Vice President JD Vance met with the new pope a few days ago. He then sat down with The Times to talk about faith, immigration, the law and the partisan temptation to go too far.
Ross Douthat, an opinion columnist and the host of the new podcast “Interesting Times,” discusses their conversation.
Guest: Ross Douthat, an Opinion columnist and the host of the “Interesting Times” podcast.
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Photo: The New York Times
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The late biologist E.O. Wilson said that “the real problem of humanity is the following: We have Paleolithic emotions, medieval institutions, and god-like technology. And it is terrifically dangerous.” Wilson said that back in 2011, long before any of us were talking about large language models or GPTs.
A little more than a decade later, artificial intelligence is already completely transforming our world. Practitioners and experts have compared A.I. to the advent of electricity and fire itself. “God-like” doesn’t seem that far off.
Even sober experts predict disease cures and radically expanded lifespans, real-time disaster prediction and response, the elimination of language barriers, and other earthly miracles. A.I. is amazing, in the truest sense of that word.
It is also leading some to predict nothing less than a crisis in what it means to be human in an age of brilliant machines. Others—including some of the people creating this technology—predict our possible extinction as a species.
But you don’t have to go quite that far to imagine the way it will transform our relationship toward information and our ability to pursue the truth.
For tens of thousands of years, since humans started to stand upright and talk to each other, we’ve found our way to wisdom through disagreement and debate.
But in the age of A.I., our sources of truth are machines that spit out the information we already have, reflecting our biases and our blind spots.
What happens to truth when we no longer wrestle with it—and only receive it passively? When disagreeable, complicated human beings are replaced with A.I. chatbots that just tell us what we want to hear? It makes today’s concerns about misinformation and disinformation seem quaint.
Our ability to detect whether something is real or an A.I.-generated fabrication is approaching zero. And unlike social media—a network of people that we instinctively know can be wrong—A.I. systems have a veneer of omniscience, despite being riddled with the biases of the humans who trained them. Meanwhile, a global arms race is underway, with the U.S. and China competing to decide who gets to control the authoritative information source of the future.
So last week Bari traveled to San Francisco to host a debate on whether this remarkable, revolutionary technology will enhance our understanding of the world and bring us closer to the truth . . .or do just the opposite.
The resolution: The Truth Will Survive Artificial Intelligence!
Aravind Srinivas argued yes—the truth will survive A.I. Aravind is the CEO of one of the most exciting companies in this field, Perplexity, which he co-founded in 2022 after working at OpenAI, Google, and DeepMind.
Aravind was joined by Dr. Fei-Fei Li. Fei-Fei is a professor of computer science at Stanford, the founding co-director of the Stanford Institute for Human-Centered A.I., and the CEO and co-founder of World Labs, an A.I. company focusing on spatial intelligence and generative A.I.
Jaron Lanier argued that no, the truth will not survive A.I. Jaron is a computer scientist, best-selling author, and the founder of VPL Research, the first company to sell virtual reality products.
Jaron was joined by Nicholas Carr, the author of countless best-selling books on the human consequences of technology, including Pulitzer Prize finalist The Shallows, The Glass Cage, and, most recently, Superbloom. He also writes the wonderful Substack New Cartographies.
FIRE knows free speech makes free people. You make it possible. Join the movement today at thefire.org.
Cosmos Institute and FIRE are launching a $1M fund – cash and compute – for open-source AI projects that advance truth-seeking. Apply at CosmosGrants.org/truth!
In the latest installment of the ongoing interview series with contributing editor Mark Bauerlein, Caitrin Bennett joins in to discuss her recent book, "Holier Matrimony: Married Saints, Catholic Vows, and Sacramental Grace."
Intro music by Jack Bauerlein.
Paris Marx is joined by Emily M. Bender and Alex Hanna to discuss the harms of generative AI, how the industry keeps the public invested while companies flounder under the weight of unmet promises, and what people can do to push back.
Tech Won’t Save Us offers a critical perspective on tech, its worldview, and wider society with the goal of inspiring people to demand better tech and a better world. Support the show on Patreon.
The podcast is made in partnership with The Nation. Production is by Kyla Hewson.
Musician Rhiannon Giddens has won Grammys, a Pulitzer, and a MacArthur "Genius Grant."
But her new album is a true love letter to her North Carolina roots and features former Carolina Chocolate Drops bandmate Justin Robinson. The album is called "What Did the Blackbird Say to the Crow."
Giddens and Robinson join us to talk about North Carolina's musical past, taking the time to learn at the feet of a master, and what it means to call a place home.
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Join Washington Examiner Senior Writer David Harsanyi and Federalist Editor-In-Chief Mollie Hemingway as they discuss how President Joe Biden's cancer diagnosis fits into the cognitive decline cover-up, dive into the Epstein files and John F. Kennedy's assassination, and analyze Secretary of State Marco Rubio's explanation for importing Afrikaners into the U.S. David and Mollie also share some of their recent travels and record finds.
If you care about combating the corrupt media that continue to inflict devastating damage, please give a gift to help The Federalist do the real journalism America needs.
On deportations and on foreign policy, the Trump administration is swapping out American values and violating everything the U.S. has stood for in exchange for kleptocracy and transactionalism with the world's worst tyrants. But at the same time, Trump can't even seem to grasp that Putin has been waging war for decades to accomplish his goals and is not interested in cutting a deal to end the bloodshed in Ukraine. Plus, the very dim appointees running our federal agencies, Elon and Marco are now trying to deny they cut food aid, and the unwelcome honorific of being a Trump historian.
Mark Halperin joins the podcast today to talk about the continuing fallout from the Biden revelations, whether the "big beautiful bill" will pass, and whether Donald Trump's announcement of a new missile-defense system passes the smell test. Give a listen.
Today we have on repeat guest Karen Hao to talk about her new blockbuster book “Empire of AI: Dreams and Nightmares in Sam Altman’s OpenAI.” It’s an amazing, deeply reported book that somehow encapsulates the history of AI, Silicon Valley, and OpenAI while also making a needed and clear argument about how we should think about this technology. Truly like if “Barbarians at the Gate” met “The Shock Doctrine” and it was about AI. We talk about the beginnings of OpenAI, how it burns a colonial path throughout the rest of the world in the form of data centers and exploitative labor, and how we might find a better alternative to Sam Altman’s plan to take over the world. Can’t recommend this book more highly — go get it!
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