Podcast

Prosthetic Gods

Philosophy, Society & Culture, Technology

Welcome to “Prosthetic Gods,” the podcast where bioethicist James Hughes and philosopher Nir Eisikovits engage in spirited debates on the ethics and politics of emerging technologies. Hughes, a pro-technology transhumanist, and Eisikovits, with his Luddite stance, explore topics from brain-computer interfaces to artificial intelligence. Tune in and explore the promise and perils of technological advancements with us!

Episodes
54
Releases
Every two weeks
Typical length
59 min
On air since
2024
Latest episode
6 days ago

Episodes

54 episodes, newest first

  1. Retired Predator Pilot Reflects on Autonomous Weapons

    Episode 54

    Show notes

    Episode 52 - Retired Predator Pilot Reflects on Autonomous Weapons

    Our guest this week has done something few philosophers of war can claim: he has flown the aircraft he writes about. We sit down with drone pilot and philosopher Joe Chapa to interrogate the widening gap between technological capability and moral judgment on the modern battlefield. Chapa deconstructs the rush to embed machine learning across military hierarchies, cautioning against blind faith in statistical prediction systems operating under the irreducible fog of war. We examine whether remote combat dilutes the martial virtues or merely reconfigures psychological burden, exploring the acute ethical friction between human tactical restraint and algorithmic certainty. Finally, the conversation confronts the geopolitical reality of autonomous weapons, contrasting commercial software dependencies with the elusive promise of an artificial moral conscience.

    Joseph Chapa holds a PhD in philosophy from the University of Oxford and has served as a Predator pilot and instructor of philosophy at the Air Force Academy, logging more than 1,400 pilot and instructor pilot hours. His work centers on just war theory, military ethics, and especially the ethics of remote and autonomous weapons.

    He also knows the Pentagon from the inside. He previously served as the Department of the Air Force’s first Chief Responsible AI Ethics Officer and has taught as a military faculty member at the Marine Command and Staff College. He retired from the Air Force October 1st. He is the author of Is Remote Warfare Moral? (PublicAffairs, 2022), which examines remote warfare within the context of the just war tradition, virtue, moral psychology, and moral responsibility, and, more recently, AI for the Rest of Us (Air University Press, 2026). He writes the weekly newsletter Views Expressed, and we’re delighted to welcome him as our new postdoctoral colleague. Joe, welcome to the show.https://providencemag.com/authors/joseph-o-chapa/

    Show Notes:

    Joseph Chapa’s website

    Is Remote Warfare Moral? Weighing Issues of Life and Death from 7,000 Miles by Joseph O. Chapa

    AI for the Rest of Us: Understanding the Technology That’s Shaping Our World by Joseph O. Chapa (Air University Press)

    Views Expressed (Joe Chapa's Substack newsletter)

    Masters of the Air: America's Bomber Boys Who Fought the Air War Against Nazi Germany by Donald L. Miller

    Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow (Discussed in relation to revenge, martial virtue, and moral injury)

    As always, listeners can contact us at prostheticgods@gmail.com with questions, comments, and suggestions for future topics.

    Credits:

    Hosted by James Hughes and Nir Eisikovits
    Music & Production by Jake Burley

    1 hr 4 min
  2. Uploading Yourself to the Cloud

    Episode 53

    Show notes

    Episode 51 - Uploading Yourself to the Cloud

    This week on Prosthetic Gods, Nir and J discuss the transhumanist concept of brain uploading, exploring everything from cutting-edge connectomics and artificial intelligence to ancient philosophical views on personal identity. We debate the metaphysics of “substrate independence,” “computational functionalism,” and religious views of the soul to weigh the prospects of preserving consciousness. They also examine the practical and ethical implications of creating digital simulacra, including duplication problems, machine suffering, and moral responsibility.

    Show Notes:

    Connectome 2.0 Project: A National Institutes of Health (NIH) initiative utilizing an advanced MRI scanner to map brain connections down to a single micron level.

    Eon Systems Fly Cyborg: A simulated fruit fly connectome connected to a virtual body to simulate behaviors like walking and grooming.

    Carboncopies Foundation - research and development toward whole brain emulation.

