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2 interviews · 6 quotes
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In this exclusive interview series, we talk to Jaan Tallinn (Co-Founder of Skype and Cambridge Centre for the Study of Existential Risk), Professor Sir John Beddington (Senior Advisor, Oxford Martin School &…
Elsewhere in the archive
In this interview I speak to Dr. Richard Socher — pioneer of neural NLP, inventor of widely used word vectors, and founder of You.com. He discusses his journey from contrarian Stanford researcher…
From the archive
Consequentialism is a philosophical approach to morality which says that actions themselves don't have intrinsic value, rather- the value of actions is determined by their consequences. We should therefore should be aware of the effects and side effects of actions when establishing their value.
— Jaan TallinnCo-Founder of Skype & Estonian Entrepreneur & Technologist
Humanity has always been concerned with the end of the world!
— Jaan TallinnCo-Founder of Skype & Estonian Entrepreneur & Technologist
By definition, existential risks are those which- by definition- could terminate the species, or permanently limit the long term potential of our civilisation. Martin Rees, the distinguished scientist, said that the difference between killing 90% of humanity, and 100% of humanity is not 10%. The difference is huge. By killing 100% of humanity, you are also killing all future generations.
— Jaan TallinnCo-Founder of Skype & Estonian Entrepreneur & Technologist
There's an interesting over-representation of physicists within the existentialist community. Physicists, especially astronomers and cosmologists have had a glimpse of how vast the universe is, and the potential value of it, versus our planet.
— Jaan TallinnCo-Founder of Skype & Estonian Entrepreneur & Technologist
Humanity, having never faced any serious competition or whole-species-threats, feels relatively safe from existential events and cannot conceive any threats it may be creating.
— Jaan TallinnCo-Founder of Skype & Estonian Entrepreneur & Technologist
We compensate for our failure to exercise actual control over events by creating a generalized, subjective sense of control by undertaking acts the effect of which on the environment is illusory.
— Jaan TallinnCo-Founder of Skype & Estonian Entrepreneur & Technologist
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