Interview with Nick Bostrom — Max Raskin

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Interview with Nick Bostrom

Jun 15

Written By Max

Nick Bostrom is a philosopher.<br>More or Less Wrong

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Max Raskin: During the last industrial revolution, I think there weren't so many philosophical problems raised by the steam engine, for instance. Maybe certain technologies made it easier to study cosmology or something, but consciousness was certainly not in the news as much as it is today. That’s made you a bit of a rockstar. Do you feel like a rockstar? Do people recognize you on the street?<br>Nick Bostrom: Occasionally. I've never been a literal rockstar, so I don't know exactly what that’s like.<br>Certainly it is the case that a lot more attention is now being focused on these issues, AI especially. But also a bunch of other big picture questions for humanity, which I've been laboring over for a long time.<br>MR: So if you’re Tom Nagel writing about consciousness in 1974, there’s only so much news coming out that’s relevant. It’s a flood now. Do you stay abreast of the daily news?<br>NB: Well, it's a full-time job just to monitor the situation now. Developments are happening rapidly. And so the focus is shifting more to paying attention to these unfolding events. If one wants to make some contribution, there's maybe a brief window of opportunity between when the issue emerges and when it is settled one way or another.<br>MR: So how do you stay informed about what's going on? Are there any periodicals you read? Any blogs or Twitter accounts? What does your actual media consumption look like?<br>NB: It varies — in the AI space, Twitter is one place where people post papers, and then there are various blogs, etc.<br>MR: Is there anything that you have to read that you don't miss?<br>NB: The LessWrong blog, for instance, is one place where people are discussing stuff.<br>Separately, there is a vast and cavernous netherworld of Google Docs, privately circulated amongst various networks of people who are trying to figure these things out and are commenting on each other’s ideas.<br>MR: What are those ideas being discussed?<br>NB: All kinds of stuff. With AI, the different aspects of safety and governance and ethics and strategy and generally how to understand and navigate the challenges ahead.<br>MR: You said that now it's almost a full-time job monitoring the situation. Does that mean that you personally feel like you're more in consumption mode than in productive mode right now as a philosopher?<br>NB: I've always alternated between phases. Imagine a sponge, you can soak in and then you can squeeze out. At various points in time, there might be a specific product I'm working on — a paper or something that I'm trying to bring to completion and to output — and then I'm focused on that. But between papers or books, I'm in curiosity mode, where I sniff around, like I pick up and explore scent trails to see where they lead.<br>MR: Are you in curiosity mode right now?<br>NB: Right now, I'm in curiosity mode.

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MR: How do you protect your time right now? Or let me rephrase: How do you come up with ideas now…where you come up with most of your ideas? Is it in the shower? Is it on a walk?<br>NB: I think there's a distinct mode for me of actual deep thinking, which is separate from writing or reading or talking to people.<br>MR: Where is your deep-thinking space? Is it in an armchair?<br>NB: That's one good place. You could also be walking or pacing. It requires a very high level of concentration and it's not always possible to do it, not every day. The biological conditions have to be optimal.<br>MR: Do you have music on when that's happening?<br>NB: No, no, no, no, no, no. It should be distraction-free.<br>But even on a good day, if you manage to sustain that level of concentration for 45 minutes, it’s an achievement. And so what that means is that when opportunities for this kind of thinking occur, because they're rare, I try to not waste them on other things. Those minutes are sacrosanct.<br>MR: And when you're doing that, do you have a notepad by you?<br>NB: It’s useful to have a notepad at hand — pen and paper.<br>MR: Are you particular about the kind of pen and paper you use?<br>NB: It doesn't matter. I’m not writing paragraphs, just jotting down some keywords or phrases, drawing some lines, so I can retrace the steps later.<br>MR: How do you integrate AI into your life?<br>NB: I do use Claude and the other AI models in various ways and for different purposes. Some is the same as everybody else — if you have some random questions.<br>But also for work, they can be a preliminary critic if you want to bounce ideas. Sometimes it helps if you have something to interact with to help draw out your ideas from you. If it asks some questions or raises some objections, it might stimulate you to start thinking, so it can be useful in that regard. Later, when you're writing up, it can help find relevant literature or proofread.<br>MR: You’re an excellent...