Henry Shevlin – The Life Force Beyond Biology (Worthy Successor, Episode 31)

This new installment of the Worthy Successor series is an interview with Henry Shevlin, philosopher of cognitive science and AI ethicist at the University of Cambridge.

In this conversation, Henry argues that many of the qualities we associate with life, intelligence, and moral value may not be confined to humans-or even to biology itself. As AI systems become increasingly agentic and autonomous, he suggests we may need to rethink some of our most fundamental assumptions about minds, consciousness, agency, and what kinds of beings deserve moral consideration.

We talk about machine consciousness, animal minds, animacy, social AI, the future of intelligence, and what it would mean for life to flourish beyond humanity.

The interview is the thirty-first installment of The Trajectory’s second series, Worthy Successor, where we explore the kinds of posthuman intelligences that deserve to steer the future beyond humanity.

This episode referred to the following other essays and resources:
-- A Worthy Successor - The Purpose of AGI: https://danfaggella.com/worthy
-- John Smart – Evolution from Cells to Super-intelligence (Worthy Successor, Episode 21): https://danfaggella.com/smart1/
-- Nick Bostrom – AGI That Saves Room for Us (Worthy Successor, Episode 1): https://danfaggella.com/bostrom1/
-- Peter Singer – Optimizing the Future for Joy, and the Exploration of the Good (Worthy Successor, Episode 10): https://danfaggella.com/singer1/
-- Henry’s paper: Three frameworks for AI mentality - https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/items/f68213ab-908e-4363-a65f-b2ef68f0327d

Books mentioned by Henry:
-- Solaris by Stanisław Lem: https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/95558.Solaris
-- Cat's Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/135479.Cat_s_Cradle

Listen to this episode on The Trajectory Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-trajectory/id1739255954

Watch the full episode on YouTube: https://youtu.be/Q2z0I8xZrFo

See the full article from this episode: https://danfaggella.com/shevlin1

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About The Trajectory:

AGI and man-machine merger are going to radically expand the process of life beyond humanity -- so how can we ensure a good trajectory for future life?

From Yoshua Bengio to Nick Bostrom, from Michael Levin to Peter Singer, we discuss how to positively influence the trajectory of posthuman life with the greatest minds in AI, biology, philosophy, and policy.

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