Peter Singer: Suffering in Humans, Animals, and AI
历史与文明政治与社会生物与进化哲学与宗教技术与编程
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sufferingdonconsciousconsciousnesswaranimalsablehumanpainbookethicalbetterpossibleinterestinghumansapppodcasttalkgoinghaving
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🎙️ 完整对话（1395 条）
Lex Fridman (00:00.000)
The following is a conversation with Peter Singer,
以下是与彼得·辛格的对话，
Lex Fridman (00:03.440)
professor of bioethics at Princeton University,
普林斯顿大学生物伦理学教授，
Lex Fridman (00:06.200)
best known for his 1975 book, Animal Liberation,
最著名的是他 1975 年出版的书《动物解放》
Lex Fridman (00:10.280)
that makes an ethical case against eating meat.
这为反对吃肉提供了道德依据。
Lex Fridman (00:14.240)
He has written brilliantly from an ethical perspective
他从道德角度写得非常出色
Peter Singer (00:17.680)
on extreme poverty, euthanasia, human genetic selection,
关于赤贫、安乐死、人类基因选择、
Lex Fridman (00:21.480)
sports doping, the sale of kidneys,
运动兴奋剂、买卖肾脏、
Lex Fridman (00:23.720)
and generally happiness, including in his books,
以及普遍的幸福，包括在他的书中，
Lex Fridman (00:28.520)
Ethics in the Real World, and The Life You Can Save.
现实世界中的道德规范，以及您可以拯救的生命。
Peter Singer (00:32.920)
He was a key popularizer of the effective altruism movement
他是有效利他主义运动的主要推广者
Lex Fridman (00:36.320)
and is generally considered one of the most influential
并被普遍认为是最有影响力的人物之一
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philosophers in the world.
世界上的哲学家。
Lex Fridman (00:42.200)
Quick summary of the ads.
广告的快速摘要。
Peter Singer (00:43.760)
Two sponsors, Cash App and Masterclass.
两个赞助商，Cash App 和 Masterclass。
Lex Fridman (00:47.080)
Please consider supporting the podcast
请考虑支持播客
Peter Singer (00:48.840)
by downloading Cash App and using code LexPodcast
下载 Cash App 并使用代码 LexPodcast
Lex Fridman (00:52.200)
and signing up at masterclass.com slash Lex.
并在 masterclass.com 上注册并斜线 Lex。
Peter Singer (00:55.920)
Click the links, buy the stuff.
点击链接，购买东西。
Lex Fridman (00:57.800)
It really is the best way to support the podcast
这确实是支持播客的最佳方式
Lex Fridman (01:00.080)
and the journey I'm on.
以及我正在进行的旅程。
Lex Fridman (01:02.400)
As you may know, I primarily eat a ketogenic or carnivore diet,
Peter Singer (01:07.480)
which means that most of my diet is made up of meat.
Lex Fridman (01:10.320)
I do not hunt the food I eat, though one day I hope to.
Peter Singer (01:15.280)
I love fishing, for example.
Lex Fridman (01:17.800)
Fishing and eating the fish I catch
Peter Singer (01:19.680)
has always felt much more honest than participating
Lex Fridman (01:23.640)
in the supply chain of factory farming.
Peter Singer (01:26.400)
From an ethics perspective, this part of my life
Lex Fridman (01:29.360)
has always had a cloud over it.
Peter Singer (01:31.920)
It makes me think.
Lex Fridman (01:33.600)
I've tried a few times in my life
Peter Singer (01:35.960)
to reduce the amount of meat I eat.
Lex Fridman (01:37.920)
But for some reason, whatever the makeup of my body,
Peter Singer (01:41.240)
whatever the way I practice the dieting I have,
Lex Fridman (01:44.040)
I get a lot of mental and physical energy
Lex Fridman (01:48.040)
and performance from eating meat.
Lex Fridman (01:50.600)
So both intellectually and physically,
Peter Singer (01:53.960)
it's a continued journey for me.
Lex Fridman (01:56.080)
I return to Peter's work often to reevaluate the ethics
Peter Singer (02:00.320)
of how I live this aspect of my life.
Lex Fridman (02:03.360)
Let me also say that you may be a vegan
Peter Singer (02:06.160)
or you may be a meat eater and may be upset by the words I say
Lex Fridman (02:09.840)
or Peter says, but I ask for this podcast
Lex Fridman (02:13.680)
and other episodes of this podcast
Lex Fridman (02:16.000)
that you keep an open mind.
Peter Singer (02:18.240)
I may and probably will talk with people you disagree with.
Lex Fridman (02:21.640)
Please try to really listen, especially
Peter Singer (02:25.360)
to people you disagree with.
Lex Fridman (02:27.400)
And give me and the world the gift
Peter Singer (02:29.800)
of being a participant in a patient, intelligent,
Lex Fridman (02:33.080)
and nuanced discourse.
Peter Singer (02:34.840)
If your instinct and desire is to be a voice of mockery
Lex Fridman (02:38.640)
towards those you disagree with, please unsubscribe.
Peter Singer (02:42.520)
My source of joy and inspiration here
Lex Fridman (02:44.840)
has been to be a part of a community that thinks deeply
Lex Fridman (02:48.040)
and speaks with empathy and compassion.
Lex Fridman (02:51.000)
That is what I hope to continue being a part of
Lex Fridman (02:53.880)
and I hope you join as well.
Lex Fridman (02:56.200)
If you enjoy this podcast, subscribe on YouTube,
Peter Singer (02:58.960)
review it with five stars on Apple Podcast,
Lex Fridman (03:01.360)
follow on Spotify, support on Patreon,
Peter Singer (03:04.280)
or connect with me on Twitter at Lex Friedman.
Lex Fridman (03:07.920)
As usual, I'll do a few minutes of ads now
Lex Fridman (03:09.960)
and never any ads in the middle
Lex Fridman (03:11.320)
that can break the flow of the conversation.
Peter Singer (03:14.040)
This show is presented by Cash App,
Lex Fridman (03:16.560)
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Peter Singer (03:18.960)
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Peter Singer (03:24.280)
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Lex Fridman (03:27.320)
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Peter Singer (03:29.520)
Since Cash App allows you to buy Bitcoin,
Lex Fridman (03:31.800)
let me mention that cryptocurrency in the context
Peter Singer (03:34.600)
of the history of money is fascinating.
Lex Fridman (03:37.400)
I recommend Ascent of Money
Peter Singer (03:39.520)
as a great book on this history.
Lex Fridman (03:41.480)
Debits and credits on ledgers
Peter Singer (03:43.160)
started around 30,000 years ago.
Lex Fridman (03:45.960)
The US dollar created over 200 years ago
Lex Fridman (03:48.560)
and the first decentralized cryptocurrency
Lex Fridman (03:51.080)
released just over 10 years ago.
Lex Fridman (03:53.760)
So given that history, cryptocurrency is still very much
Lex Fridman (03:57.000)
in its early days of development,
Lex Fridman (03:58.720)
but it's still aiming to and just might
Lex Fridman (04:01.280)
redefine the nature of money.
Lex Fridman (04:04.320)
So again, if you get Cash App from the App Store
Lex Fridman (04:07.000)
or Google Play and use the code LEXPODCAST,
Peter Singer (04:10.480)
you get $10 and Cash App will also donate $10 to FIRST,
Lex Fridman (04:14.920)
an organization that is helping to advance
Peter Singer (04:16.720)
robotic system education for young people around the world.
Lex Fridman (04:20.880)
This show is sponsored by Masterclass.
Peter Singer (04:23.440)
Sign up at masterclass.com slash LEX
Lex Fridman (04:26.080)
to get a discount and to support this podcast.
Peter Singer (04:29.640)
When I first heard about Masterclass,
Lex Fridman (04:31.320)
I thought it was too good to be true.
Peter Singer (04:33.160)
For $180 a year, you get an all access pass
Lex Fridman (04:36.680)
to watch courses from, to list some of my favorites,
Peter Singer (04:40.400)
Chris Hadfield on space exploration,
Lex Fridman (04:42.920)
Neil Gauss Tyson on scientific thinking and communication,
Peter Singer (04:46.200)
Will Wright, creator of SimCity and Sims on game design.
Lex Fridman (04:50.400)
I promise I'll start streaming games at some point soon.
Peter Singer (04:53.880)
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Lex Fridman (04:57.520)
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Peter Singer (05:01.600)
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Lex Fridman (05:04.240)
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Peter Singer (05:07.280)
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Lex Fridman (05:08.720)
By the way, you can watch it on basically any device.
Peter Singer (05:12.820)
Once again, sign up at masterclass.com slash LEX
Lex Fridman (05:16.600)
to get a discount and to support this podcast.
Lex Fridman (05:19.360)
And now, here's my conversation with Peter Singer.
Lex Fridman (05:25.080)
When did you first become conscious of the fact
Lex Fridman (05:27.640)
that there is much suffering in the world?
Lex Fridman (05:32.280)
I think I was conscious of the fact
Peter Singer (05:33.760)
that there's a lot of suffering in the world
Lex Fridman (05:35.760)
pretty much as soon as I was able to understand
Peter Singer (05:38.520)
anything about my family and its background
Lex Fridman (05:40.960)
because I lost three of my four grandparents
Peter Singer (05:44.720)
in the Holocaust and obviously I knew
Lex Fridman (05:48.720)
why I only had one grandparent
Lex Fridman (05:52.160)
and she herself had been in the camps and survived,
Lex Fridman (05:54.560)
so I think I knew a lot about that pretty early.
Peter Singer (05:58.120)
My entire family comes from the Soviet Union.
Lex Fridman (06:01.200)
I was born in the Soviet Union.
Peter Singer (06:05.400)
World War II has deep roots in the culture
Lex Fridman (06:07.920)
and the suffering that the war brought
Peter Singer (06:10.360)
the millions of people who died is in the music,
Lex Fridman (06:14.000)
is in the literature, is in the culture.
Lex Fridman (06:16.900)
What do you think was the impact
Lex Fridman (06:18.960)
of the war broadly on our society?
Peter Singer (06:25.080)
The war had many impacts.
Lex Fridman (06:28.160)
I think one of them, a beneficial impact,
Peter Singer (06:31.440)
is that it showed what racism
Lex Fridman (06:34.300)
and authoritarian government can do
Lex Fridman (06:37.960)
and at least as far as the West was concerned,
Lex Fridman (06:41.080)
I think that meant that I grew up in an era
Peter Singer (06:43.200)
in which there wasn't the kind of overt racism
Lex Fridman (06:48.000)
and antisemitism that had existed for my parents in Europe.
Peter Singer (06:52.160)
I was growing up in Australia
Lex Fridman (06:53.800)
and certainly that was clearly seen
Peter Singer (06:57.560)
as something completely unacceptable.
Lex Fridman (07:00.560)
There was also, though, a fear of a further outbreak of war
Peter Singer (07:05.800)
which this time we expected would be nuclear
Lex Fridman (07:08.920)
because of the way the Second World War had ended,
Lex Fridman (07:11.720)
so there was this overshadowing of my childhood
Lex Fridman (07:16.200)
about the possibility that I would not live to grow up
Lex Fridman (07:19.880)
and be an adult because of a catastrophic nuclear war.
Lex Fridman (07:25.620)
The film On the Beach was made
Peter Singer (07:28.100)
in which the city that I was living,
Lex Fridman (07:29.860)
Melbourne, was the last place on Earth
Peter Singer (07:32.080)
to have living human beings
Lex Fridman (07:34.320)
because of the nuclear cloud
Peter Singer (07:36.420)
that was spreading from the North,
Lex Fridman (07:38.120)
so that certainly gave us a bit of that sense.
Peter Singer (07:42.840)
There were many, there were clearly many other legacies
Lex Fridman (07:45.400)
that we got of the war as well
Lex Fridman (07:47.560)
and the whole setup of the world
Lex Fridman (07:49.440)
and the Cold War that followed.
Peter Singer (07:51.600)
All of that has its roots in the Second World War.
Lex Fridman (07:55.320)
There is much beauty that comes from war.
Peter Singer (07:58.120)
Sort of, I had a conversation with Eric Weinstein.
Lex Fridman (08:01.400)
He said everything is great about war
Peter Singer (08:03.960)
except all the death and suffering.
