How dating an AI could improve your real love life | David Eagleman

Having an AI boyfriend or girlfriend might seem creepy, but what if it helped you get better at human relationships?
In this episode, we talk with David Eagleman, a professor of neuroscience at Stanford, bestselling author, and science communicator. We discuss how AI and other technologies can help us become better humans – wiser, kinder and more empathetic, not just more productive. We get a neuroscientist’s take on how human and artificial intelligence interact, including:
• How to use AI to better understand other people and improve our relationships.
• Using debate AIs in schools to make younger generations better at critical thinking and grasping both sides of an argument.
• Is AI making our lives too easy by removing the friction we need to learn?
• Technologies that could expand what’s possible with our brain, from mind uploading to brain-to-brain communication.

Timestamps:
0:00 Cold open
1:38 How David Eagleman became a neuroscientist
4:46 How malleable is the brain?
6:29 Can AI make us better humans? The Reddit debate bot experiment
11:00 AI relationships and becoming better at dating real people
14:24 Using AI to hear his late father's voice again
18:26 Mind uploading and digital immortality
23:27 What technology could make us more kind and empathetic
24:04 How AI could revolutionize debate education and critical thinking
28:30 Why AI needs a "tough love" mode to help us grow
30:17 Does AI making life easier rob us of useful friction for learning?
34:21 Why brain-to-brain communication probably won't help us understand each other
37:29 Could neurotechnology let us experience the world as another species?
41:58 The current state of neuroscience and where it's heading
48:05 How to get started if you're inspired by this conversation

On the Existential Hope Podcast hosts Allison Duettmann (foresight.org/our-team/allison-duettmann-presi…) and Beatrice Erkers (existentialhope.com/team/beatrice-erkers) from the Foresight Institute (foresight.org) invite scientists, founders, and philosophers for in-depth conversations on positive, high-tech futures.

Full transcript, listed resources, and more: existentialhope.com/podcasts

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