    Blue Brain Project - a Swiss project to model the brain that concluded work in 2024.

    Virtually Human: The Promise and the Peril of Digital Immortality by Martine Rothblatt

    State of Brain Emulation 2025: A comprehensive report featuring contributions from 45 authors and the Allen Institute that outlines the roadmap for animal and human brain emulations.

    “The Soul of Trans-humanism” by Ted Peters, reflecting on the various interpretations of the soul in Christianity, and their compatibility with uploading

    San Junipero - Black Mirror episode on uploading

    Duncan Bell on transhumanism on David Runciman’s Past, Present and Future podcast

    As always, listeners can contact us at prostheticgods@gmail.com with questions, comments, and suggestions for future topics.

    Credits:

    Hosted by James Hughes and Nir Eisikovits
    Music & Production by Jake Burley

    54 min
  3. Animal Testing

    Episode 52

    Show notes

    Episode 50 - Animal Testing

    This week on Prosthetic Gods, Nir and J. dissect the rapid dismantling of the animal-testing paradigm. We explore the legal and political shifts sweeping the EU and the United States—including the surprising federal momentum under the current HHS framework. From the utilitarian calculus of sentient consciousness down to the moral weight of insect neurology, we interrogate whether high-tech alternatives like organoids and AI models can and should finally render mammalian sacrifice obsolete.

    Show Notes:

    “The global push to reduce animal testing in drug development” Drug Target Review

    “HHS Accelerates Shift to Human-Based Research, Reduces Reliance on Animal Testing” US Department of Health and Human Services

    “The FDA Finalizes Rule Recognizing Non-Animal Testing Methods, Building on Year-Long Reduction Push” PharmTech

    “The future of science without animal testing” Humane World for Animals

    “A Kantian Case for Animal Rights” Christine Korsgaard

    Animal Liberation Now: The Definitive Classic Renewed Peter Singer and Yuval Noah Harari

    Lanterns on HBO

    Piers Morgan interview with AI actress derailed by Cantonese

    As always, listeners can contact us at prostheticgods@gmail.com with questions, comments, and suggestions for future topics.

    Credits:

    Hosted by James Hughes and Nir Eisikovits
    Music & Production by Jake Burley

    55 min
  4. War at Machine-Speed

    Episode 51

    Show notes

    Episode 49 - Targeting at Machine Speed

    This week on Prosthetic Gods, Nir and J speak with Major Michael Brodka, a U.S. Army military intelligence officer and author of the July 2026 Military Review article “By Algorithm or Order.” Major Brodka argues that the U.S. Army's human-paced targeting doctrine is dangerously misaligned with the rapid emergence of machine-speed, AI-enabled warfare being pursued by adversaries like China and Russia. It asserts that to close this critical "velocity gap," the military must reform its doctrines, organizations, and training to integrate lethal autonomous weapon systems under lawful human-on-the-loop control.

    Show Notes:

    “By Algorithm or Order” Michael Brodka

    DoD Directive 3000.09: Autonomy in Weapon Systems

    Department of Defense Law of War Manual

    Field Manual (FM) 3-60:Army Targeting

    2023 DoD Data, Analytics, and Artificial Intelligence Adoption Strategy

    Michael A. Santoro, “Designing Lethal Decisions: AI, Accountability, and the Future of Military Judgment,” Modern War Institute (16 Apr 2026)

    Jesse R. Crifasi, “Targeting at Machine Speed: The Capabilities—and Limits—of Artificial Intelligence,” Modern War Institute (17 Jul 2025)

    As always, listeners can contact us at prostheticgods@gmail.com with questions, comments, and suggestions for future topics.

    Credits:

    Hosted by James Hughes and Nir Eisikovits
    Music & Production by Jake Burley

    52 min
  5. Black Mirror

    Episode 50

    Show notes

    Episode 48 - Black Mirror

    Nir and J discuss the show Black Mirror, the now archetypal tech dystopian cultural phenomenon. In almost every episode, technology is the villain. What rarely appears is a legislature, a regulator, or anyone organizing with anybody else. Technology simply arrives, and the only available moral is individual failure. Dystopian narratives are popular, but what work do they do? Do they spur us to action or disempower us? What would a tech realist version look like?