Lex Fridman (08:08.200)
Do you think there's something positive
Peter Singer (08:11.060)
that came from the war,
Lex Fridman (08:13.640)
the mirror that it put to our society,
Lex Fridman (08:16.840)
sort of the ripple effects on it, ethically speaking?
Lex Fridman (08:20.320)
Do you think there are positive aspects to war?
Peter Singer (08:24.540)
I find it hard to see positive aspects in war
Lex Fridman (08:27.540)
and some of the things that other people think of
Peter Singer (08:30.440)
as positive and beautiful may be questioning.
Lex Fridman (08:35.640)
So there's a certain kind of patriotism.
Peter Singer (08:38.280)
People say during wartime, we all pull together,
Lex Fridman (08:41.040)
we all work together against a common enemy
Lex Fridman (08:44.080)
and that's true.
Lex Fridman (08:45.300)
An outside enemy does unite a country
Lex Fridman (08:47.380)
and in general, it's good for countries to be united
Lex Fridman (08:49.920)
and have common purposes
Lex Fridman (08:51.080)
but it also engenders a kind of a nationalism
Lex Fridman (08:55.360)
and a patriotism that can't be questioned
Lex Fridman (08:57.760)
and that I'm more skeptical about.
Lex Fridman (09:01.960)
What about the brotherhood
Lex Fridman (09:04.560)
that people talk about from soldiers?
Lex Fridman (09:08.240)
The sort of counterintuitive, sad idea
Peter Singer (09:12.960)
that the closest that people feel to each other
Lex Fridman (09:16.240)
is in those moments of suffering,
Peter Singer (09:17.880)
of being at the sort of the edge
Lex Fridman (09:20.360)
of seeing your comrades dying in your arms.
Peter Singer (09:24.980)
That somehow brings people extremely closely together.
Lex Fridman (09:27.440)
Suffering brings people closer together.
Lex Fridman (09:29.600)
How do you make sense of that?
Lex Fridman (09:31.920)
It may bring people close together
Lex Fridman (09:33.520)
but there are other ways of bonding
Lex Fridman (09:36.440)
and being close to people I think
Peter Singer (09:37.840)
without the suffering and death that war entails.
Lex Fridman (09:42.840)
Perhaps you could see, you could already hear
Peter Singer (09:44.560)
the romanticized Russian in me.
Lex Fridman (09:48.160)
We tend to romanticize suffering just a little bit
Peter Singer (09:50.280)
in our literature and culture and so on.
Lex Fridman (09:53.440)
Could you take a step back
Lex Fridman (09:54.880)
and I apologize if it's a ridiculous question
Lex Fridman (09:57.560)
but what is suffering?
Peter Singer (09:59.640)
If you would try to define what suffering is,
Lex Fridman (10:03.760)
how would you go about it?
Peter Singer (10:05.560)
Suffering is a conscious state.
Lex Fridman (10:09.640)
There can be no suffering for a being
Peter Singer (10:11.360)
who is completely unconscious
Lex Fridman (10:14.520)
and it's distinguished from other conscious states
Peter Singer (10:17.940)
in terms of being one that considered just in itself.
Lex Fridman (10:22.940)
We would rather be without.
Peter Singer (10:25.500)
It's a conscious state that we want to stop
Lex Fridman (10:27.500)
if we're experiencing or we want to avoid having again
Peter Singer (10:31.780)
if we've experienced it in the past.
Lex Fridman (10:34.500)
And that's, as I say, emphasized for its own sake
Peter Singer (10:37.400)
because of course people will say,
Lex Fridman (10:39.340)
well, suffering strengthens the spirit.
Peter Singer (10:41.580)
It has good consequences.
Lex Fridman (10:44.340)
And sometimes it does have those consequences
Lex Fridman (10:47.100)
and of course sometimes we might undergo suffering.
Lex Fridman (10:50.780)
We set ourselves a challenge to run a marathon
Peter Singer (10:53.700)
or climb a mountain or even just to go to the dentist
Lex Fridman (10:57.260)
so that the toothache doesn't get worse
Peter Singer (10:59.100)
even though we know the dentist is gonna hurt us
Lex Fridman (11:00.900)
to some extent.
Lex Fridman (11:01.940)
So I'm not saying that we never choose suffering
Lex Fridman (11:04.520)
but I am saying that other things being equal,
Peter Singer (11:07.260)
we would rather not be in that state of consciousness.
Lex Fridman (11:10.660)
Is the ultimate goal sort of,
Peter Singer (11:12.380)
you have the new 10 year anniversary release
Lex Fridman (11:15.820)
of the Life You Can Save book, really influential book.
Peter Singer (11:18.860)
We'll talk about it a bunch of times
Lex Fridman (11:20.700)
throughout this conversation
Lex Fridman (11:21.780)
but do you think it's possible
Lex Fridman (11:25.340)
to eradicate suffering or is that the goal
Peter Singer (11:29.820)
or do we want to achieve a kind of minimum threshold
Lex Fridman (11:36.820)
of suffering and then keeping a little drop of poison
Lex Fridman (11:43.860)
to keep things interesting in the world?
Lex Fridman (11:46.160)
In practice, I don't think we ever will eliminate suffering
Lex Fridman (11:50.120)
so I think that little drop of poison as you put it
Lex Fridman (11:53.000)
or if you like the contrasting dash of an unpleasant color
Peter Singer (11:58.680)
perhaps something like that
Lex Fridman (11:59.680)
in a otherwise harmonious and beautiful composition,
Peter Singer (12:04.040)
that is gonna always be there.
Lex Fridman (12:07.240)
If you ask me whether in theory
Peter Singer (12:09.140)
if we could get rid of it, we should.
Lex Fridman (12:12.640)
I think the answer is whether in fact
Peter Singer (12:14.680)
we would be better off
Lex Fridman (12:17.760)
or whether in terms of by eliminating the suffering
Peter Singer (12:20.240)
we would also eliminate some of the highs,
Lex Fridman (12:22.520)
the positive highs and if that's so
Peter Singer (12:24.880)
then we might be prepared to say
Lex Fridman (12:27.360)
it's worth having a minimum of suffering
Peter Singer (12:30.600)
in order to have the best possible experiences as well.
Lex Fridman (12:34.560)
Is there a relative aspect to suffering?
Lex Fridman (12:37.680)
So when you talk about eradicating poverty in the world,
Lex Fridman (12:42.680)
is this the more you succeed,
Peter Singer (12:44.920)
the more the bar of what defines poverty raises
Lex Fridman (12:47.760)
or is there at the basic human ethical level
Peter Singer (12:51.360)
a bar that's absolute that once you get above it
Lex Fridman (12:55.000)
then we can morally converge
Lex Fridman (13:00.000)
to feeling like we have eradicated poverty?
Lex Fridman (13:04.280)
I think they're both and I think this is true for poverty
Peter Singer (13:08.160)
as well as suffering.
Lex Fridman (13:09.000)
There's an objective level of suffering or of poverty
Peter Singer (13:14.280)
where we're talking about objective indicators
Lex Fridman (13:17.720)
like you're constantly hungry,
Peter Singer (13:22.360)
you can't get enough food,
Lex Fridman (13:24.000)
you're constantly cold, you can't get warm,
Peter Singer (13:28.600)
you have some physical pains that you're never rid of.
Lex Fridman (13:32.600)
I think those things are objective
Lex Fridman (13:35.080)
but it may also be true that if you do get rid of it
Lex Fridman (13:38.520)
if you do get rid of that and you get to the stage
Peter Singer (13:40.840)
where all of those basic needs have been met,
Lex Fridman (13:45.280)
there may still be then new forms of suffering that develop
Lex Fridman (13:48.760)
and perhaps that's what we're seeing
Lex Fridman (13:50.400)
in the affluent societies we have
Peter Singer (13:52.720)
that people get bored for example,
Lex Fridman (13:55.680)
they don't need to spend so many hours a day earning money
Peter Singer (13:58.920)
to get enough to eat and shelter.
Lex Fridman (14:01.400)
So now they're bored, they lack a sense of purpose.
Peter Singer (14:05.120)
That can happen.
Lex Fridman (14:06.360)
And that then is a kind of a relative suffering
Peter Singer (14:10.440)
that is distinct from the objective forms of suffering.
Lex Fridman (14:14.320)
But in your focus on eradicating suffering,
Peter Singer (14:17.520)
you don't think about that kind of,
Lex Fridman (14:19.960)
the kind of interesting challenges and suffering
Peter Singer (14:22.520)
that emerges in affluent societies,
Lex Fridman (14:24.400)
that's just not, in your ethical philosophical brain,
Lex Fridman (14:28.800)
is that of interest at all?
Lex Fridman (14:31.240)
It would be of interest to me if we had eliminated
Peter Singer (14:34.120)
all of the objective forms of suffering,
Lex Fridman (14:36.480)
which I think of as generally more severe
Lex Fridman (14:40.240)
and also perhaps easier at this stage anyway
Lex Fridman (14:43.200)
to know how to eliminate.
Lex Fridman (14:45.000)
So yes, in some future state when we've eliminated
Lex Fridman (14:49.160)
those objective forms of suffering,
Peter Singer (14:50.560)
I would be interested in trying to eliminate
Lex Fridman (14:53.080)
the relative forms as well.
Lex Fridman (14:55.920)
But that's not a practical need for me at the moment.
Lex Fridman (14:59.920)
Sorry to linger on it because you kind of said it,
Lex Fridman (15:02.400)
but just is elimination the goal for the affluent society?
Lex Fridman (15:07.640)
So is there, do you see suffering as a creative force?
Peter Singer (15:14.400)
Suffering can be a creative force.
Lex Fridman (15:17.120)
I think repeating what I said about the highs
Lex Fridman (15:20.560)
and whether we need some of the lows
Lex Fridman (15:22.240)
to experience the highs.
Lex Fridman (15:24.120)
So it may be that suffering makes us more creative
Lex Fridman (15:26.560)
and we regard that as worthwhile.
Peter Singer (15:29.840)
Maybe that brings some of those highs with it
Lex Fridman (15:32.920)
that we would not have had if we'd had no suffering.
Peter Singer (15:36.680)
I don't really know.
Lex Fridman (15:37.720)
Many people have suggested that
Lex Fridman (15:39.520)
and I certainly can't have no basis for denying it.
Lex Fridman (15:44.840)
And if it's true, then I would not want
Peter Singer (15:47.800)
to eliminate suffering completely.
Lex Fridman (15:50.920)
But the focus is on the absolute,
Peter Singer (15:54.000)
not to be cold, not to be hungry.
Lex Fridman (15:56.840)
Yes, that's at the present stage
Peter Singer (15:59.800)
of where the world's population is, that's the focus.
Lex Fridman (16:03.920)
Talking about human nature for a second,
Lex Fridman (16:06.360)
do you think people are inherently good
Lex Fridman (16:08.440)
or do we all have good and evil in us
Peter Singer (16:11.000)
that basically everyone is capable of evil
Lex Fridman (16:14.880)
based on the environment?
Peter Singer (16:17.400)
Certainly most of us have potential for both good and evil.
Lex Fridman (16:21.480)
I'm not prepared to say that everyone is capable of evil.
Peter Singer (16:24.280)
Maybe some people who even in the worst of circumstances
Lex Fridman (16:27.160)
would not be capable of it,
Lex Fridman (16:28.880)
but most of us are very susceptible
Lex Fridman (16:32.400)
to environmental influences.
Lex Fridman (16:34.520)
So when we look at things
Lex Fridman (16:36.520)
that we were talking about previously,
Peter Singer (16:37.880)
let's say what the Nazis did during the Holocaust,
Lex Fridman (16:43.640)
I think it's quite difficult to say,
Peter Singer (16:46.600)
I know that I would not have done those things
Lex Fridman (16:50.200)
even if I were in the same circumstances
Peter Singer (16:52.640)
as those who did them.
Lex Fridman (16:54.480)
Even if let's say I had grown up under the Nazi regime
Lex Fridman (16:58.280)
and had been indoctrinated with racist ideas,
Lex Fridman (17:02.480)
had also had the idea that I must obey orders,
Peter Singer (17:07.160)
follow the commands of the Fuhrer,
Lex Fridman (17:11.040)
plus of course perhaps the threat
Peter Singer (17:12.480)
that if I didn't do certain things,
Lex Fridman (17:14.520)
I might get sent to the Russian front
Lex Fridman (17:16.560)
and that would be a pretty grim fate.
