Coast to Coast - 2023-11-06 - Jonathan Zap - A.I. Apocalypse

AI Apocalypse

Hosted by
George Noory

Guests:
Jonathan Zap

Monday - November 6, 2023

Jonathan Zap is an author, philosopher, journalist, and teacher who has written extensively on psychology and contemporary mythology. In the first half, he discussed the potential dangers of AI and the possibility of an impending "viral apocalypse." He warned that "someone with some biological training, a $20,000 desktop gene editor, and open source AI, could today create gain of function viruses that can bring an end to human civilization." This might be an individual with the psychology of a school shooter. The idea of a malign actor creating a novel pathogen that can self-mutate and cause extinction-level events is the premise of his recently published sci-fi book, Parallel Journeys (available to read for free online). He related what's going on with AI to what he called a number of years ago, the Singularity Archetype, which foresees a quantum evolutionary shift in the human species. "Now I actually feel we are in that zone," he declared.

Zap noted that for many years, he was critical of apocalypticism, but now he finds himself in the ironic position of sounding the horn himself. At this point, it will be hard for technology companies to put the brakes on AI, as "one thing that human beings are not capable of doing is putting the genie back in the bottle," he commented. Yet, Zap conceded that it's not all doom and gloom as his work with the Singularity Archetype has indicated that unusual possibilities can emerge. "It could be that when the entire genome is threatened, that it will spur human evolution," he said, adding that evolution could even continue through a different species or via profound changes to the human species. One intriguing possibility that he has contemplated is using VR headsets to displace what's called proprioception, or the sense of where your body is in space, in order to create out-of-body experiences on demand. For more, view Zap's related article: https://zaporacle.com/