    Show Notes:

    Be Right Back - s2e1 - What if we could record and replay every experience?

    Metalhead- s4e5 - What if Terminator apocalypse with robot dogs?

    San Junipero - s3e4 - What if we could upload our minds to virtual heaven?

    Common People - s7e1 - What if capitalism enshittified brain-computer interfaces?

    Years and Years

    As always, listeners can contact us at prostheticgods@gmail.com with questions, comments, and suggestions for future topics.

    Credits:

    Hosted by James Hughes and Nir Eisikovits
    Music & Production by Jake Burley

    53 min
  6. Are Chatbots Conscious? A Conversation with Henry Shevlin

    Episode 49

    Show notes

    Episode 47 - Are Chatbots Conscious? A Conversation with Henry Shevlin

    Henry Shevlin, DeepMind's first in-house philosopher and associate director of Cambridge's Leverhulme Centre for the Future of Intelligence, joins the show to sort through the hardest question in AI: are these systems conscious, and would we even know? Drawing on his background in animal cognition, Shevlin argues that the consciousness debate has never been settled by a single decisive test, in animals or in machines, but by the slow accumulation of behavioral and mechanistic evidence.

    From there, the conversation ranges across Ted Chiang's recent essay dismissing machine consciousness, the "just an X-ism" fallacy, what spiders can teach us about the difference between perceiving the world and caring about it, Anthropic's constitutional AI project, and the uncomfortable historical parallels raised by building minds engineered to serve us. Along the way: reward hacking, the "anthropomimetic turn" in AI design, and why philosophy is suddenly a growth industry at the frontier labs.

    Show Notes:

    “No, Artificial Intelligence Is Not Conscious” Ted Chiang

    "Behaviourism's Revenge" Shevlin

    "The House Elf Problem" Shevlin

    "Contra Chiang" Shevlin

    Henry Shevlin’s website

    As always, listeners can contact us at prostheticgods@gmail.com with questions, comments, and suggestions for future topics.

    Credits:

    Hosted by James Hughes and Nir Eisikovits
    Music & Production by Jake Burley

    1 hr 1 min
  7. Killer Robots

    Episode 48

    Show notes

    Episode 46 - Killer Robots

    This week Nir and J discuss the evolving ethical, political, and strategic landscape of autonomous weapons systems, contrasting historical methods of remote warfare (such as landmines and guided missiles) with modern AI-driven autonomy. They debate the necessity of keeping a "human in the loop," weighing consequentialist arguments—such as sparing soldiers' lives, acting faster than human cognition, and potentially reducing collateral damage—against risks like cognitive deskilling, unpredictable AI behavior (illustrated by recent LLM security breaches), and complex accountability gaps. The conversation highlights how the geopolitical arms race, particularly with China, severely limits the practicality of international regulations or unilateral restraint. Ultimately, they question whether human moral judgment can or should be replicated by artificial consciences, concluding that technological determinism and military pressures will likely drive the adoption of fully autonomous systems regardless of ethical hesitations.

    Iain M. Banks' Culture Series: The discussion concludes with a recommendation of Banks' sci-fi novels, which explore a post-scarcity, utopian society governed by hyper-intelligent, benevolent AIs—a fitting, if idealized, backdrop to modern debates on AI alignment, control, and human irrelevance.

    Show Notes:

    NYT on autonomous weapons

    The Culture Series by Iain M. Banks

    “Defining Autonomy: Why Software, Not Drones, Will Decide the Next War” by Kateryna Bondar and Matt Mande

    “The Futility of Banning Killer Robots” by Rob Enderle

    “The Vulnerability of Autonomous Warfare Systems” by Burak Oktenli

    “By Algorithm or Order: Integrating Lethal Autonomous Weapon Systems into Targeting” by Maj. Michael J. Brodka

    “Autonomous Ukraine: We Are in a New Era of Warfare” with Michael C. Horowitz and Erin D. Dumbacher

    “A legal perspective: Autonomous weapon systems under international humanitarian law” by Neil Davison

    “The End of American Military Dominance? A Conversation” with Paul Scharre

    As always, listeners can contact us at prostheticgods@gmail.com with questions, comments, and suggestions for future topics.

