, just to put it in those terms. It's not dissimilar from the phone. In the case of the phone, the algorithm decides what options it'll be presented with in terms of where you're going to turn your attention.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Why the Tech Giant Nvidia May Own the Future. Plus, Joshua Rothman on Taking A.I Seriously
And the algorithm has certain built-in biases towards things that are provocative, contentious, alarming.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Why the Tech Giant Nvidia May Own the Future. Plus, Joshua Rothman on Taking A.I Seriously
Well, because, well, I don't really. I'm pretty freaked out about it. But I also feel in one's mental model of the future, you just, there's not one answer to this. How's it going to go? But do we have any choice? Do we have any sense of volition in this? Well, I think we should be learning lessons from what happened with phones and applying them to AI, just to put it in the broadest terms.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Why the Tech Giant Nvidia May Own the Future. Plus, Joshua Rothman on Taking A.I Seriously
We did nothing. We've all experienced what it is to have a technology insert itself into our daily life in a way that replaces old habits with new habits. In my mind, there's a couple scenarios. In one scenario... We live in a science fiction novel, and we really don't have much of an opportunity to intervene. The technology is just coming, and it's coming next year or year after.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Why the Tech Giant Nvidia May Own the Future. Plus, Joshua Rothman on Taking A.I Seriously
Because the AI will learn to make itself better. That's the scenario Jeff Hinton is worried about, and it's real. In my dream world, probably a functional government would step in. A functional government, you say? But we don't have one, really. There's another scenario where the technology just takes a while. And then there is an opportunity to weigh in in various ways.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Why the Tech Giant Nvidia May Own the Future. Plus, Joshua Rothman on Taking A.I Seriously
It wouldn't be a bad thing. to establish a consensus or a law that says that certain boundaries shouldn't be crossed. And we have laws that protect children online. Maybe one of the laws should be children shouldn't be preyed upon by computers that pretend to be adults.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Why the Tech Giant Nvidia May Own the Future. Plus, Joshua Rothman on Taking A.I Seriously
My dream scenario is that in the next few years, we start to take seriously the need to think ahead, which we've never done before. But on the other hand, we do know what to be worried about.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Why the Tech Giant Nvidia May Own the Future. Plus, Joshua Rothman on Taking A.I Seriously
I think de facto that's what's happening now. Here I really, on some level, I'm looking at myself because I'm a humanist who works in media. It makes me think I need to think more about what it is that I think this technology should and should not do in my world and talk about it.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Why the Tech Giant Nvidia May Own the Future. Plus, Joshua Rothman on Taking A.I Seriously
Like, I think there's a lot of people who work in AI who say schools are a century-old institution that could just go away. Maybe it would be better. We'd learn more. But that's such a narrow aperture through which to think about what schools do and how children live. I don't want schools to go away, and I don't want teachers to be replaced with screens.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Why the Tech Giant Nvidia May Own the Future. Plus, Joshua Rothman on Taking A.I Seriously
We're at a point where teachers and parents need to say that. It sounds ridiculous to say against this big technological juggernaut that we just need to make our voices heard. But I think right now we haven't tried. So I think right now there isn't enough discussion of AI. There's a lot going on.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Why the Tech Giant Nvidia May Own the Future. Plus, Joshua Rothman on Taking A.I Seriously
Absolutely. I mean, in my school district, a big discussion is about banning cell phones in schools, for example. And so I don't think it's true that, you know, we're totally powerless. Like when I think about the fact that it's the year 2025 and we're now talking about banning cell phones, I have two feelings about that. One is like, how could we have only been talking about this now?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Why the Tech Giant Nvidia May Own the Future. Plus, Joshua Rothman on Taking A.I Seriously
On the other hand, I'm like, well, we're talking about it. Why don't we talk about some of the other stuff that's happening now? Before, we used to kind of just let it happen and see what was happening. And maybe, maybe, maybe in some part of ourselves, we're saying to ourselves now, we've touched the hot stove of the phone. So we're saying to ourselves, let's not walk into the furnace of AI.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Why the Tech Giant Nvidia May Own the Future. Plus, Joshua Rothman on Taking A.I Seriously
I guess my feeling is sort of like the moment is now for these types of thoughts to start happening.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Why the Tech Giant Nvidia May Own the Future. Plus, Joshua Rothman on Taking A.I Seriously
Thank you.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Why the Tech Giant Nvidia May Own the Future. Plus, Joshua Rothman on Taking A.I Seriously
Small but important ways. From tech billionaires to the bond market to, yeah, banana pudding. If it's happening in business, our new podcast is on it. I'm Max Chastin.