Prosthetic Gods

War at Machine-Speed

Episode 49 - Targeting at Machine Speed This week on Prosthetic Gods, Nir and J speak with Major Michael Brodka, a U.S. Army military intelligence officer and author of t

Black Mirror

Episode 48 - Black Mirror Nir and J discuss the show Black Mirror, the now archetypal tech dystopian cultural phenomenon. In almost every episode, technology is the villa

Are Chatbots Conscious? A Conversation with Henry Shevlin

Episode 47 - Are Chatbots Conscious? A Conversation with Henry Shevlin Henry Shevlin, DeepMind's first in-house philosopher and associate director of Cambridge's Leverhul

Killer Robots

Episode 46 - Killer Robots This week Nir and J discuss the evolving ethical, political, and strategic landscape of autonomous weapons systems, contrasting historical meth

Right to Try

Episode 45 - Right to Try This week on Prosthetic Gods, Nir and J discuss patient autonomy and the "right to try". The debate surrounding medical autonomy is intensifying

Magnificent Humanity: A Conversation with Father Michael Baggot

Episode 44 - Magnificent Humanity This week, J and Nir talk to Father Michael Baggot about Pope Leo XIV’s recent encyclical, Magnifica Humanitas, which outlines Catholic

Brain-Computer Interfaces

Episode 43 - Brain-Computer Interfaces This week on Prosthetic Gods, Nir and J discuss the ethics of brain-computer interfaces. What role do they play in the futurist ima

Live from Cambridge: Existential Risk

Live from Cambridge: Existential Risk In this special live episode, recorded before an audience at Long Now Boston, Nir and J dig into existential risk. J takes seriously

Who Really Needs Ozempic Anyway?

Episode 42 - Who Really Needs Ozempic Anyway? This week on Prosthetic Gods, Nir and J discuss the tradeoffs of GLP1 drugs. Their use has reversed the obesity epidemic and

Disgust

Episode 41 - Disgust This week on Prosthetic Gods, Nir and J discuss the role of disgust in morality. Neuroscience suggests that feelings of disgust underlie many moral j

Nicholas Christakis - Technology and Contagion

Episode 40 - Nicholas Christakis - Technology and Contagion Dr. Nicholas Christakis is the Sterling Professor of Social and Natural Science at Yale University and the Dir

Live from Portsmouth: Artificial Intelligence and Human Values

Live from Portsmouth: Artificial Intelligence and Human Values In this special live episode of Prosthetic Gods, we bring you a night of big ideas recorded on April 2nd at

Sven Nyholm on Ethics of AI

Episode 39 - Sven Nyholm on the Ethics of AI This week on Prosthetic Gods we are talking to Sven Nyholm about his new book The Ethics of Artificial Intelligence. If our t

Humanoid Robots

Episode 38 - Humanoid Robots This week on Prosthetic Gods, Nir and J talk about the distinctive ethical issues raised by the humanoid robots coming to homes and workplace

Anthropic's Conflict with the Pentagon: A Conversation with Alan Rozenshtein

Episode 37 - Anthropic's Conflict with the Pentagon: A Conversation with Alan Rozenshtein This week on Prosthetic Gods, J and Nir are talking to Alan Rozenshtein, profess

Buddhism and the Self

Episode 36 - Buddhism and the Self This week on Prosthetic Gods, Nir is interrogating an essay by J. on Buddhism, enhancement, and the self. They discuss the appeal of Bu

Pluribus

Episode 35 - Pluribus This week on Prosthetic Gods, Nir and J are discussing the hit Apple TV show Pluribus. Created by Vince Gilligan, the show runner of Breaking Bad, t

Simulations

Episode 35 - Simulations This week on Prosthetic Gods, Nir and J. discuss the simulation hypothesis, the idea that we may actually be living in the Matrix. We discuss its

Moral Enhancement

Episode 33 - Moral Enhancement This week on Prosthetic Gods, J and Nir discuss “moral enhancement,” the use of drugs and devices to promote moral sentiments, cognition, a

Shoulda Put a Ring On It

Episode 32- Shoulda Put a Ring On It Should you be able to marry your chatbot? Should it be allowed to own property? In this episode of Prosthetic Gods, Nir and J discuss