Lex Fridman (17:19.200)
I think it's really hard for anybody to say,
Peter Singer (17:22.720)
nevertheless, I know I would not have killed those Jews
Lex Fridman (17:26.720)
or whatever else it was that they were.
Lex Fridman (17:28.440)
Well, what's your intuition?
Lex Fridman (17:29.400)
How many people will be able to say that?
Peter Singer (17:32.440)
Truly to be able to say it,
Lex Fridman (17:34.920)
I think very few, less than 10%.
Peter Singer (17:37.680)
To me, it seems a very interesting
Lex Fridman (17:39.680)
and powerful thing to meditate on.
Lex Fridman (17:42.080)
So I've read a lot about the war, World War II,
Lex Fridman (17:45.800)
and I can't escape the thought
Peter Singer (17:47.880)
that I would have not been one of the 10%.
Lex Fridman (17:51.640)
Right, I have to say, I simply don't know.
Peter Singer (17:55.440)
I would like to hope that I would have been one of the 10%,
Lex Fridman (17:59.000)
but I don't really have any basis
Peter Singer (18:00.920)
for claiming that I would have been different
Lex Fridman (18:04.280)
from the majority.
Lex Fridman (18:06.160)
Is it a worthwhile thing to contemplate?
Lex Fridman (18:09.520)
It would be interesting if we could find a way
Peter Singer (18:11.360)
of really finding these answers.
Lex Fridman (18:13.920)
There obviously is quite a bit of research
Peter Singer (18:16.600)
on people during the Holocaust,
Lex Fridman (18:19.760)
on how ordinary Germans got led to do terrible things,
Lex Fridman (18:24.840)
and there are also studies of the resistance,
Lex Fridman (18:28.160)
some heroic people in the White Rose group, for example,
Peter Singer (18:32.400)
who resisted even though they knew
Lex Fridman (18:34.720)
they were likely to die for it.
Lex Fridman (18:37.960)
But I don't know whether these studies
Lex Fridman (18:40.080)
really can answer your larger question
Peter Singer (18:43.160)
of how many people would have been capable of doing that.
Lex Fridman (18:47.720)
Well, sort of the reason I think is interesting
Peter Singer (18:50.360)
is in the world, as you described,
Lex Fridman (18:55.120)
when there are things that you'd like to do that are good,
Peter Singer (18:59.920)
that are objectively good,
Lex Fridman (19:02.280)
it's useful to think about whether
Peter Singer (19:04.800)
I'm not willing to do something,
Lex Fridman (19:06.720)
or I'm not willing to acknowledge something
Peter Singer (19:09.000)
as good and the right thing to do
Lex Fridman (19:10.760)
because I'm simply scared of putting my life,
Peter Singer (19:15.920)
of damaging my life in some kind of way.
Lex Fridman (19:18.920)
And that kind of thought exercise is helpful
Peter Singer (19:20.720)
to understand what is the right thing
Lex Fridman (19:23.400)
in my current skill set and the capacity to do.
Peter Singer (19:27.400)
Sort of there's things that are convenient,
Lex Fridman (19:30.000)
and I wonder if there are things
Peter Singer (19:31.920)
that are highly inconvenient,
Lex Fridman (19:33.640)
where I would have to experience derision,
Peter Singer (19:35.560)
or hatred, or death, or all those kinds of things,
Lex Fridman (19:39.640)
but it's truly the right thing to do.
Lex Fridman (19:41.200)
And that kind of balance is,
Lex Fridman (19:43.800)
I feel like in America, we don't have,
Peter Singer (19:46.560)
it's difficult to think in the current times,
Lex Fridman (19:50.000)
it seems easier to put yourself back in history,
Peter Singer (19:53.360)
where you can sort of objectively contemplate
Lex Fridman (19:56.280)
whether, how willing you are to do the right thing
Peter Singer (19:59.880)
when the cost is high.
Lex Fridman (1:00:01.520)
in the book?
Peter Singer (1:00:03.820)
The main thing I wanna do in the book
Lex Fridman (1:00:05.140)
is to make people realise that it's not difficult
Peter Singer (1:00:10.320)
to help people in extreme poverty,
Lex Fridman (1:00:13.700)
that there are highly effective organisations now
Peter Singer (1:00:16.780)
that are doing this, that they've been independently assessed
Lex Fridman (1:00:20.300)
and verified by research teams that are expert in this area
Lex Fridman (1:00:25.300)
and that it's a fulfilling thing to do
Lex Fridman (1:00:28.180)
to, for at least part of your life, you know,
Peter Singer (1:00:30.860)
we can't all be saints, but at least one of your goals
Lex Fridman (1:00:33.500)
should be to really make a positive contribution
Peter Singer (1:00:36.060)
to the world and to do something to help people
Lex Fridman (1:00:38.260)
who through no fault of their own
Peter Singer (1:00:40.940)
are in very dire circumstances and living a life
Lex Fridman (1:00:45.820)
that is barely or perhaps not at all
Peter Singer (1:00:49.540)
a decent life for a human being to live.
Lex Fridman (1:00:51.920)
So you describe a minimum ethical standard of giving.
Lex Fridman (1:00:56.920)
What advice would you give to people
Lex Fridman (1:01:01.380)
that want to be effectively altruistic in their life,
Lex Fridman (1:01:06.500)
like live an effective altruism life?
Lex Fridman (1:01:09.340)
There are many different kinds of ways of living
Peter Singer (1:01:12.060)
as an effective altruist.
Lex Fridman (1:01:14.440)
And if you're at the point where you're thinking
Peter Singer (1:01:16.660)
about your long term career, I'd recommend you take a look
Lex Fridman (1:01:20.060)
at a website called 80,000Hours, 80,000Hours.org,
Peter Singer (1:01:24.660)
which looks at ethical career choices.
Lex Fridman (1:01:27.180)
And they range from, for example,
Peter Singer (1:01:29.740)
going to work on Wall Street
Lex Fridman (1:01:31.060)
so that you can earn a huge amount of money
Lex Fridman (1:01:33.340)
and then donate most of it to effective charities
Lex Fridman (1:01:36.980)
to going to work for a really good nonprofit organization
Lex Fridman (1:01:40.860)
so that you can directly use your skills and ability
Lex Fridman (1:01:44.060)
and hard work to further a good cause,
Peter Singer (1:01:48.620)
or perhaps going into politics, maybe small chances,
Lex Fridman (1:01:52.640)
but big payoffs in politics,
Peter Singer (1:01:55.140)
go to work in the public service
Lex Fridman (1:01:56.520)
where if you're talented, you might rise to a high level
Peter Singer (1:01:59.180)
where you can influence decisions,
Lex Fridman (1:02:01.700)
do research in an area where the payoffs could be great.
Peter Singer (1:02:05.160)
There are a lot of different opportunities,
Lex Fridman (1:02:07.220)
but too few people are even thinking about those questions.
Peter Singer (1:02:11.340)
They're just going along in some sort of preordained rut
Lex Fridman (1:02:14.720)
to particular careers.
Peter Singer (1:02:15.780)
Maybe they think they'll earn a lot of money
Lex Fridman (1:02:17.420)
and have a comfortable life,
Lex Fridman (1:02:19.180)
but they may not find that as fulfilling
Lex Fridman (1:02:20.940)
as actually knowing that they're making
Peter Singer (1:02:23.500)
a positive difference to the world.
Lex Fridman (1:02:25.100)
What about in terms of,
Lex Fridman (1:02:27.020)
so that's like long term, 80,000 hours,
Lex Fridman (1:02:30.100)
sort of shorter term giving part of,
Peter Singer (1:02:33.100)
well, actually it's a part of that.
Lex Fridman (1:02:34.340)
You go to work at Wall Street,
Peter Singer (1:02:37.100)
if you would like to give a percentage of your income
Lex Fridman (1:02:40.060)
that you talk about and life you can save that.
Peter Singer (1:02:42.420)
I mean, I was looking through, it's quite a compelling,
Lex Fridman (1:02:48.100)
I mean, I'm just a dumb engineer,
Lex Fridman (1:02:50.440)
so I like, there's simple rules, there's a nice percentage.
Lex Fridman (1:02:53.740)
Okay, so I do actually set out suggested levels of giving
Peter Singer (1:02:57.540)
because people often ask me about this.
Lex Fridman (1:03:00.220)
A popular answer is give 10%, the traditional tithe
Peter Singer (1:03:04.140)
that's recommended in Christianity and also Judaism.
Lex Fridman (1:03:08.500)
But why should it be the same percentage
Lex Fridman (1:03:11.820)
irrespective of your income?
Lex Fridman (1:03:13.640)
Tax scales reflect the idea that the more income you have,
Peter Singer (1:03:16.280)
the more you can pay tax.
Lex Fridman (1:03:18.040)
And I think the same is true in what you can give.
Lex Fridman (1:03:20.400)
So I do set out a progressive donor scale,
Lex Fridman (1:03:25.500)
which starts out at 1% for people on modest incomes
Lex Fridman (1:03:28.940)
and rises to 33 and a third percent
Lex Fridman (1:03:31.900)
for people who are really earning a lot.
Lex Fridman (1:03:34.320)
And my idea is that I don't think any of these amounts
Lex Fridman (1:03:38.620)
really impose real hardship on people
Peter Singer (1:03:42.120)
because they are progressive and geared to income.
Lex Fridman (1:03:45.660)
So I think anybody can do this
Lex Fridman (1:03:48.660)
and can know that they're doing something significant
Lex Fridman (1:03:51.940)
to play their part in reducing the huge gap
Peter Singer (1:03:56.060)
between people in extreme poverty in the world
Lex Fridman (1:03:58.780)
and people living affluent lives.
Lex Fridman (1:04:02.180)
And aside from it being an ethical life,
Lex Fridman (1:04:05.780)
it's one that you find more fulfilling
Peter Singer (1:04:07.540)
because there's something about our human nature that,
Lex Fridman (1:04:11.940)
or some of our human natures,
Peter Singer (1:04:13.740)
maybe most of our human nature that enjoys doing
Lex Fridman (1:04:18.580)
the ethical thing.
Peter Singer (1:04:21.660)
Yes, I make both those arguments,
Lex Fridman (1:04:23.140)
that it is an ethical requirement
Peter Singer (1:04:25.460)
in the kind of world we live in today
Lex Fridman (1:04:27.220)
to help people in great need when we can easily do so,
Lex Fridman (1:04:30.480)
but also that it is a rewarding thing
Lex Fridman (1:04:33.000)
and there's good psychological research showing
Peter Singer (1:04:35.700)
that people who give more tend to be more satisfied
Lex Fridman (1:04:39.440)
with their lives.
Lex Fridman (1:04:40.580)
And I think this has something to do
Lex Fridman (1:04:41.940)
with having a purpose that's larger than yourself
Lex Fridman (1:04:44.900)
and therefore never being, if you like,
Lex Fridman (1:04:49.620)
never being bored sitting around,
Lex Fridman (1:04:51.180)
oh, you know, what will I do next?
Lex Fridman (1:04:52.800)
I've got nothing to do.
Peter Singer (1:04:54.260)
In a world like this, there are many good things
Lex Fridman (1:04:56.440)
that you can do and enjoy doing them.
Peter Singer (1:04:59.420)
Plus you're working with other people
Lex Fridman (1:05:02.380)
in the effective altruism movement
Peter Singer (1:05:03.940)
who are forming a community of other people
Lex Fridman (1:05:06.280)
with similar ideas and they tend to be interesting,
Peter Singer (1:05:09.300)
thoughtful and good people as well.
Lex Fridman (1:05:11.100)
And having friends of that sort is another big contribution
Peter Singer (1:05:14.180)
to having a good life.
Lex Fridman (1:05:16.020)
So we talked about big things that are beyond ourselves,
Lex Fridman (1:05:20.340)
but we're also just human and mortal.
Lex Fridman (1:05:24.600)
Do you ponder your own mortality?
Peter Singer (1:05:27.420)
Is there insights about your philosophy,
Lex Fridman (1:05:29.660)
the ethics that you gain from pondering your own mortality?
