Bryan Johnson argues that the human mind, not AI, is our greatest threat. We inflict most of our own suffering, he says, and we're in an unsafe state facing existential danger. His goal is to confront these threats so humanity can reach something safer and more playful.
The only tool we've ever had in existence to manage ourselves is our mind. And when I look at myself, my objective is to destroy my nemesis before my nemesis destroys me. And my mind is my most powerful nemesis. But the very first thing that I can say confidently about myself is who inflicts the most self destruction upon me? Anything in existence, it's myself. If we say, as we as a species, who inflicts more pain upon us than anything else, it's ourselves. If I say probabilistically, who's a bigger worry to me, AI or humans? Humans. Like I'm trying to get to the root of where is the threat coming from and what might we do to try to offset that. But we're not in a safe place right now as a species at all. Like we're under extreme threat. And so what I'm really trying to do is address the things that are most pressing that threaten our very existence and survival so we can get to this play space.
