#107 – Peter Singer: Suffering in Humans, Animals, and AI

About this episode

<p>Peter Singer is a professor of bioethics at Princeton, best known for his 1975 book Animal Liberation, that makes an ethical case against eating meat. He has written brilliantly from an ethical perspective on extreme poverty, euthanasia, human genetic selection, sports doping, the sale of kidneys, and happiness including in his books Ethics in the Real World and The Life You Can Save. He was a key popularizer of the effective altruism movement and is generally considered one of the most influential philosophers in the world.</p> <p>Support this podcast by supporting these sponsors:<br /> <span style="font-size: 1rem;">&#8211; MasterClass: <a href="https://masterclass.com/lex">https://masterclass.com/lex</a><br /> &#8211; Cash App – use code &#8220;LexPodcast&#8221; and download:<br /> &#8211; Cash App (App Store): <a href="https://apple.co/2sPrUHe">https://apple.co/2sPrUHe</a><br /> &#8211; Cash App (Google Play): <a href="https://bit.ly/2MlvP5w">https://bit.ly/2MlvP5w</a></span></p> <p>If you would like to get more information about this podcast go to <a href="https://lexfridman.com/ai">https://lexfridman.com/ai</a> or connect with @lexfridman on <a href="https://twitter.com/lexfridman">Twitter</a>, <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/lexfridman/">LinkedIn</a>, <a href="https://www.facebook.com/lexfridman">Facebook</a>, <a href="https://medium.com/@lexfridman">Medium</a>, or <a href="https://www.youtube.com/lexfridman">YouTube</a> where you can watch the video versions of these conversations. If you enjoy the podcast, please rate it 5 stars on <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/artificial-intelligence/id1434243584">Apple Podcasts</a>, follow on <a href="https://open.spotify.com/show/2MAi0BvDc6GTFvKFPXnkCL">Spotify</a>, or support it on <a href="https://www.patreon.com/lexfridman">Patreon</a>.</p> <p>Here&#8217;s the outline of the episode. On some podcast players you should be able to click the timestamp to jump to that time.</p> <p>OUTLINE:<br /> 00:00 &#8211; Introduction<br /> 05:25 &#8211; World War II<br /> 09:53 &#8211; Suffering<br /> 16:06 &#8211; Is everyone capable of evil?<br /> 21:52 &#8211; Can robots suffer?<br /> 37:22 &#8211; Animal liberation<br /> 40:31 &#8211; Question for AI about suffering<br /> 43:32 &#8211; Neuralink<br /> 45:11 &#8211; Control problem of AI<br /> 51:08 &#8211; Utilitarianism<br /> 59:43 &#8211; Helping people in poverty<br /> 1:05:15 &#8211; Mortality</p>