Peter Singer (1:05:35.780)
Clearly, you know, as you get into your 70s,
Lex Fridman (1:05:37.940)
you can't help thinking about your own mortality.
Peter Singer (1:05:40.380)
Uh, but I don't know that I have great insights
Lex Fridman (1:05:44.780)
into that from my philosophy.
Peter Singer (1:05:47.140)
I don't think there's anything after the death of my body,
Lex Fridman (1:05:50.460)
you know, assuming that we won't be able to upload my mind
Peter Singer (1:05:53.500)
into anything at the time when I die.
Lex Fridman (1:05:56.860)
So I don't think there's any afterlife
Peter Singer (1:05:58.460)
or anything to look forward to in that sense.
Lex Fridman (1:06:00.940)
Do you fear death?
Lex Fridman (1:06:01.900)
So if you look at Ernest Becker
Lex Fridman (1:06:04.140)
and describing the motivating aspects
Peter Singer (1:06:08.060)
of our ability to be cognizant of our mortality,
Lex Fridman (1:06:14.820)
do you have any of those elements
Lex Fridman (1:06:17.460)
in your drive and your motivation in life?
Lex Fridman (1:06:21.020)
I suppose the fact that you have only a limited time
Peter Singer (1:06:23.500)
to achieve the things that you want to achieve
Lex Fridman (1:06:25.840)
gives you some sort of motivation
Peter Singer (1:06:27.320)
to get going and achieving them.
Lex Fridman (1:06:29.700)
And if we thought we were immortal,
Peter Singer (1:06:31.020)
we might say, ah, you know,
Lex Fridman (1:06:32.600)
I can put that off for another decade or two.
Lex Fridman (1:06:36.080)
So there's that about it.
Lex Fridman (1:06:37.740)
But otherwise, you know, no,
Peter Singer (1:06:40.020)
I'd rather have more time to do more.
Lex Fridman (1:06:42.060)
I'd also like to be able to see how things go
Peter Singer (1:06:45.860)
that I'm interested in, you know.
Lex Fridman (1:06:47.500)
Is climate change gonna turn out to be as dire
Lex Fridman (1:06:49.940)
as a lot of scientists say that it is going to be?
Lex Fridman (1:06:53.500)
Will we somehow scrape through
Lex Fridman (1:06:55.500)
with less damage than we thought?
Lex Fridman (1:06:57.860)
I'd really like to know the answers to those questions,
Lex Fridman (1:06:59.840)
but I guess I'm not going to.
Lex Fridman (1:07:02.180)
Well, you said there's nothing afterwards.
Lex Fridman (1:07:05.780)
So let me ask the even more absurd question.
Lex Fridman (1:07:08.100)
What do you think is the meaning of it all?
Peter Singer (1:07:11.120)
I think the meaning of life is the meaning we give to it.
Lex Fridman (1:07:14.120)
I don't think that we were brought into the universe
Peter Singer (1:07:18.100)
for any kind of larger purpose.
Lex Fridman (1:07:21.860)
But given that we exist,
Peter Singer (1:07:24.100)
I think we can recognize that some things
Lex Fridman (1:07:26.460)
are objectively bad.
Peter Singer (1:07:30.820)
Extreme suffering is an example,
Lex Fridman (1:07:32.620)
and other things are objectively good,
Peter Singer (1:07:35.060)
like having a rich, fulfilling, enjoyable,
Lex Fridman (1:07:38.020)
pleasurable life, and we can try to do our part
Peter Singer (1:07:42.780)
in reducing the bad things and increasing the good things.
Lex Fridman (1:07:47.220)
So one way, the meaning is to do a little bit more
Peter Singer (1:07:50.540)
of the good things, objectively good things,
Lex Fridman (1:07:52.660)
and a little bit less of the bad things.
Peter Singer (1:07:55.460)
Yes, so do as much of the good things as you can
Lex Fridman (1:07:58.940)
and as little of the bad things.
Peter Singer (1:08:00.580)
You beautifully put, I don't think there's a better place
Lex Fridman (1:08:03.020)
to end it, thank you so much for talking today.
Peter Singer (1:08:04.900)
Thanks very much, Lex.
Lex Fridman (1:08:05.740)
It's been really interesting talking to you.
Peter Singer (1:08:08.780)
Thanks for listening to this conversation
Lex Fridman (1:08:10.260)
with Peter Singer, and thank you to our sponsors,
Peter Singer (1:08:13.420)
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Lex Fridman (1:08:15.940)
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Peter Singer (1:08:17.660)
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Lex Fridman (1:08:21.620)
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Peter Singer (1:08:26.140)
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Lex Fridman (1:08:28.900)
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Lex Fridman (1:08:30.960)
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Lex Fridman (1:08:35.220)
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Peter Singer (1:08:38.020)
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Lex Fridman (1:08:41.660)
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Peter Singer (1:08:43.980)
spelled without the E, just F R I D M A N.
Lex Fridman (1:08:48.940)
And now, let me leave you with some words
Peter Singer (1:08:50.860)
from Peter Singer, what one generation finds ridiculous,
Lex Fridman (1:08:54.940)
the next accepts, and the third shudders
Peter Singer (1:08:59.020)
when looks back at what the first did.
Lex Fridman (1:09:01.100)
Thank you for listening, and hope to see you next time.
Peter Singer (20:03.000)
True, but I think we do face those challenges today,
Lex Fridman (20:06.080)
and I think we can still ask ourselves those questions.
Lex Fridman (20:09.960)
So one stand that I took more than 40 years ago now
Lex Fridman (20:13.480)
was to stop eating meat, become a vegetarian at a time
Peter Singer (20:17.520)
when you hardly met anybody who was a vegetarian,
Lex Fridman (20:21.360)
or if you did, they might've been a Hindu,
Peter Singer (20:23.760)
or they might've had some weird theories
Lex Fridman (20:27.560)
about meat and health.
Lex Fridman (20:30.160)
And I know thinking about making that decision,
Lex Fridman (20:33.240)
I was convinced that it was the right thing to do,
Lex Fridman (20:35.280)
but I still did have to think,
Lex Fridman (20:37.240)
are all my friends gonna think that I'm a crank
Lex Fridman (20:40.080)
because I'm now refusing to eat meat?
Lex Fridman (20:43.960)
So I'm not saying there were any terrible sanctions,
Peter Singer (20:47.760)
obviously, but I thought about that,
Lex Fridman (20:50.000)
and I guess I decided,
Peter Singer (20:51.600)
well, I still think this is the right thing to do,
Lex Fridman (20:54.080)
and I'll put up with that if it happens.
Lex Fridman (20:56.320)
And one or two friends were clearly uncomfortable
Lex Fridman (20:59.080)
with that decision, but that was pretty minor
Peter Singer (21:03.480)
compared to the historical examples
Lex Fridman (21:05.840)
that we've been talking about.
Lex Fridman (21:08.040)
But other issues that we have around too,
Lex Fridman (21:09.840)
like global poverty and what we ought to be doing about that
Peter Singer (21:13.800)
is another question where people, I think,
Lex Fridman (21:16.880)
can have the opportunity to take a stand
Peter Singer (21:19.080)
on what's the right thing to do now.
Lex Fridman (21:21.040)
Climate change would be a third question
Peter Singer (21:23.200)
where, again, people are taking a stand.
Lex Fridman (21:25.680)
I can look at Greta Thunberg there and say,
Peter Singer (21:29.120)
well, I think it must've taken a lot of courage
Lex Fridman (21:32.360)
for a schoolgirl to say,
Peter Singer (21:35.240)
I'm gonna go on strike about climate change
Lex Fridman (21:37.160)
and see what happens.
Peter Singer (21:41.200)
Yeah, especially in this divisive world,
Lex Fridman (21:42.960)
she gets exceptionally huge amounts of support
Lex Fridman (21:45.560)
and hatred, both.
Lex Fridman (21:47.400)
That's right.
Peter Singer (21:48.240)
Which is very difficult for a teenager to operate in.
Lex Fridman (21:53.920)
In your book, Ethics in the Real World,
Peter Singer (21:56.080)
amazing book, people should check it out.
Lex Fridman (21:57.880)
Very easy read.
Peter Singer (21:59.600)
82 brief essays on things that matter.
Lex Fridman (22:02.800)
One of the essays asks, should robots have rights?
Peter Singer (22:06.920)
You've written about this,
Lex Fridman (22:07.920)
so let me ask, should robots have rights?
Peter Singer (22:11.560)
If we ever develop robots capable of consciousness,
Lex Fridman (22:17.080)
capable of having their own internal perspective
Peter Singer (22:20.520)
on what's happening to them
Lex Fridman (22:22.080)
so that their lives can go well or badly for them,
Peter Singer (22:25.600)
then robots should have rights.
Lex Fridman (22:27.720)
Until that happens, they shouldn't.
Lex Fridman (22:31.000)
So is consciousness essentially a prerequisite to suffering?
Lex Fridman (22:36.160)
So everything that possesses consciousness
Peter Singer (22:41.520)
is capable of suffering, put another way.
Lex Fridman (22:43.920)
And if so, what is consciousness?
Peter Singer (22:48.440)
I certainly think that consciousness
Lex Fridman (22:51.320)
is a prerequisite for suffering.
Peter Singer (22:53.080)
You can't suffer if you're not conscious.
Lex Fridman (22:58.040)
But is it true that every being that is conscious
Lex Fridman (23:02.160)
will suffer or has to be capable of suffering?
Lex Fridman (23:05.400)
I suppose you could imagine a kind of consciousness,
Peter Singer (23:08.200)
especially if we can construct it artificially,
Lex Fridman (23:10.920)
that's capable of experiencing pleasure
Lex Fridman (23:13.840)
but just automatically cuts out the consciousness
Lex Fridman (23:16.720)
when they're suffering.
Lex Fridman (23:18.240)
So they're like an instant anesthesia
Lex Fridman (23:20.400)
as soon as something is gonna cause you suffering.
Lex Fridman (23:22.520)
So that's possible.
Lex Fridman (23:25.120)
But doesn't exist as far as we know on this planet yet.
Peter Singer (23:31.280)
You asked what is consciousness.
Lex Fridman (23:34.680)
Philosophers often talk about it
Peter Singer (23:36.440)
as there being a subject of experiences.
Lex Fridman (23:39.520)
So you and I and everybody listening to this
Peter Singer (23:42.920)
is a subject of experience.
Lex Fridman (23:44.680)
There is a conscious subject who is taking things in,
Peter Singer (23:48.640)
responding to it in various ways,
Lex Fridman (23:51.320)
feeling good about it, feeling bad about it.
Lex Fridman (23:54.720)
And that's different from the kinds
Lex Fridman (23:57.400)
of artificial intelligence we have now.
Peter Singer (24:00.600)
I take out my phone.
Lex Fridman (24:03.000)
I ask Google directions to where I'm going.
Peter Singer (24:06.840)
Google gives me the directions
Lex Fridman (24:08.680)
and I choose to take a different way.
Peter Singer (24:10.840)
Google doesn't care.
Lex Fridman (24:11.840)
It's not like I'm offending Google or anything like that.
Peter Singer (24:14.080)
There is no subject of experiences there.
Lex Fridman (24:16.520)
And I think that's the indication
Peter Singer (24:19.360)
that Google AI we have now is not conscious
Lex Fridman (24:24.480)
or at least that level of AI is not conscious.
Lex Fridman (24:27.560)
And that's the way to think about it.
Lex Fridman (24:28.880)
Now, it may be difficult to tell, of course,
Peter Singer (24:31.040)
whether a certain AI is or isn't conscious.
Lex Fridman (24:34.080)
It may mimic consciousness
Lex Fridman (24:35.280)
and we can't tell if it's only mimicking it
Lex Fridman (24:37.360)
or if it's the real thing.
Lex Fridman (24:39.120)
But that's what we're looking for.
Lex Fridman (24:40.600)
Is there a subject of experience,
Peter Singer (24:43.480)
a perspective on the world from which things can go well
Lex Fridman (24:47.080)
or badly from that perspective?
Lex Fridman (24:50.160)
So our idea of what suffering looks like
Lex Fridman (24:54.200)
comes from just watching ourselves when we're in pain.