    Credits:

    Hosted by James Hughes and Nir Eisikovits
    Music & Production by Jake Burley

    1 hr 2 min
  8. Right to Try

    Episode 47

    Show notes

    Episode 45 - Right to Try

    This week on Prosthetic Gods, Nir and J discuss patient autonomy and the "right to try". The debate surrounding medical autonomy is intensifying as desperate patients use federal "Right-to-Try" laws and amateur biohackers bypass traditional regulations to create and access unapproved treatments. A booming gray market has emerged for unproven, compounded peptide shots, and RFK’s FDA wants to protect that access. These trends highlight a profound ethical tension between a patient's fundamental right to medical self-determination and the state's paternalistic duty to protect the clinical trial regime - which gives us the data necessary for informed consent - and to guard citizens from harm. Ultimately, regulators and bioethicists argue that without rigorous oversight, vulnerable individuals may fall victim to "snake oil" because true informed consent is impossible when a treatment's risks and efficacy remain largely unknown

    Show Notes:

    “No Evidence for Trump’s Right to Try Claim” Eugene Kiely

    “Right–to-Try Does Not Undermine Clinical Trials” Niklas Anzinger

    “Survey: Americans Overwhelmingly Back the Right to Try for Individualized Treatments” Goldwater Institute

    “Final wish denied as Colorado ALS patient's access to experimental drug stalls” Brian Maass, Colin McIntyre

    “Peptides, Patient Autonomy, and the Limits of Medical Freedom” Chuck Dinerstein

    “Survey Shows Peptide Misinformation, Misuse Rising in US” Ashish Rana

    “What's behind the push to make peptide therapies more readily available” Will Stone

    As always, listeners can contact us at prostheticgods@gmail.com with questions, comments, and suggestions for future topics.

    Credits:

    Hosted by James Hughes and Nir Eisikovits
    Music & Production by Jake Burley

    1 hr 1 min
  9. Magnificent Humanity: A Conversation with Father Michael Baggot

    Episode 46

    Show notes

    Episode 44 - Magnificent Humanity

    This week, J and Nir talk to Father Michael Baggot about Pope Leo XIV’s recent encyclical, Magnifica Humanitas, which outlines Catholic positions on AI and other emerging technologies. Father Michael Baggot is an Associate Professor of Bioethics at the Vatican’s Pontifical Athenaeum Regina Apostolorum in Rome, a member of the Scholarly Advisory Board for Magisterium AI, and the chief editor of Enhancement Fit for Humanity: Perspectives on Emerging Technologies.

    Show Notes:

    MAGNIFICA HUMANITAS

    “Pope Leo’s First Encyclical Is a Game Changer,” The Nation

    “Pope Leo XIV Against the Market’s Techno-Dehumanization,” Jacobin

    “Pope Leo Isn’t Standing Athwart the Singularity” New York Times

    As always, listeners can contact us at prostheticgods@gmail.com with questions, comments, and suggestions for future topics.

    Credits:

    Hosted by James Hughes and Nir Eisikovits
    Music & Production by Jake Burley

    1 hr 8 min
  10. Brain-Computer Interfaces

    Episode 45

    Show notes

    Episode 43 - Brain-Computer Interfaces

    This week on Prosthetic Gods, Nir and J discuss the ethics of brain-computer interfaces. What role do they play in the futurist imagination, and what is the reality of their current use? How quickly will they be available for consumer use, and what ethical issues do they pose?

    Show Notes:

    The Philosophy of Brain-Computer Interfaces Conference - UMass Boston - June 5-6, 2026

    “Long-term independent use of an intracortical brain–computer interface for speech and cursor control” Nature Medicine

    “Brain-computer interface trials are taking off” MIT Technology Review

    “Brain Implant Lets Man With Severe Paralysis Speak in His Own Voice Again” ScienceAlert

    “How Scientists Are Growing Computers From Human Brain Cells” SingularityHub

    “China Prepares Tianjin as a Center for Brain-Computer Technology” VOI

    An introduction to Neal Asher's Polity Universe books

    As always, listeners can contact us at prostheticgods@gmail.com with questions, comments, and suggestions for future topics.

