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    <fireside:genDate>Sat, 30 May 2026 01:58:32 -0500</fireside:genDate>
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    <title>Increments - Episodes Tagged with “Ai Doom”</title>
    <link>https://www.incrementspodcast.com/tags/ai-doom</link>
    <pubDate>Fri, 29 May 2026 12:00:00 -0700</pubDate>
    <description>Vaden Masrani, a senior research scientist in machine learning, and Ben Chugg, a PhD student in statistics, get into trouble arguing about everything except machine learning and statistics. Coherence is somewhere on the horizon. Bribes, suggestions, love-mail and hate-mail all welcome at incrementspodcast@gmail.com.</description>
    <language>en-us</language>
    <itunes:type>episodic</itunes:type>
    <itunes:subtitle>Science, Philosophy, Epistemology, Mayhem</itunes:subtitle>
    <itunes:author>Ben Chugg and Vaden Masrani</itunes:author>
    <itunes:summary>Vaden Masrani, a senior research scientist in machine learning, and Ben Chugg, a PhD student in statistics, get into trouble arguing about everything except machine learning and statistics. Coherence is somewhere on the horizon. Bribes, suggestions, love-mail and hate-mail all welcome at incrementspodcast@gmail.com.</itunes:summary>
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    <itunes:explicit>no</itunes:explicit>
    <itunes:keywords>Philosophy,Science,Ethics,Progress,Knowledge,Computer Science,Conversation,Error-Correction</itunes:keywords>
    <itunes:owner>
      <itunes:name>Ben Chugg and Vaden Masrani</itunes:name>
      <itunes:email>incrementspodcast@gmail.com</itunes:email>
    </itunes:owner>
<itunes:category text="Society &amp; Culture">
  <itunes:category text="Philosophy"/>
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<itunes:category text="Science"/>
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  <title>#103 - AI, Evolution, and The God Test (w/ Robert Wright)</title>
  <link>https://www.incrementspodcast.com/103</link>
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  <pubDate>Fri, 29 May 2026 12:00:00 -0700</pubDate>
  <author>Ben Chugg and Vaden Masrani</author>
  <enclosure url="https://dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/https://chrt.fm/track/1F5B4D/aphid.fireside.fm/d/1437767933/3229e340-4bf1-42a5-a5b7-4f508a27131c/ce72a94a-7c48-41f5-ba31-4f7a4e5ae196.mp3" length="103154833" type="audio/mpeg"/>
  <itunes:episodeType>full</itunes:episodeType>
  <itunes:author>Ben Chugg and Vaden Masrani</itunes:author>
  <itunes:subtitle>Robert Wright joins us to talk about his upcoming book on artificial intelligence. </itunes:subtitle>
  <itunes:duration>1:47:27</itunes:duration>
  <itunes:explicit>no</itunes:explicit>
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  <description>&lt;p&gt;Did you ever see the video of two regular people trying to fight Eddie Hall, the strongest man on earth? Ben and Vaden bring that same energy to this conversation, where they gang up on Robert Wright on the subject of his forthcoming book &lt;a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/God-Test-Artificial-Intelligence-Reckoning/dp/1668061651" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener"&gt;The God Test: Artificial Intelligence and Our Coming Cosmic Reckoning&lt;/a&gt;. Bob is a sport about it (well, there was no choice really: we have an advanced copy of his book that we're holding hostage) and there are only one or two black eyes by the end. &lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Subscribe to Robert Wright's podcasting empire NonZero on &lt;a href="https://www.youtube.com/c/Nonzero" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener"&gt;youtube&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href="https://www.nonzero.org/podcast" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener"&gt;substack&lt;/a&gt;. And go buy one of his many books.  &lt;/p&gt;

We discuss

&lt;ul&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Whether Bob was the OG podcaster &lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Is there a directionality to evolution? &lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Where Bob is on the AI fear and awe spectrum &lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Whether LLMs have decoded the meaning in language &lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Is AI best viewed as a tool or as superintelligence? &lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;AI-as-slingshot analogy &lt;/li&gt;
&lt;/ul&gt;

References

&lt;ul&gt;
&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/God-Test-Artificial-Intelligence-Reckoning/dp/1668061651" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener"&gt;The God Test by Robert Wright&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nonzero:_The_Logic_of_Human_Destiny" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener"&gt;Nonzero by Robert Wright&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watchmaker_analogy" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener"&gt;William Paley and his pocket watch&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Blind_Watchmaker" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener"&gt;The Blind Watchmaker by Richard Dawkins&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href="https://www.incrementspodcast.com/94" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener"&gt;Our conversation with Scott Aaronson&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;/ul&gt;

Socials

&lt;ul&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Follow us on Twitter at @RobertWrighter, @IncrementsPod, @BennyChugg, @VadenMasrani&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Come join our discord server! DM us on twitter or send us an email to get a supersecret link&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Become a patreon subscriber&amp;nbsp;&lt;a href="https://www.patreon.com/Increments" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener"&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;. Or give us one-time cash donations to help cover our lack of cash donations&amp;nbsp;&lt;a href="https://ko-fi.com/increments" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener"&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Click dem like buttons on&amp;nbsp;&lt;a href="https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC_4wZzQyoW4s4ZuE4FY9DQQ" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener"&gt;youtube&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;/ul&gt;

