AI and Extinction through a Welfarist Lens

Talk by Michael Livermore, 2023-2024 Paris IAS Fellow at the CETEP - Center for Environmental and Technology Ethics, Institute of Philosophy, Czech Academy of Sciences.

Free entrance.
More information: https://cetep.eu/ai-and-extinction-through-a-welfarist-lens-a-new-approach/

Traditionally, welfarism focuses on the aggregate levels and distribution of well-being. In this talk, Livermore will argue in favor of a welfarism that also takes into consideration the diversity of experiences. On this diversity-oriented view, worlds with a greater variety of experiences are better -- other things being equal -- than worlds with less variety of experiences. This view has implications for a wide range of questions in welfarism, including the ethics of extinction and the morality of bringing new kinds of experiencing entities, including artificial intelligence and synthetic lifeforms, into being.