    Credits:

    Hosted by James Hughes and Nir Eisikovits
    Music & Production by Jake Burley

    1 hr 12 min
  11. Live from Cambridge: Existential Risk

    Episode 44

    Show notes

    Live from Cambridge: Existential Risk

    In this special live episode, recorded before an audience at Long Now Boston, Nir and J dig into existential risk. J takes seriously the prospect of catastrophic AI outcomes even absent consciousness or agency in any rich sense, while Nir worries less about civilization-ending scenarios than about a quieter, lowercase existential threat: the erosion of what makes us distinctively human.

    Show Notes:

    Find out more about our hosts, Long Now Boston, here!

    The Hollow Men by T.S. Elliot

    Enshitification by Cory Doctorow

    The Apology by Plato

    Cyborgs and Space by Manfred E. Clynes and Nathan S. Kline

    As always, listeners can contact us at prostheticgods@gmail.com with questions, comments, and suggestions for future topics.

    Credits:

    Hosted by James Hughes and Nir Eisikovits
    Music & Production by Jake Burley

    1 hr 13 min
  12. Who Really Needs Ozempic Anyway?

    Episode 43

    Show notes

    Episode 42 - Who Really Needs Ozempic Anyway?

    This week on Prosthetic Gods, Nir and J discuss the tradeoffs of GLP1 drugs. Their use has reversed the obesity epidemic and has proven to have myriad medical and psychological benefits. But they also come with risks, and are seen as a technofix replacing the need for diets. Are GLP1s another step to the posthuman body, and is that a good or bad thing?

    Errata: The first GLP1s were approved by the FDA in 2005, semaglutide/Ozempic in 2017, and oral orforglipron/Foundayo was approved in April 2026. More than two thirds of American adults are overweight or obese by BMI, and 40% are obese.

    Show Notes:

    GLP-1s Are a Lot Weirder Than Anyone Thought | The Ezra Klein Show

    Ethical Considerations in the Use of Weight Loss Medications

    The Ethics of Ozempic and Wegovy

    WHO issues global guideline on the use of GLP-1 medicines in treating obesity

    Review of 64 studies finds GLP1s effective for weight loss for almost all groups

    Obesity rate declining in US

    Hard Fork Podcast

    Rest is History Podcast

    As always, listeners can contact us at prostheticgods@gmail.com with questions, comments, and suggestions for future topics.

    Credits:

    Hosted by James Hughes and Nir Eisikovits
    Music & Production by Jake Burley

    59 min
  13. Disgust

    Episode 42

    Show notes

    Episode 41 - Disgust

    This week on Prosthetic Gods, Nir and J discuss the role of disgust in morality. Neuroscience suggests that feelings of disgust underlie many moral judgments, especially in the treatment of sexuality. Conservatives have long defended disgust as a source of moral intuition, while liberals seek to minimize it. Can we suppress disgust? Should we?

    Show Notes:

    Hiding from Humanity: Disgust, Shame, and the Law by Martha Nussbaum

    “The Wisdom of Repugnance,” by Leon Kass

    The Righteous Mind by Jonathan Haidt

    “Daedalus, or, Science and the Future,” JBS Haldane

    What We Are Seeking, Cameron Reed

    Wolfendon Report of the Committee on Homosexual Offenses and Prostitution

    Jeremy Bentham’s Auto-Icon

    As always, listeners can contact us at prostheticgods@gmail.com with questions, comments, and suggestions for future topics.

    Credits:

    Hosted by James Hughes and Nir Eisikovits
    Music & Production by Jake Burley

    52 min
  14. Nicholas Christakis - Technology and Contagion

    Episode 41

    Show notes

    Episode 40 - Nicholas Christakis - Technology and Contagion

    Dr. Nicholas Christakis is the Sterling Professor of Social and Natural Science at Yale University and the Director of the Human Nature Lab. His research sits at the intersection of the social, biological, and computational sciences, exploring how our evolutionary biology and social network structures shape human behavior, health, and society. His groundbreaking work on "social contagion," demonstrates how everything from obesity and smoking to happiness and cooperative behavior spreads through human networks. Most recently, his work has focused on the emergence of "hybrid systems" of humans and machines, examining both the Burkean risks of how AI might degrade our interpersonal social graces and the technoprogressive potential of using "dumb bots" to optimize human coordination.