&lt;p&gt;What's the directionality of this podcast? Tell us at &lt;a href="mailto:incrementspodcast@gmail.com" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener"&gt;incrementspodcast@gmail.com&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Special Guest: Robert Wright.&lt;/p&gt;
</description>
  <itunes:keywords>artificial intelligence, LLMs, AI-doom, machine learning, evolution</itunes:keywords>
  <content:encoded>
    <![CDATA[<p>Did you ever see the video of two regular people trying to fight Eddie Hall, the strongest man on earth? Ben and Vaden bring that same energy to this conversation, where they gang up on Robert Wright on the subject of his forthcoming book <a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/God-Test-Artificial-Intelligence-Reckoning/dp/1668061651" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener">The God Test: Artificial Intelligence and Our Coming Cosmic Reckoning</a>. Bob is a sport about it (well, there was no choice really: we have an advanced copy of his book that we're holding hostage) and there are only one or two black eyes by the end. </p>

<p>Subscribe to Robert Wright's podcasting empire NonZero on <a href="https://www.youtube.com/c/Nonzero" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener">youtube</a> and <a href="https://www.nonzero.org/podcast" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener">substack</a>. And go buy one of his many books.  </p>

We discuss

<ul>
<li>Whether Bob was the OG podcaster </li>
<li>Is there a directionality to evolution? </li>
<li>Where Bob is on the AI fear and awe spectrum </li>
<li>Whether LLMs have decoded the meaning in language </li>
<li>Is AI best viewed as a tool or as superintelligence? </li>
<li>AI-as-slingshot analogy </li>
</ul>

References

<ul>
<li><a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/God-Test-Artificial-Intelligence-Reckoning/dp/1668061651" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener">The God Test by Robert Wright</a></li>
<li><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nonzero:_The_Logic_of_Human_Destiny" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener">Nonzero by Robert Wright</a></li>
<li><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watchmaker_analogy" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener">William Paley and his pocket watch</a></li>
<li><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Blind_Watchmaker" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener">The Blind Watchmaker by Richard Dawkins</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.incrementspodcast.com/94" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener">Our conversation with Scott Aaronson</a></li>
</ul>

Socials

<ul>
<li>Follow us on Twitter at @RobertWrighter, @IncrementsPod, @BennyChugg, @VadenMasrani</li>
<li>Come join our discord server! DM us on twitter or send us an email to get a supersecret link</li>
<li>Become a patreon subscriber&nbsp;<a href="https://www.patreon.com/Increments" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener">here</a>. Or give us one-time cash donations to help cover our lack of cash donations&nbsp;<a href="https://ko-fi.com/increments" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener">here</a>.</li>
<li>Click dem like buttons on&nbsp;<a href="https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC_4wZzQyoW4s4ZuE4FY9DQQ" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener">youtube</a></li>
</ul>

<p>What's the directionality of this podcast? Tell us at <a href="mailto:incrementspodcast@gmail.com" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener">incrementspodcast@gmail.com</a>.</p><p>Special Guest: Robert Wright.</p><p><a rel="payment" href="https://www.patreon.com/Increments">Support Increments</a></p>]]>
  </content:encoded>
  <itunes:summary>
    <![CDATA[<p>Did you ever see the video of two regular people trying to fight Eddie Hall, the strongest man on earth? Ben and Vaden bring that same energy to this conversation, where they gang up on Robert Wright on the subject of his forthcoming book <a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/God-Test-Artificial-Intelligence-Reckoning/dp/1668061651" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener">The God Test: Artificial Intelligence and Our Coming Cosmic Reckoning</a>. Bob is a sport about it (well, there was no choice really: we have an advanced copy of his book that we're holding hostage) and there are only one or two black eyes by the end. </p>

<p>Subscribe to Robert Wright's podcasting empire NonZero on <a href="https://www.youtube.com/c/Nonzero" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener">youtube</a> and <a href="https://www.nonzero.org/podcast" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener">substack</a>. And go buy one of his many books.  </p>

We discuss

<ul>
<li>Whether Bob was the OG podcaster </li>
<li>Is there a directionality to evolution? </li>
<li>Where Bob is on the AI fear and awe spectrum </li>
<li>Whether LLMs have decoded the meaning in language </li>
<li>Is AI best viewed as a tool or as superintelligence? </li>
<li>AI-as-slingshot analogy </li>
</ul>

References

<ul>
<li><a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/God-Test-Artificial-Intelligence-Reckoning/dp/1668061651" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener">The God Test by Robert Wright</a></li>
<li><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nonzero:_The_Logic_of_Human_Destiny" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener">Nonzero by Robert Wright</a></li>
<li><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watchmaker_analogy" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener">William Paley and his pocket watch</a></li>
<li><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Blind_Watchmaker" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener">The Blind Watchmaker by Richard Dawkins</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.incrementspodcast.com/94" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener">Our conversation with Scott Aaronson</a></li>
</ul>

Socials

<ul>
<li>Follow us on Twitter at @RobertWrighter, @IncrementsPod, @BennyChugg, @VadenMasrani</li>
<li>Come join our discord server! DM us on twitter or send us an email to get a supersecret link</li>
<li>Become a patreon subscriber&nbsp;<a href="https://www.patreon.com/Increments" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener">here</a>. Or give us one-time cash donations to help cover our lack of cash donations&nbsp;<a href="https://ko-fi.com/increments" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener">here</a>.</li>
<li>Click dem like buttons on&nbsp;<a href="https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC_4wZzQyoW4s4ZuE4FY9DQQ" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener">youtube</a></li>
</ul>

<p>What's the directionality of this podcast? Tell us at <a href="mailto:incrementspodcast@gmail.com" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener">incrementspodcast@gmail.com</a>.</p><p>Special Guest: Robert Wright.</p><p><a rel="payment" href="https://www.patreon.com/Increments">Support Increments</a></p>]]>
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