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JAN. 20, 2019, BROOKLYN WEEKLY
The end of times!
Podcaster discusses doomsday scenarios
BY KEVIN DUGGAN
The end is nigh!
Podcaster Josh Clark
will host “The End of the
World,” a show that unpacks
the very real existential
threats facing humanity
and discusses what we
can do to save ourselves.
The talk, at the Bell House
on Jan. 24, draws from his
10-part podcast series of
the same name, each episode
of which investigated
a different threat to the
human species. Clark said
that he started the series
as a kind of abstract exercise,
but became more
and more worried about
the future as he did his research.
“Originally, I was just
intellectually attracted to
these ideas, but as I learned
more about them and
started speaking to philosophers
who think about
these problems, I realized,
‘This is real! This is a very
real thing people are talking
about.’ That was a very
jarring conclusion,” Clark
said.
There are many ways
in which we could all perish,
according to Clark,
including artifi cially intelligent
robots enslaving
us, natural risks such as
gamma ray bursts and supernovas,
and the runaway
greenhouse effect — none
of which matters if it turns
out we are all living in a
computer simulation and
somebody decides to pull
the plug.
“If just one of these
risks befalls us, that’s it for
humans,” he said.
After a phase of despondency,
Clark shifted
his focus to informing
people about the coming
dangers and energizing
them to take action, he
said.
“I wanted to raise
the alarm without being
alarmist,” said Clark. “You
can’t just say that A.I. will
take control of us and expect
people to care about it
without backing it up with
facts.”
Clark is especially worried
about the rapid advance
of artifi cial intelligence,
specifi cally how
AN END IN SIGHT: Podcast host Josh Clark will talk about the various
ways humanity could perish, based on his series “The End of
the World,” at the Bell House on Jan. 24. iHeartMedia
machines are learning to
improve themselves without
help from humans —
something which already
manifests itself in our
daily lives.
“The kind of A.I. that
we have now has gotten really
good at recommending
movies like the Netfl ix algorithm,
or the real-time
translation on Skype,” said
Clark.
Those working on the
technological cutting edge
need to plan ahead by
programming so-called
“friendliness” into these
super-smart machines,
making them aware of
what is best for people.
“If we haven’t programmed
what’s called
friendliness into A.I. then
we are toast, and no one
has fi gured out how to do
that yet,” he said. “We’re
releasing loaded guns out
into the wild but haven’t
fi gured out how to attach a
safety to them yet.”
The current chaos in
Washington makes it diffi -
cult to focus on long-term
threats, said Clark.
“It’s tough to tap people
and get their attention and
show them that this supersedes
all the geopolitics
— but there’s not going to
be geopolitics and culture
if we don’t address it,” he
said.
It is up to all of us to
make sure we are still
around in times to come,
said Clark.
“We all have an assignment.
In a weird way the
future of the human race
is in the hands of us today,
which has never been the
case before. I hope people
realize that this is quite
real and quite true and are
inspired to do something
about it,” he said.
“The End of the World”
at the Bell House 149 Seventh
St. between Second
and Third avenues in Gowanus,
(718) 643–6510, www.
thebellhouseny.com. Jan.
24 at 8 pm. $25.
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