Peter Singer (25:01.200)
Or when we're experiencing pleasure, it's not only.
Lex Fridman (25:03.360)
Pleasure and pain.
Peter Singer (25:04.600)
Yes, so and then you could actually,
Lex Fridman (25:07.880)
you could push back on us, but I would say
Peter Singer (25:09.400)
that's how we kind of build an intuition about animals
Lex Fridman (25:14.280)
is we can infer the similarities between humans and animals
Lex Fridman (25:18.520)
and so infer that they're suffering or not
Lex Fridman (25:21.000)
based on certain things and they're conscious or not.
Lex Fridman (25:24.320)
So what if robots, you mentioned Google Maps
Lex Fridman (25:31.040)
and I've done this experiment.
Lex Fridman (25:32.520)
So I work in robotics just for my own self
Lex Fridman (25:35.080)
or I have several Roomba robots
Lex Fridman (25:37.640)
and I play with different speech interaction,
Lex Fridman (25:40.960)
voice based interaction.
Lex Fridman (25:42.160)
And if the Roomba or the robot or Google Maps
Lex Fridman (25:47.120)
shows any signs of pain, like screaming or moaning
Peter Singer (25:50.360)
or being displeased by something you've done,
Lex Fridman (25:54.240)
that in my mind, I can't help but immediately upgrade it.
Lex Fridman (25:59.440)
And even when I myself programmed it in,
Lex Fridman (26:02.520)
just having another entity that's now for the moment
Peter Singer (26:06.040)
disjoint from me showing signs of pain
Lex Fridman (26:09.080)
makes me feel like it is conscious.
Peter Singer (26:11.120)
Like I immediately, then the whatever,
Lex Fridman (26:15.440)
I immediately realize that it's not obviously,
Lex Fridman (26:17.800)
but that feeling is there.
Lex Fridman (26:19.640)
So sort of, I guess, what do you think about a world
Peter Singer (26:26.400)
where Google Maps and Roombas are pretending to be conscious
Lex Fridman (26:32.080)
and we descendants of apes are not smart enough
Peter Singer (26:35.360)
to realize they're not or whatever, or that is conscious,
Lex Fridman (26:39.080)
they appear to be conscious.
Lex Fridman (26:40.720)
And so you then have to give them rights.
Lex Fridman (26:44.000)
The reason I'm asking that is that kind of capability
Peter Singer (26:47.120)
may be closer than we realize.
Lex Fridman (26:52.280)
Yes, that kind of capability may be closer,
Lex Fridman (26:58.400)
but I don't think it follows
Lex Fridman (26:59.720)
that we have to give them rights.
Peter Singer (27:00.920)
I suppose the argument for saying that in those circumstances
Lex Fridman (27:05.400)
we should give them rights is that if we don't,
Peter Singer (27:07.800)
we'll harden ourselves against other beings
Lex Fridman (27:11.920)
who are not robots and who really do suffer.
Peter Singer (27:15.200)
That's a possibility that, you know,
Lex Fridman (27:17.880)
if we get used to looking at a being suffering
Lex Fridman (27:20.880)
and saying, yeah, we don't have to do anything about that,
Lex Fridman (27:23.440)
that being doesn't have any rights,
Peter Singer (27:25.000)
maybe we'll feel the same about animals, for instance.
Lex Fridman (27:29.240)
And interestingly, among philosophers and thinkers
Peter Singer (27:34.240)
who denied that we have any direct duties to animals,
Lex Fridman (27:39.720)
and this includes people like Thomas Aquinas
Lex Fridman (27:41.840)
and Immanuel Kant, they did say, yes,
Lex Fridman (27:46.640)
but still it's better not to be cruel to them,
Peter Singer (27:48.960)
not because of the suffering we're inflicting
Lex Fridman (27:50.880)
on the animals, but because if we are,
Peter Singer (27:54.280)
we may develop a cruel disposition
Lex Fridman (27:56.440)
and this will be bad for humans, you know,
Peter Singer (28:00.000)
because we're more likely to be cruel to other humans
Lex Fridman (28:02.080)
and that would be wrong.
Peter Singer (28:03.760)
So.
Lex Fridman (28:06.080)
But you don't accept that kind of.
Peter Singer (28:07.760)
I don't accept that as the basis of the argument
Lex Fridman (28:10.160)
for why we shouldn't be cruel to animals.
Peter Singer (28:11.600)
I think the basis of the argument
Lex Fridman (28:12.680)
for why we shouldn't be cruel to animals
Peter Singer (28:14.000)
is just that we're inflicting suffering on them
Lex Fridman (28:16.440)
and the suffering is a bad thing.
Lex Fridman (28:19.160)
But possibly I might accept some sort of parallel
Lex Fridman (28:23.000)
of that argument as a reason why you shouldn't be cruel
Peter Singer (28:26.040)
to these robots that mimic the symptoms of pain
Lex Fridman (28:30.880)
if it's gonna be harder for us to distinguish.
Peter Singer (28:33.520)
I would venture to say, I'd like to disagree with you
Lex Fridman (28:36.760)
and with most people, I think,
Peter Singer (28:39.680)
at the risk of sounding crazy,
Lex Fridman (28:42.240)
I would like to say that if that Roomba is dedicated
Peter Singer (28:47.840)
to faking the consciousness and the suffering,
Lex Fridman (28:50.840)
I think it will be impossible for us.
Peter Singer (28:55.920)
I would like to apply the same argument
Lex Fridman (28:58.440)
as with animals to robots,
Peter Singer (29:00.480)
that they deserve rights in that sense.
Lex Fridman (29:02.880)
Now we might outlaw the addition
Peter Singer (29:05.880)
of those kinds of features into Roombas,
Lex Fridman (29:07.600)
but once you do, I think I'm quite surprised
Peter Singer (29:13.000)
by the upgrade in consciousness
Lex Fridman (29:16.800)
that the display of suffering creates.
Peter Singer (29:20.640)
It's a totally open world,
Lex Fridman (29:22.360)
but I'd like to just sort of the difference
Peter Singer (29:25.600)
between animals and other humans is that in the robot case,
Lex Fridman (29:29.480)
we've added it in ourselves.
Peter Singer (29:32.440)
Therefore, we can say something about how real it is.
Lex Fridman (29:37.560)
But I would like to say that the display of it
Peter Singer (29:40.160)
is what makes it real.
Lex Fridman (29:41.920)
And I'm not a philosopher, I'm not making that argument,
Lex Fridman (29:45.560)
but I'd at least like to add that as a possibility.
Lex Fridman (29:49.080)
And I've been surprised by it
Peter Singer (29:50.920)
is all I'm trying to sort of articulate poorly, I suppose.
Lex Fridman (29:55.160)
So there is a philosophical view
Peter Singer (29:59.080)
has been held about humans,
Lex Fridman (30:00.760)
which is rather like what you're talking about,
Lex Fridman (30:02.480)
and that's behaviorism.
Lex Fridman (30:04.760)
So behaviorism was employed both in psychology,
Peter Singer (30:07.480)
people like BF Skinner was a famous behaviorist,
Lex Fridman (30:10.240)
but in psychology, it was more a kind of a,
Lex Fridman (30:14.760)
what is it that makes this science?
Lex Fridman (30:16.360)
Well, you need to have behavior
Peter Singer (30:17.480)
because that's what you can observe,
Lex Fridman (30:18.680)
you can't observe consciousness.
Lex Fridman (30:21.200)
But in philosophy, the view just defended
Lex Fridman (30:23.440)
by people like Gilbert Ryle,
Peter Singer (30:24.800)
who was a professor of philosophy at Oxford,
Lex Fridman (30:26.440)
wrote a book called The Concept of Mind,
Peter Singer (30:28.480)
in which in this kind of phase,
Lex Fridman (30:32.000)
this is in the 40s of linguistic philosophy,
Peter Singer (30:35.280)
he said, well, the meaning of a term is its use,
Lex Fridman (30:38.920)
and we use terms like so and so is in pain
Peter Singer (30:42.440)
when we see somebody writhing or screaming
Lex Fridman (30:44.840)
or trying to escape some stimulus,
Lex Fridman (30:47.080)
and that's the meaning of the term.
Lex Fridman (30:48.400)
So that's what it is to be in pain,
Lex Fridman (30:50.440)
and you point to the behavior.
Lex Fridman (30:54.720)
And Norman Malcolm, who was another philosopher
Peter Singer (30:58.400)
in the school from Cornell, had the view that,
Lex Fridman (31:02.920)
so what is it to dream?
Peter Singer (31:04.600)
After all, we can't see other people's dreams.
Lex Fridman (31:07.960)
Well, when people wake up and say,
Peter Singer (31:10.880)
I've just had a dream of, here I was,
Lex Fridman (31:14.080)
undressed, walking down the main street
Peter Singer (31:15.720)
or whatever it is you've dreamt,
Lex Fridman (31:17.760)
that's what it is to have a dream.
Peter Singer (31:19.040)
It's basically to wake up and recall something.
Lex Fridman (31:22.720)
So you could apply this to what you're talking about
Lex Fridman (31:25.640)
and say, so what it is to be in pain
Lex Fridman (31:28.480)
is to exhibit these symptoms of pain behavior,
Lex Fridman (31:31.040)
and therefore, these robots are in pain.
Lex Fridman (31:34.920)
That's what the word means.
Lex Fridman (31:36.840)
But nowadays, not many people think
Lex Fridman (31:38.520)
that Ryle's kind of philosophical behaviorism
Peter Singer (31:40.880)
is really very plausible,
Lex Fridman (31:42.320)
so I think they would say the same about your view.
Peter Singer (31:45.080)
So, yes, I just spoke with Noam Chomsky,
Lex Fridman (31:48.600)
who basically was part of dismantling
Peter Singer (31:52.760)
the behaviorist movement.
Lex Fridman (31:54.800)
But, and I'm with that 100% for studying human behavior,
Lex Fridman (32:00.600)
but I am one of the few people in the world
Lex Fridman (32:04.080)
who has made Roombas scream in pain.
Lex Fridman (32:09.480)
And I just don't know what to do
Lex Fridman (32:12.200)
with that empirical evidence,
Peter Singer (32:14.520)
because it's hard, sort of philosophically, I agree.
Lex Fridman (32:19.760)
But the only reason I philosophically agree in that case
Peter Singer (32:23.240)
is because I was the programmer.
Lex Fridman (32:25.040)
But if somebody else was a programmer,
Peter Singer (32:26.760)
I'm not sure I would be able to interpret that well.
Lex Fridman (32:29.280)
So I think it's a new world
Peter Singer (32:34.320)
that I was just curious what your thoughts are.
Lex Fridman (32:37.480)
For now, you feel that the display
Peter Singer (32:42.280)
of what we can kind of intellectually say
Lex Fridman (32:46.400)
is a fake display of suffering is not suffering.
Peter Singer (32:50.120)
That's right, that would be my view.
Lex Fridman (32:53.240)
But that's consistent, of course,
Peter Singer (32:54.480)
with the idea that it's part of our nature
Lex Fridman (32:56.920)
to respond to this display
Peter Singer (32:58.680)
if it's reasonably authentically done.
Lex Fridman (33:02.600)
And therefore it's understandable
Peter Singer (33:04.800)
that people would feel this,
Lex Fridman (33:06.240)
and maybe, as I said, it's even a good thing
Peter Singer (33:09.880)
that they do feel it,
Lex Fridman (33:10.720)
and you wouldn't want to harden yourself against it
Peter Singer (33:12.640)
because then you might harden yourself
Lex Fridman (33:14.440)
against being sort of really suffering.
Lex Fridman (33:17.240)
But there's this line, so you said,
Lex Fridman (33:20.160)
once artificial general intelligence system,
Peter Singer (33:22.880)
a human level intelligence system become conscious,
Lex Fridman (33:25.760)
I guess if I could just linger on it,
Peter Singer (33:28.480)
now I've wrote really dumb programs
Lex Fridman (33:30.720)
that just say things that I told them to say,
Lex Fridman (33:33.760)
but how do you know when a system like Alexa,
Lex Fridman (33:38.320)
which is sufficiently complex
Peter Singer (33:39.720)
that you can't introspect to how it works,
Lex Fridman (33:42.040)
starts giving you signs of consciousness
Lex Fridman (33:46.200)
through natural language?
