Would an AI simulation of your dead loved one be a blessing or an abomination? And if you knew that after your own death, your loved ones would create a simulation of you, how would that knowledge change the way you choose to live today? These are some of the questions psychologist Paul Bloom discusses with EconTalk's Russ Roberts as we stand on the threshold of digital immortality.
Welcome to Econ talk conversations for the curious part of the Library of economics and Liberty.
I'm your host, Russ Roberts of Shalem College in Jerusalem and Stanford University's Hoover Institution.
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Today is March 27, 2024.
My guest is psychologist Paul Bloom of the University of Toronto.
His substack is called small potatoes, and I love it.
This is Paul's 6th appearance on econTalk.
He was last year in December of 2023, talking about whether artificial intelligence can be moral.
Paul, welcome back to Econ Talk.
Glad to be back.
Thanks for having me.
I want to let listeners know this episode may touch on some adult or dark themes.
You may want to listen in advance before sharing with children, and our topic for today is a recent essay on your substack.
The title was be right back, which described a scenario for the future, a scenario I would call a certain kind of immortality that you, Paul, called a blessing and an abomination, which I thought was the perfect framing of what is perhaps, I think, almost certainly coming for us in the afterlife that we're about to experience.
What is that, Paul?
I like the terms abomination and blessing.
There's a nice sort of biblical resonance to them.