Existential Hope Drop #8: Adam Brown, Stanford University
A Theoretical Physicist's Take On The Future
December 2022
In this Hope Drop, renowned theoretical physicist Adam Brown shares his insights on the future of physics and cosmology. From his work on black holes and the early universe, to his thoughts on the potential risks and opportunities for the future, Brown offers a unique perspective and is one of the leading minds in the field.
What hopes does Adam Brown hold for the future?
Adam is a theoretical physicist at Stanford, interested in early universe cosmology, inflation, black holes, and assorted other topics. His academic papers can be found on the arXiv.
Adam speaks on:
His journey and experiences as a theoretical physicist
Valuable advice for those interested in pursuing a career in this exciting field
The potential risks and opportunities for the future in physics
Don't miss this chance to learn from a leading expert and be inspired by the possibilities of the future!
What could the future look like if the current trends of GDP growth, poverty reduction, and improved living conditions continue?
Such a scenario is the vision of a positive future as envisioned by Adam Brown, which is the basis for this art piece.
About the art
This piece was created using DALL-E, a machine learning model created by OpenAI to produce images from language descriptions.
Visualizing concepts can help us make what seems abstract become real and clear in our minds. Existential Hope is on a mission to help us visualize more positive futures.
NEWS FROM THE XHOPE ECOSYSTEM
Foresight Existential Hope Day
Science and Technology are rapidly unlocking unfathomable opportunities for our future. Much of our attention is focused on the threats to human existence. Little is focused on ideas about what to aim for instead. But we cannot create what we cannot imagine.
Let’s map both risks and possibilities which lie before us in biotechnology, nanotechnology, neurotechnology, computing, AI, and space technologies.
The Sagan Space Tournament with Metaculus
Scientific discovery, economic windfalls, technological breakthroughs, and geopolitical dominance — much hangs in the balance as humanity embarks on a new chapter in spaceflight, exploration, and commercialization.
The Sagan Space Tournament forecasts a range of significant milestones — lunar occupation, private space tourism, and space debris risks — building on the Metaculus community’s strong foundation forecasting these topics.
8 mindblowing AI tools (you can use today) that will save you hours
Marius Hauken has collected his favorite AI tools in a list on Twitter. These tools can help you create images and art pieces, write code, write emails, or generate personal content ideas. The above image was created with Open AI's DALL-E image tool, one of the mentions on the list.
Click below to discover the full list!
When will the last human be born and how many people will there ever be?
This is a short and beautiful video on the future of humanity.
Rapid climate change, political division, our greed and failings make it hard to look at our species with a lot of optimism and so many people think our end is in sight. But humans always thought they lived in the end times. This video looks at the temporal window of humanity and asks: When will the last human be born and how many people will there ever be?
Sentience Institute News
There is growing concern about how humans will react to artificial intelligence (AI) that appears to have agency and intentionality, as well as how we will determine when an AI is sentient. In 2022, there was increased attention on the topic of AI sentience, with notable events including a tweet from an OpenAI scientist suggesting that current large neural networks may be slightly conscious, and the firing of a Google engineer who claimed their language model was sentient. As AI systems become more advanced, understanding the perceptions, nature, and effects of digital minds is becoming an important part of the future of AI. The Sentience Institute just shared their report on the current state of AI sentience research.