Lex Fridman (33:48.000)
That there's a feeling,
Peter Singer (33:49.800)
there's another entity there that's self aware,
Lex Fridman (33:52.560)
that has a fear of death, a mortality,
Peter Singer (33:55.080)
that has awareness of itself
Lex Fridman (33:57.840)
that we kind of associate with other living creatures.
Peter Singer (34:03.160)
I guess I'm sort of trying to do the slippery slope
Lex Fridman (34:05.680)
from the very naive thing where I started
Peter Singer (34:07.880)
into something where it's sufficiently a black box
Lex Fridman (34:12.120)
to where it's starting to feel like it's conscious.
Peter Singer (34:16.120)
Where's that threshold
Lex Fridman (34:17.960)
where you would start getting uncomfortable
Lex Fridman (34:20.240)
with the idea of robot suffering, do you think?
Lex Fridman (34:25.080)
I don't know enough about the programming
Peter Singer (34:27.640)
that we're going to this really to answer this question.
Lex Fridman (34:31.600)
But I presume that somebody who does know more about this
Peter Singer (34:34.880)
could look at the program
Lex Fridman (34:37.360)
and see whether we can explain the behaviors
Peter Singer (34:41.480)
in a parsimonious way that doesn't require us
Lex Fridman (34:45.360)
to suggest that some sort of consciousness has emerged.
Peter Singer (34:50.080)
Or alternatively, whether you're in a situation
Lex Fridman (34:52.400)
where you say, I don't know how this is happening,
Peter Singer (34:56.280)
the program does generate a kind of artificial
Lex Fridman (35:00.160)
general intelligence which is autonomous,
Peter Singer (35:04.200)
starts to do things itself and is autonomous
Lex Fridman (35:06.360)
of the basics programming that set it up.
Lex Fridman (35:10.400)
And so it's quite possible that actually
Lex Fridman (35:13.400)
we have achieved consciousness
Peter Singer (35:15.800)
in a system of artificial intelligence.
Lex Fridman (35:18.600)
Sort of the approach that I work with,
Peter Singer (35:20.640)
most of the community is really excited about now
Lex Fridman (35:22.680)
is with learning methods, so machine learning.
Lex Fridman (35:26.000)
And the learning methods are unfortunately
Lex Fridman (35:27.960)
are not capable of revealing,
Peter Singer (35:31.440)
which is why somebody like Noam Chomsky criticizes them.
Lex Fridman (35:34.120)
You create powerful systems that are able
Peter Singer (35:36.080)
to do certain things without understanding
Lex Fridman (35:38.240)
the theory, the physics, the science of how it works.
Lex Fridman (35:42.160)
And so it's possible if those are the kinds
Lex Fridman (35:44.840)
of methods that succeed, we won't be able
Peter Singer (35:46.760)
to know exactly, sort of try to reduce,
Lex Fridman (35:53.000)
try to find whether this thing is conscious or not,
Peter Singer (35:56.200)
this thing is intelligent or not.
Lex Fridman (35:58.120)
It's simply giving, when we talk to it,
Peter Singer (36:01.760)
it displays wit and humor and cleverness
Lex Fridman (36:05.800)
and emotion and fear, and then we won't be able
Peter Singer (36:10.200)
to say where in the billions of nodes,
Lex Fridman (36:13.920)
neurons in this artificial neural network
Peter Singer (36:16.400)
is the fear coming from.
Lex Fridman (36:20.020)
So in that case, that's a really interesting place
Peter Singer (36:22.440)
where we do now start to return to behaviorism and say.
Lex Fridman (36:28.480)
Yeah, that is an interesting issue.
Peter Singer (36:33.860)
I would say that if we have serious doubts
Lex Fridman (36:36.960)
and think it might be conscious,
Peter Singer (36:39.440)
then we ought to try to give it the benefit
Lex Fridman (36:41.840)
of the doubt, just as I would say with animals.
Peter Singer (36:45.360)
I think we can be highly confident
Lex Fridman (36:46.880)
that vertebrates are conscious,
Lex Fridman (36:50.460)
but when we get down, and some invertebrates
Lex Fridman (36:53.480)
like the octopus, but with insects,
Peter Singer (36:56.920)
it's much harder to be confident of that.
Lex Fridman (37:01.480)
I think we should give them the benefit
Peter Singer (37:02.760)
of the doubt where we can, which means,
Lex Fridman (37:06.300)
I think it would be wrong to torture an insect,
Lex Fridman (37:09.000)
but it doesn't necessarily mean it's wrong
Lex Fridman (37:11.800)
to slap a mosquito that's about to bite you
Lex Fridman (37:14.800)
and stop you getting to sleep.
Lex Fridman (37:16.300)
So I think you try to achieve some balance
Peter Singer (37:20.100)
in these circumstances of uncertainty.
Lex Fridman (37:22.960)
If it's okay with you, if we can go back just briefly.
Lex Fridman (37:26.440)
So 44 years ago, like you mentioned, 40 plus years ago,
Lex Fridman (37:29.640)
you've written Animal Liberation,
Peter Singer (37:31.200)
the classic book that started,
Lex Fridman (37:33.560)
that launched, that was the foundation
Peter Singer (37:36.440)
of the movement of Animal Liberation.
Lex Fridman (37:40.640)
Can you summarize the key set of ideas
Lex Fridman (37:42.440)
that underpin that book?
Lex Fridman (37:44.360)
Certainly, the key idea that underlies that book
Peter Singer (37:49.000)
is the concept of speciesism,
Lex Fridman (37:52.200)
which I did not invent that term.
Peter Singer (37:54.760)
I took it from a man called Richard Rider,
Lex Fridman (37:56.720)
who was in Oxford when I was,
Lex Fridman (37:58.600)
and I saw a pamphlet that he'd written
Lex Fridman (38:00.240)
about experiments on chimpanzees that used that term.
Lex Fridman (38:05.240)
But I think I contributed
Lex Fridman (38:06.240)
to making it philosophically more precise
Lex Fridman (38:08.800)
and to getting it into a broader audience.
Lex Fridman (38:12.040)
And the idea is that we have a bias or a prejudice
Peter Singer (38:16.760)
against taking seriously the interests of beings
Lex Fridman (38:20.400)
who are not members of our species.
Peter Singer (38:23.440)
Just as in the past, Europeans, for example,
Lex Fridman (38:26.920)
had a bias against taking seriously
Peter Singer (38:28.600)
the interests of Africans, racism.
Lex Fridman (38:31.600)
And men have had a bias against taking seriously
Peter Singer (38:34.080)
the interests of women, sexism.
Lex Fridman (38:37.320)
So I think something analogous, not completely identical,
Lex Fridman (38:41.320)
but something analogous goes on
Lex Fridman (38:44.320)
and has gone on for a very long time
Peter Singer (38:46.640)
with the way humans see themselves vis a vis animals.
Lex Fridman (38:50.440)
We see ourselves as more important.
Peter Singer (38:55.000)
We see animals as existing to serve our needs
Lex Fridman (38:58.320)
in various ways.
Lex Fridman (38:59.380)
And you're gonna find this very explicit
Lex Fridman (39:00.760)
in earlier philosophers from Aristotle
Peter Singer (39:04.480)
through to Kant and others.
Lex Fridman (39:07.080)
And either we don't need to take their interests
Peter Singer (39:12.040)
into account at all,
Lex Fridman (39:14.080)
or we can discount it because they're not humans.
Peter Singer (39:17.800)
They can a little bit,
Lex Fridman (39:18.800)
but they don't count nearly as much as humans do.
Peter Singer (39:22.840)
My book argues that that attitude is responsible
Lex Fridman (39:25.760)
for a lot of the things that we do to animals
Peter Singer (39:29.360)
that are wrong, confining them indoors
Lex Fridman (39:32.120)
in very crowded, cramped conditions in factory farms
Peter Singer (39:36.260)
to produce meat or eggs or milk more cheaply,
Lex Fridman (39:39.720)
using them in some research that's by no means essential
Peter Singer (39:44.000)
for survival or wellbeing, and a whole lot,
Lex Fridman (39:48.320)
some of the sports and things that we do to animals.
Lex Fridman (39:52.460)
So I think that's unjustified
Lex Fridman (39:55.000)
because I think the significance of pain and suffering
Peter Singer (40:01.280)
does not depend on the species of the being
Lex Fridman (40:03.520)
who is in pain or suffering
Peter Singer (40:04.880)
any more than it depends on the race or sex of the being
Lex Fridman (40:08.200)
who is in pain or suffering.
Lex Fridman (40:11.000)
And I think we ought to rethink our treatment of animals
Lex Fridman (40:14.760)
along the lines of saying,
Peter Singer (40:16.800)
if the pain is just as great in an animal,
Lex Fridman (40:19.040)
then it's just as bad that it happens as if it were a human.
Peter Singer (40:23.580)
Maybe if I could ask, I apologize,
Lex Fridman (40:27.980)
hopefully it's not a ridiculous question,
Lex Fridman (40:29.540)
but so as far as we know,
Lex Fridman (40:32.420)
we cannot communicate with animals through natural language,
Lex Fridman (40:36.420)
but we would be able to communicate with robots.
Lex Fridman (40:40.260)
So I'm returning to sort of a small parallel
Peter Singer (40:43.060)
between perhaps animals and the future of AI.
Lex Fridman (40:46.420)
If we do create an AGI system
Peter Singer (40:48.140)
or as we approach creating that AGI system,
Lex Fridman (40:53.620)
what kind of questions would you ask her
Peter Singer (40:56.980)
to try to intuit whether there is consciousness
Lex Fridman (41:06.500)
or more importantly, whether there's capacity to suffer?
Peter Singer (41:12.840)
I might ask the AGI what she was feeling
Lex Fridman (41:17.840)
or does she have feelings?
Lex Fridman (41:19.840)
And if she says yes, to describe those feelings,
Lex Fridman (41:22.680)
to describe what they were like,
Peter Singer (41:24.560)
to see what the phenomenal account of consciousness is like.
Lex Fridman (41:30.800)
That's one question.
Peter Singer (41:33.540)
I might also try to find out if the AGI
Lex Fridman (41:37.840)
has a sense of itself.
Lex Fridman (41:41.360)
So for example, the idea would you,
Lex Fridman (41:45.080)
we often ask people,
Lex Fridman (41:46.360)
so suppose you were in a car accident
Lex Fridman (41:48.680)
and your brain were transplanted into someone else's body,
Lex Fridman (41:51.880)
do you think you would survive
Lex Fridman (41:53.280)
or would it be the person whose body was still surviving,
Lex Fridman (41:56.200)
your body having been destroyed?
Lex Fridman (41:58.000)
And most people say, I think I would,
Peter Singer (42:00.320)
if my brain was transplanted along with my memories
Lex Fridman (42:02.480)
and so on, I would survive.
Lex Fridman (42:04.120)
So we could ask AGI those kinds of questions.
Lex Fridman (42:07.960)
If they were transferred to a different piece of hardware,
Lex Fridman (42:11.680)
would they survive?
Lex Fridman (42:12.880)
What would survive?
Lex Fridman (42:13.960)
And get at that sort of concept.
Lex Fridman (42:15.320)
Sort of on that line, another perhaps absurd question,
Lex Fridman (42:19.380)
but do you think having a body
Lex Fridman (42:22.640)
is necessary for consciousness?
Lex Fridman (42:24.840)
So do you think digital beings can suffer?
Lex Fridman (42:31.080)
Presumably digital beings need to be
Lex Fridman (42:34.740)
running on some kind of hardware, right?
Lex Fridman (42:36.960)
Yeah, that ultimately boils down to,
Lex Fridman (42:38.760)
but this is exactly what you just said,
Lex Fridman (42:40.440)
is moving the brain from one place to another.
Lex Fridman (42:42.360)
So you could move it to a different kind of hardware.
Lex Fridman (42:44.800)
And I could say, look, your hardware is getting worn out.
Peter Singer (42:49.280)
We're going to transfer you to a fresh piece of hardware.
Lex Fridman (42:52.080)
So we're gonna shut you down for a time,
Lex Fridman (42:55.120)
but don't worry, you'll be running very soon
Lex Fridman (42:58.180)
on a nice fresh piece of hardware.
