Nate Soares sees brain preservation after death as an alternative to an AI race that risks human extinction
Nate Soares sees brain preservation after death as an alternative to an AI race that risks human extinction
On November 1, the president of the Machine Intelligence Research Institute debated Vladimir Shakirov about the cost of pausing AI development. Shakirov pointed to people dying from aging and disease, while Soares argued that all future generations should also count.
The institute was founded in 2000 to accelerate the development of AI smarter than humans. Today, it calls for a halt to AI development until the problem of aligning its goals with human goals has been solved. The discussion began with a question about the conditions under which supporters of a pause would agree to resume development. Soares suggested a criterion for resuming it:
“As a first approximation, we should consider proceeding when the risk of extinction from AI is comparable to the risk of losing humanity’s future to other causes.”
Shakirov pointed to deaths from aging and disease. For people waiting for new treatments, a prolonged pause carries the risk of dying before the medicine they need becomes available. The hope that AI could accelerate medical progress gives them a reason to push for faster development. Soares counters that extinction would deprive both people alive today and all potential descendants of a future. He considers deaths from aging and disease insufficient grounds for accepting that risk.
For those hoping to live long enough to benefit from future medicine, Soares supports brain preservation after legal death. Long-term memory and personality traits are linked to the connections between nerve cells. Brain preservation seeks to retain these connections until technologies capable of restoring the person become available.
In August, neuroscientist Ariel Zeleznikow-Johnston linked brain preservation to reducing the risks of an AI race. His argument is that having another chance to benefit from future medicine gives people less reason to accelerate AI development to save their own lives. In the current debate, Soares endorsed brain preservation for people who want to:
“Reach the future without recklessly gambling with everyone else’s lives.”