    Show Notes:

    The Human Nature Lab at Yale University
    An overview of Dr. Christakis's current research on social networks, computational social science, and the biology of social interactions.

    Blueprint: The Evolutionary Origins of a Good Society, by Nicholas Christakis.
    His 2019 book detailing how evolution has biologically pre-wired humans for a "good society" based on love, friendship, and cooperation.

    Connected: The Surprising Power of Our Social Networks and How They Shape Our Lives, by Nicholas Christakis
    His 2009 book exploring the "three degrees of influence" rule and how social contagion dictates our behavior.

    Dr. Christakis on Bluesky - @nachristakis.bsky.social

    For the Love of Science Vlog

    As always, listeners can contact us at prostheticgods@gmail.com with questions, comments, and suggestions for future topics.

    Credits:

    Hosted by James Hughes and Nir Eisikovits
    Music & Production by Jake Burley

    57 min
  15. Live from Portsmouth: Artificial Intelligence and Human Values

    Episode 40

    Show notes

    Live from Portsmouth: Artificial Intelligence and Human Values

    In this special live episode of Prosthetic Gods, we bring you a night of big ideas recorded on April 2nd at the Music Hall in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. Presented as part of the University of New Hampshire's Sidore Lecture Series, "Artificial Intelligence and Human Values" gathered three leading thinkers to explore what AI means for how we live, think, and relate to one another.

    The evening opens with short, TED-style talks from Kay Mathieson (Northeastern University), Henry Shevlin (Cambridge University), and Harvey Lederman (UT Austin), each offering a distinct lens on the philosophical, ethical, and cognitive stakes of AI. Nir and J then take the stage to lead a wide-ranging live discussion with all three speakers and with questions and reflections from the Portsmouth audience.

    Show Notes:

    Artificial Intelligence and Human Values: A Public Conversation

    As always, listeners can contact us at prostheticgods@gmail.com with questions, comments, and suggestions for future topics.

    Credits:

    Hosted by James Hughes and Nir Eisikovits
    Music & Production by Jake Burley

    2 hr 13 min
  16. Sven Nyholm on Ethics of AI

    Episode 39

    Show notes

    Episode 39 - Sven Nyholm on the Ethics of AI

    This week on Prosthetic Gods we are talking to Sven Nyholm about his new book The Ethics of Artificial Intelligence. If our thinking relies on external media, where do we stop and the AIs start? What is the moral status of LLMs? Are they sentient? Are AI relationships any good? And should we raise robots like children?

    Sven Nyholm is Professor of the Ethics of Artificial Intelligence at LMU Munich and a Principal Investigator for AI Ethics at the Munich Center for Machine Learning.https://philpeople.org/profiles/sven-nyholmHis books include Humans and Robots: Ethics, Agency, and Anthropomorphism and This Is Technology Ethics: An Introduction,https://www.linkedin.com/posts/sven-nyholm-5b8507167_the-ethics-of-artificial-intelligence-ai-activity-7060967191482920960-1ubVand his latest, The Ethics of Artificial Intelligence, ranges from alignment and moral responsibility to artificial consciousness and the existential stakes of humanity's wager on AI.

    Show Notes:

    Sven Nyholm at Researchgateand PhilPapers

    “How AI Robs Us of Meaning” Sven Nyholm

    The Ethics of Artificial Intelligence by Sven Nyholm

    As always, listeners can contact us at prostheticgods@gmail.com with questions, comments, and suggestions for future topics.

    Credits:

    Hosted by James Hughes and Nir Eisikovits
    Music & Production by Jake Burley

    1 hr 9 min
  17. Humanoid Robots

    Episode 38

    Show notes

    Episode 38 - Humanoid Robots

    This week on Prosthetic Gods, Nir and J talk about the distinctive ethical issues raised by the humanoid robots coming to homes and workplaces. Their presence and human-like form elicit unique responses compared to those of non-embodied AI. The appearance of a robot can manipulate human empathy and consent; robotic caregiving could be used as a pretext to dismantle the social safety net, and robot lovers could deepen loneliness.