Lex Fridman (43:00.260)
And you could imagine this conscious AGI saying,
Lex Fridman (43:03.200)
that's fine, I don't mind having a little rest.
Peter Singer (43:05.320)
Just make sure you don't lose me or something like that.
Lex Fridman (43:08.780)
Yeah, I mean, that's an interesting thought
Peter Singer (43:10.380)
that even with us humans, the suffering is in the software.
Lex Fridman (43:14.920)
We right now don't know how to repair the hardware,
Lex Fridman (43:19.320)
but we're getting better at it and better in the idea.
Lex Fridman (43:23.200)
I mean, some people dream about one day being able
Peter Singer (43:26.580)
to transfer certain aspects of the software
Lex Fridman (43:30.800)
to another piece of hardware.
Lex Fridman (43:33.000)
What do you think, just on that topic,
Lex Fridman (43:35.720)
there's been a lot of exciting innovation
Peter Singer (43:39.200)
in brain computer interfaces.
Lex Fridman (43:42.120)
I don't know if you're familiar with the companies
Peter Singer (43:43.680)
like Neuralink, with Elon Musk,
Lex Fridman (43:45.960)
communicating both ways from a computer,
Peter Singer (43:48.200)
being able to send, activate neurons
Lex Fridman (43:51.520)
and being able to read spikes from neurons.
Peter Singer (43:54.840)
With the dream of being able to expand,
Lex Fridman (43:58.900)
sort of increase the bandwidth at which your brain
Peter Singer (44:02.460)
can like look up articles on Wikipedia kind of thing,
Lex Fridman (44:05.240)
sort of expand the knowledge capacity of the brain.
Lex Fridman (44:08.360)
Do you think that notion, is that interesting to you
Lex Fridman (44:13.160)
as the expansion of the human mind?
Peter Singer (44:15.520)
Yes, that's very interesting.
Lex Fridman (44:17.280)
I'd love to be able to have that increased bandwidth.
Lex Fridman (44:20.000)
And I want better access to my memory, I have to say too,
Lex Fridman (44:23.680)
as I get older, I talk to my wife about things
Peter Singer (44:28.280)
that we did 20 years ago or something.
Lex Fridman (44:30.280)
Her memory is often better about particular events.
Lex Fridman (44:32.660)
Where were we?
Lex Fridman (44:33.500)
Who was at that event?
Lex Fridman (44:35.180)
What did he or she wear even?
Lex Fridman (44:36.680)
She may know and I have not the faintest idea about this,
Lex Fridman (44:39.040)
but perhaps it's somewhere in my memory.
Lex Fridman (44:40.880)
And if I had this extended memory,
Peter Singer (44:42.560)
I could search that particular year and rerun those things.
Lex Fridman (44:46.580)
I think that would be great.
Peter Singer (44:49.540)
In some sense, we already have that
Lex Fridman (44:51.120)
by storing so much of our data online,
Peter Singer (44:53.220)
like pictures of different events.
Lex Fridman (44:54.720)
Yes, well, Gmail is fantastic for that
Peter Singer (44:56.520)
because people email me as if they know me well
Lex Fridman (44:59.760)
and I haven't got a clue who they are,
Lex Fridman (45:01.440)
but then I search for their name.
Lex Fridman (45:02.760)
Ah yes, they emailed me in 2007
Lex Fridman (45:05.240)
and I know who they are now.
Lex Fridman (45:07.040)
Yeah, so we're taking the first steps already.
Lex Fridman (45:11.080)
So on the flip side of AI,
Lex Fridman (45:13.320)
people like Stuart Russell and others
Peter Singer (45:14.920)
focus on the control problem, value alignment in AI,
Lex Fridman (45:19.000)
which is the problem of making sure we build systems
Peter Singer (45:21.400)
that align to our own values, our ethics.
Lex Fridman (45:25.480)
Do you think sort of high level,
Lex Fridman (45:28.440)
how do we go about building systems?
Lex Fridman (45:31.160)
Do you think is it possible that align with our values,
Lex Fridman (45:34.640)
align with our human ethics or living being ethics?
Lex Fridman (45:39.360)
Presumably, it's possible to do that.
Peter Singer (45:43.900)
I know that a lot of people who think
Lex Fridman (45:46.120)
that there's a real danger that we won't,
Peter Singer (45:48.000)
that we'll more or less accidentally lose control of AGI.
Lex Fridman (45:51.840)
Do you have that fear yourself personally?
Peter Singer (45:56.880)
I'm not quite sure what to think.
Lex Fridman (45:58.600)
I talk to philosophers like Nick Bostrom and Toby Ord
Lex Fridman (46:01.880)
and they think that this is a real problem
Lex Fridman (46:05.000)
we need to worry about.
Peter Singer (46:07.240)
Then I talk to people who work for Microsoft
Lex Fridman (46:11.200)
or DeepMind or somebody and they say,
Peter Singer (46:13.640)
no, we're not really that close to producing AGI,
Lex Fridman (46:18.320)
super intelligence.
Lex Fridman (46:19.600)
So if you look at Nick Bostrom,
Lex Fridman (46:21.280)
sort of the arguments, it's very hard to defend.
Lex Fridman (46:25.000)
So I'm of course, I am a self engineer AI system,
Lex Fridman (46:28.040)
so I'm more with the DeepMind folks
Peter Singer (46:29.920)
where it seems that we're really far away,
Lex Fridman (46:32.360)
but then the counter argument is,
Lex Fridman (46:34.840)
is there any fundamental reason that we'll never achieve it?
Lex Fridman (46:39.160)
And if not, then eventually there'll be
Peter Singer (46:42.160)
a dire existential risk.
Lex Fridman (46:44.360)
So we should be concerned about it.
Lex Fridman (46:46.440)
And do you find that argument at all appealing
Lex Fridman (46:50.700)
in this domain or any domain that eventually
Lex Fridman (46:53.120)
this will be a problem so we should be worried about it?
Lex Fridman (46:56.880)
Yes, I think it's a problem.
Peter Singer (46:58.720)
I think that's a valid point.
Lex Fridman (47:03.760)
Of course, when you say eventually,
Lex Fridman (47:08.960)
that raises the question, how far off is that?
Lex Fridman (47:11.440)
And is there something that we can do about it now?
Peter Singer (47:13.840)
Because if we're talking about
Lex Fridman (47:15.440)
this is gonna be 100 years in the future
Lex Fridman (47:17.720)
and you consider how rapidly our knowledge
Lex Fridman (47:20.080)
of artificial intelligence has grown
Peter Singer (47:22.080)
in the last 10 or 20 years,
Lex Fridman (47:24.000)
it seems unlikely that there's anything much
Peter Singer (47:26.920)
we could do now that would influence
Lex Fridman (47:29.640)
whether this is going to happen 100 years in the future.
Peter Singer (47:33.440)
People in 80 years in the future
Lex Fridman (47:35.120)
would be in a much better position to say,
Peter Singer (47:37.300)
this is what we need to do to prevent this happening
Lex Fridman (47:39.740)
than we are now.
Lex Fridman (47:41.520)
So to some extent I find that reassuring,
Lex Fridman (47:44.560)
but I'm all in favor of some people doing research
Peter Singer (47:48.640)
into this to see if indeed it is that far off
Lex Fridman (47:51.480)
or if we are in a position to do something about it sooner.
Peter Singer (47:55.440)
I'm very much of the view that extinction
Lex Fridman (47:58.760)
is a terrible thing and therefore,
Peter Singer (48:02.760)
even if the risk of extinction is very small,
Lex Fridman (48:05.960)
if we can reduce that risk,
Peter Singer (48:09.040)
that's something that we ought to do.
Lex Fridman (48:11.240)
My disagreement with some of these people
Peter Singer (48:12.760)
who talk about longterm risks, extinction risks,
Lex Fridman (48:16.360)
is only about how much priority that should have
Peter Singer (48:18.820)
as compared to present questions.
Lex Fridman (48:20.520)
So essentially, if you look at the math of it
Peter Singer (48:22.680)
from a utilitarian perspective,
Lex Fridman (48:25.000)
if it's existential risk, so everybody dies,
Peter Singer (48:28.920)
that it feels like an infinity in the math equation,
Lex Fridman (48:33.160)
that that makes the math
Peter Singer (48:36.880)
with the priorities difficult to do.
Lex Fridman (48:39.380)
That if we don't know the time scale
Lex Fridman (48:42.720)
and you can legitimately argue
Lex Fridman (48:43.960)
that it's nonzero probability that it'll happen tomorrow,
Peter Singer (48:48.160)
that how do you deal with these kinds of existential risks
Lex Fridman (48:52.080)
like from nuclear war, from nuclear weapons,
Peter Singer (48:55.720)
from biological weapons, from,
Lex Fridman (48:58.640)
I'm not sure if global warming falls into that category
Peter Singer (49:01.960)
because global warming is a lot more gradual.
Lex Fridman (49:04.760)
And people say it's not an existential risk
Peter Singer (49:06.880)
because there'll always be possibilities
Lex Fridman (49:08.280)
of some humans existing, farming Antarctica
Peter Singer (49:11.200)
or northern Siberia or something of that sort, yeah.
Lex Fridman (49:14.260)
But you don't find the complete existential risks
Peter Singer (49:18.360)
as a fundamental, like an overriding part
Lex Fridman (49:23.080)
of the equations of ethics, of what we should do.
Peter Singer (49:26.280)
You know, certainly if you treat it as an infinity,
Lex Fridman (49:29.000)
then it plays havoc with any calculations.
Lex Fridman (49:32.040)
But arguably, we shouldn't.
Lex Fridman (49:34.480)
I mean, one of the ethical assumptions that goes into this
Peter Singer (49:37.380)
is that the loss of future lives,
Lex Fridman (49:40.680)
that is of merely possible lives of beings
Peter Singer (49:43.280)
who may never exist at all,
Lex Fridman (49:44.920)
is in some way comparable to the sufferings or deaths
Peter Singer (49:51.240)
of people who do exist at some point.
Lex Fridman (49:54.680)
And that's not clear to me.
Peter Singer (49:57.380)
I think there's a case for saying that,
Lex Fridman (49:59.320)
but I also think there's a case for taking the other view.
Lex Fridman (50:01.800)
So that has some impact on it.
Lex Fridman (50:04.560)
Of course, you might say, ah, yes,
Lex Fridman (50:05.940)
but still, if there's some uncertainty about this
Lex Fridman (50:08.920)
and the costs of extinction are infinite,
Peter Singer (50:12.560)
then still, it's gonna overwhelm everything else.
Lex Fridman (50:16.680)
But I suppose I'm not convinced of that.
Peter Singer (50:20.880)
I'm not convinced that it's really infinite here.
Lex Fridman (50:23.440)
And even Nick Bostrom, in his discussion of this,
Peter Singer (50:27.240)
doesn't claim that there'll be
Lex Fridman (50:28.560)
an infinite number of lives lived.
Lex Fridman (50:31.280)
What is it, 10 to the 56th or something?
Lex Fridman (50:33.360)
It's a vast number that I think he calculates.
Peter Singer (50:36.040)
This is assuming we can upload consciousness
Lex Fridman (50:38.220)
onto these digital forms,
Lex Fridman (50:43.560)
and therefore, they'll be much more energy efficient,
Lex Fridman (50:45.280)
but he calculates the amount of energy in the universe
Peter Singer (50:47.640)
or something like that.
Lex Fridman (50:48.660)
So the numbers are vast but not infinite,
Peter Singer (50:50.480)
which gives you some prospect maybe
Lex Fridman (50:52.520)
of resisting some of the argument.
Peter Singer (50:55.640)
The beautiful thing with Nick's arguments
Lex Fridman (50:57.360)
is he quickly jumps from the individual scale
Peter Singer (50:59.780)
to the universal scale,
Lex Fridman (51:01.080)
which is just awe inspiring to think of
Peter Singer (51:04.480)
when you think about the entirety
Lex Fridman (51:06.200)
of the span of time of the universe.
Peter Singer (51:08.880)
It's both interesting from a computer science perspective,
Lex Fridman (51:11.400)
AI perspective, and from an ethical perspective,
Peter Singer (51:13.760)
the idea of utilitarianism.