    Show Notes:

    Moravec’s paradox

    “Can AI Robots Help Older Adults Live in Their Homes Longer?” By Lee Pruitt

    “China Could Dominate the Physical AI Future” by Eric Schmidt and Selina Xu

    “Humanoid Robots to Reach Nearly US$30 Billion by 2036” by Shihao Fu

    Humans (2015-2018, 3 seasons)

    Battlestar Gallactica (2004-2009, 5 seasons)

    As always, listeners can contact us at prostheticgods@gmail.com with questions, comments, and suggestions for future topics.

    Credits:

    Hosted by James Hughes and Nir Eisikovits
    Music & Production by Jake Burley

    1 hr 2 min
  18. Anthropic's Conflict with the Pentagon: A Conversation with Alan Rozenshtein

    Episode 37

    Show notes

    Episode 37 - Anthropic's Conflict with the Pentagon: A Conversation with Alan Rozenshtein

    This week on Prosthetic Gods, J and Nir are talking to Alan Rozenshtein, professor of Law at the University of Minnesota, senior editor of Lawfare, fellow at Brookings, and former attorney at the Justice Department specializing in national defense. We talked about the legal and political implications of the Trump administration’s conflict with Anthropic over the military and surveillance uses of Claude.

    Show Notes:

    Alan Rozenshtein’s website

    Scaling Laws podcast

    "Congress—Not the Pentagon or Anthropic—Should Set Military AI Rules" by Alan Rozenshtein

    "Lawfare Daily: The Pentagon Designates Anthropic as a Supply Chain Risk"podcast with Benjamin Wittes

    "Scaling Laws: The Pentagon Goes to War With Anthropic" podcast with Kevin Frazier

    “The Most Disruptive Company in the World” by Harry Booth and Billy Perrigo

    As always, listeners can contact us at prostheticgods@gmail.com with questions, comments, and suggestions for future topics.

    Credits:

    Hosted by James Hughes and Nir Eisikovits
    Music & Production by Jake Burley

    51 min
  19. Buddhism and the Self

    Episode 36

    Show notes

    Episode 36 - Buddhism and the Self

    This week on Prosthetic Gods, Nir is interrogating an essay by J. on Buddhism, enhancement, and the self. They discuss the appeal of Buddhism for teenage Hughes, and how Buddhism reconciles a radical deconstruction of the self with moral commitment and principles.

    Show Notes:

    Buddhism and Our Posthuman Future - J. Hughes

    Cyborg Buddha - A conversation with transhumanist James Hughes

    Personal Immortality in Transhumanism and Ancient Indian Philosophy - Adam Buben

    Hume on personal identity

    The Machine Stops - E. M. Forster, 1909

    As always, listeners can contact us at prostheticgods@gmail.com with questions, comments, and suggestions for future topics.

    55 min
  20. Pluribus

    Episode 35

    Show notes

    Episode 35 - Pluribus

    This week on Prosthetic Gods, Nir and J are discussing the hit Apple TV show Pluribus. Created by Vince Gilligan, the show runner of Breaking Bad, the show explores a world taken over by a very nice hive mind that wants to give you anything you want. Would you take advantage of the perks, appreciate that the hive reduced humanity’s suffering, or fight like hell to give us all back our miserable individuality?

    Show Notes:

    “In Apple TV’s ‘Pluribus,’ the biggest ethical dilemmas ‘are our fault,’ a philosopher says” Cody Mello-Klein

    “The Benign Zombies of Pluribus” Jonathan Moreno

    “The Fable of the Bees” Bernard Mandeville/ (1714)

    Dostoevsky - Notes from the Underground

    “The Revolutionary Spirit of Star Wars Andor” Jessie Gender

    “The revolutionary politics of Andor” Jorge Cotte

    As always, listeners can contact us at prostheticgods@gmail.com with questions, comments, and suggestions for future topics.

    Credits:

    Hosted by James Hughes and Nir Eisikovits
    Music & Production by Jake Burley

    1 hr 5 min