Lex Fridman (51:16.000)
Could you say what is utilitarianism?
Peter Singer (51:19.720)
Utilitarianism is the ethical view
Lex Fridman (51:22.060)
that the right thing to do is the act
Peter Singer (51:25.440)
that has the greatest expected utility,
Lex Fridman (51:28.740)
where what that means is it's the act
Peter Singer (51:32.320)
that will produce the best consequences,
Lex Fridman (51:34.860)
discounted by the odds that you won't be able
Peter Singer (51:37.680)
to produce those consequences,
Lex Fridman (51:38.940)
that something will go wrong.
Lex Fridman (51:40.400)
But in simple case, let's assume we have certainty
Lex Fridman (51:43.880)
about what the consequences of our actions will be,
Peter Singer (51:46.140)
then the right action is the action
Lex Fridman (51:47.600)
that will produce the best consequences.
Peter Singer (51:50.500)
Is that always, and by the way,
Lex Fridman (51:52.080)
there's a bunch of nuanced stuff
Peter Singer (51:53.400)
that you talk with Sam Harris on this podcast
Lex Fridman (51:56.000)
on that people should go listen to.
Peter Singer (51:57.960)
It's great.
Lex Fridman (51:58.800)
That's like two hours of moral philosophy discussion.
Lex Fridman (52:02.940)
But is that an easy calculation?
Lex Fridman (52:05.520)
No, it's a difficult calculation.
Lex Fridman (52:07.360)
And actually, there's one thing that I need to add,
Lex Fridman (52:10.000)
and that is utilitarians, certainly the classical
Peter Singer (52:14.240)
utilitarians, think that by best consequences,
Lex Fridman (52:16.760)
we're talking about happiness
Lex Fridman (52:18.840)
and the absence of pain and suffering.
Lex Fridman (52:21.020)
There are other consequentialists
Peter Singer (52:22.920)
who are not really utilitarians who say
Lex Fridman (52:27.320)
there are different things that could be good consequences.
Peter Singer (52:29.740)
Justice, freedom, human dignity,
Lex Fridman (52:32.800)
knowledge, they all count as good consequences too.
Lex Fridman (52:35.840)
And that makes the calculations even more difficult
Lex Fridman (52:38.080)
because then you need to know
Lex Fridman (52:38.920)
how to balance these things off.
Lex Fridman (52:40.840)
If you are just talking about wellbeing,
Peter Singer (52:44.580)
using that term to express happiness
Lex Fridman (52:46.560)
and the absence of suffering,
Peter Singer (52:49.040)
I think the calculation becomes more manageable
Lex Fridman (52:54.280)
in a philosophical sense.
Peter Singer (52:56.400)
It's still in practice.
Lex Fridman (52:58.180)
We don't know how to do it.
Peter Singer (52:59.280)
We don't know how to measure quantities
Lex Fridman (53:01.040)
of happiness and misery.
Peter Singer (53:02.740)
We don't know how to calculate the probabilities
Lex Fridman (53:04.960)
that different actions will produce, this or that.
Lex Fridman (53:08.800)
So at best, we can use it as a rough guide
Lex Fridman (53:13.080)
to different actions and one where we have to focus
Peter Singer (53:16.520)
on the short term consequences
Lex Fridman (53:20.120)
because we just can't really predict
Peter Singer (53:22.800)
all of the longer term ramifications.
Lex Fridman (53:25.360)
So what about the extreme suffering of very small groups?
Lex Fridman (53:33.240)
Utilitarianism is focused on the overall aggregate, right?
Lex Fridman (53:38.320)
Would you say you yourself are a utilitarian?
Peter Singer (53:41.040)
Yes, I'm a utilitarian.
Lex Fridman (53:45.540)
What do you make of the difficult, ethical,
Lex Fridman (53:50.280)
maybe poetic suffering of very few individuals?
Lex Fridman (53:54.960)
I think it's possible that that gets overridden
Peter Singer (53:57.040)
by benefits to very large numbers of individuals.
Lex Fridman (54:00.080)
I think that can be the right answer.
Lex Fridman (54:02.880)
But before we conclude that it is the right answer,
Lex Fridman (54:05.440)
we have to know how severe the suffering is
Lex Fridman (54:08.960)
and how that compares with the benefits.
Lex Fridman (54:12.320)
So I tend to think that extreme suffering is worse than
Peter Singer (54:19.680)
or is further, if you like, below the neutral level
Lex Fridman (54:23.480)
than extreme happiness or bliss is above it.
Lex Fridman (54:27.320)
So when I think about the worst experiences possible
Lex Fridman (54:30.720)
and the best experiences possible,
Peter Singer (54:33.160)
I don't think of them as equidistant from neutral.
Lex Fridman (54:36.200)
So like it's a scale that goes from minus 100 through zero
Peter Singer (54:39.640)
as a neutral level to plus 100.
Lex Fridman (54:43.480)
Because I know that I would not exchange an hour
Peter Singer (54:46.880)
of my most pleasurable experiences
Lex Fridman (54:49.620)
for an hour of my most painful experiences,
Peter Singer (54:52.400)
even I wouldn't have an hour
Lex Fridman (54:54.440)
of my most painful experiences even for two hours
Peter Singer (54:57.360)
or 10 hours of my most painful experiences.
Lex Fridman (55:01.760)
Did I say that correctly?
Peter Singer (55:02.600)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Lex Fridman (55:03.720)
Maybe 20 hours then, it's 21, what's the exchange rate?
Lex Fridman (55:07.080)
So that's the question, what is the exchange rate?
Lex Fridman (55:08.700)
But I think it can be quite high.
Lex Fridman (55:10.940)
So that's why you shouldn't just assume that
Lex Fridman (55:15.480)
it's okay to make one person suffer extremely
Peter Singer (55:18.480)
in order to make two people much better off.
Lex Fridman (55:21.520)
It might be a much larger number.
Lex Fridman (55:23.520)
But at some point I do think you should aggregate
Lex Fridman (55:27.520)
and the result will be,
Peter Singer (55:30.560)
even though it violates our intuitions of justice
Lex Fridman (55:33.840)
and fairness, whatever it might be,
Peter Singer (55:36.560)
giving priority to those who are worse off,
Lex Fridman (55:39.560)
at some point I still think
Peter Singer (55:41.660)
that will be the right thing to do.
Lex Fridman (55:43.040)
Yeah, it's some complicated nonlinear function.
Peter Singer (55:46.960)
Can I ask a sort of out there question is,
Lex Fridman (55:49.000)
the more and more we put our data out there,
Peter Singer (55:51.080)
the more we're able to measure a bunch of factors
Lex Fridman (55:53.200)
of each of our individual human lives.
Lex Fridman (55:55.680)
And I could foresee the ability to estimate wellbeing
Lex Fridman (55:59.940)
of whatever we together collectively agree
Lex Fridman (56:03.940)
and is in a good objective function
Lex Fridman (56:05.960)
from a utilitarian perspective.
Lex Fridman (56:07.900)
Do you think it'll be possible
Lex Fridman (56:11.360)
and is a good idea to push that kind of analysis
Peter Singer (56:15.960)
to make then public decisions perhaps with the help of AI
Lex Fridman (56:19.920)
that here's a tax rate,
Peter Singer (56:24.560)
here's a tax rate at which wellbeing will be optimized.
Lex Fridman (56:28.280)
Yeah, that would be great if we really knew that,
Peter Singer (56:31.040)
if we really could calculate that.
Lex Fridman (56:32.360)
No, but do you think it's possible
Peter Singer (56:33.600)
to converge towards an agreement amongst humans,
Lex Fridman (56:36.640)
towards an objective function
Lex Fridman (56:39.720)
or is it just a hopeless pursuit?
Lex Fridman (56:42.020)
I don't think it's hopeless.
Peter Singer (56:43.080)
I think it would be difficult
Lex Fridman (56:44.800)
to get converged towards agreement, at least at present,
Peter Singer (56:47.880)
because some people would say,
Lex Fridman (56:49.920)
I've got different views about justice
Lex Fridman (56:52.040)
and I think you ought to give priority
Lex Fridman (56:54.180)
to those who are worse off,
Peter Singer (56:55.860)
even though I acknowledge that the gains
Lex Fridman (56:58.720)
that the worst off are making are less than the gains
Peter Singer (57:01.460)
that those who are sort of medium badly off could be making.
Lex Fridman (57:05.740)
So we still have all of these intuitions that we argue about.
Lex Fridman (57:10.240)
So I don't think we would get agreement,
Lex Fridman (57:11.700)
but the fact that we wouldn't get agreement
Peter Singer (57:14.280)
doesn't show that there isn't a right answer there.
Lex Fridman (57:17.840)
Do you think, who gets to say what is right and wrong?
Lex Fridman (57:21.320)
Do you think there's place for ethics oversight
Lex Fridman (57:23.600)
from the government?
Lex Fridman (57:26.360)
So I'm thinking in the case of AI,
Lex Fridman (57:29.320)
overseeing what kind of decisions AI can make or not,
Lex Fridman (57:33.900)
but also if you look at animal rights
Lex Fridman (57:36.700)
or rather not rights or perhaps rights,
Lex Fridman (57:39.560)
but the ideas you've explored in animal liberation,
Lex Fridman (57:43.000)
who gets to, so you eloquently and beautifully write
Peter Singer (57:46.480)
in your book that this, you know, we shouldn't do this,
Lex Fridman (57:50.480)
but is there some harder rules that should be imposed
Peter Singer (57:53.600)
or is this a collective thing we converse towards the society
Lex Fridman (57:56.680)
and thereby make the better and better ethical decisions?
Peter Singer (58:02.080)
Politically, I'm still a Democrat
Lex Fridman (58:04.320)
despite looking at the flaws in democracy
Lex Fridman (58:07.880)
and the way it doesn't work always very well.
Lex Fridman (58:10.160)
So I don't see a better option
Peter Singer (58:11.880)
than allowing the public to vote for governments
Lex Fridman (58:18.520)
in accordance with their policies.
Lex Fridman (58:20.040)
And I hope that they will vote for policies
Lex Fridman (58:24.800)
that reduce the suffering of animals
Lex Fridman (58:27.800)
and reduce the suffering of distant humans,
Lex Fridman (58:30.600)
whether geographically distant or distant
Peter Singer (58:32.600)
because they're future humans.
Lex Fridman (58:35.160)
But I recognise that democracy
Peter Singer (58:36.520)
isn't really well set up to do that.
Lex Fridman (58:38.440)
And in a sense, you could imagine a wise and benevolent,
Peter Singer (58:45.540)
you know, omnibenevolent leader
Lex Fridman (58:48.740)
who would do that better than democracies could.
Lex Fridman (58:51.820)
But in the world in which we live,
Lex Fridman (58:54.660)
it's difficult to imagine that this leader
Peter Singer (58:57.420)
isn't gonna be corrupted by a variety of influences.
Lex Fridman (59:01.300)
You know, we've had so many examples
Peter Singer (59:04.100)
of people who've taken power with good intentions
Lex Fridman (59:08.540)
and then have ended up being corrupt
Lex Fridman (59:10.260)
and favouring themselves.
Lex Fridman (59:12.780)
So I don't know, you know, that's why, as I say,
Peter Singer (59:16.540)
I don't know that we have a better system
Lex Fridman (59:17.960)
than democracy to make these decisions.
Peter Singer (59:20.060)
Well, so you also discuss effective altruism,
Lex Fridman (59:23.460)
which is a mechanism for going around government
Peter Singer (59:27.220)
for putting the power in the hands of the people
Lex Fridman (59:29.540)
to donate money towards causes to help, you know,
Peter Singer (59:32.460)
remove the middleman and give it directly
Lex Fridman (59:37.940)
to the causes that they care about.
Peter Singer (59:41.540)
Sort of, maybe this is a good time to ask,
Lex Fridman (59:45.220)
you've, 10 years ago, wrote The Life You Can Save,
Lex Fridman (59:48.180)
that's now, I think, available for free online?
Lex Fridman (59:51.300)
That's right, you can download either the ebook
Peter Singer (59:53.820)
or the audiobook free from the lifeyoucansave.org.
Lex Fridman (59:58.420)
And what are the key ideas that you present
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