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The Interview
Peter Singer Wants to Shatter Your Moral Complacency
00:42:29
The controversial philosopher discusses societal taboos, Thanksgiving turkeys and whether anyone is doing enough to make the world a better place.
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- [00:00]
David Marchese
This podcast is supported by Google Gemini.
- [00:03]
Google Gemini
For anyone new to Gemini, it's an AI assistant you can have real conversations with. Whether you want to brainstorm something, prep for a presentation or interview, or just learn something new, Gemini can help you do it smarter and faster. And by the way, this script was actually read by Gemini. You can download the Gemini app for free on iOS or Android. Must be 18 to use Gemini. Live.
- [00:27]
David Marchese
From the New York Times. This is the interview. I'm David Marchese. Maybe it sounds corny, but in my own little way, I really do try to make the world a better place. I think about the ethics of what I eat, I donate to charity, I give time and energy to helping those less fortunate in my community. And according to Peter Singer, those efforts pretty much add up to bupkis. Singer is arguably the world's most influential living philosopher. His work grows out of utilitarianism, the view that a good action is one that within reason maximizes the well being of the greatest number of lives possible. He spent decades trying to get people to take a more critical look at their own ethics and what well meaning, comfortable people can actually do to make the world a better place. His landmark 1975 book, Animal Liberation helped popularize vegan and vegetarian eating habits. His new book, Consider the Turkey builds on those ideas as a polemic against the Thanksgiving meal. And his writing on what the wealthy owe the poor, which is a lot more than they're giving, was an important building block for the data driven philanthropic movement known as effective altruism, which has gotten a lot of attention recently because of some of its high profile adherents in Silicon Valley, including the disgraced cryptocurrency entrepreneur Sam Bankman Fried. But Singer, who is 78, is as controversial as he is influential. Some of his ideas, like that parents should be allowed to pursue euthanasia for severely disabled infants, have led people to call him dangerous and worse. Some of his ideas make me personally uneasy too. But my discomfort and the way his work forces me to reconsider my own ethics, intuitions and assumptions is precisely why I wanted to talk with him. Here's my conversation with Peter Singer. Hi Peter, I'm David. Nice to meet you.
- [02:22]
Peter Singer
Very nice to meet you, David.
- [02:24]
David Marchese
You might be wondering why the journalist interviewing you today is sitting in a clothing closet. And just for your own context, I normally record in a normal room, but my neighbor has decided today was the day to do some construction just outside my window.
- [02:41]
Eric Kim
Lovely.
- [02:42]
David Marchese
Is there an ethical way I can get revenge?
- [02:45]
Peter Singer
No.
- [02:45]
Eric Kim
You should just let it go.
- [02:48]
David Marchese
Ah, that's not what I wanted you to say.
- [02:50]
Peter Singer
Just look at the Middle East. You can see where revenge gets you.
- [02:53]
David Marchese
There you go. Yeah, I promise. I don't mean this question at all in a facetious way. The question is about why you wrote this book. Consider the turkey. So it's a small book. There aren't really new arguments in it. How do you decide whether writing that book was the best use of your time? Could that time have been better spent doing something else? Is that something that you think about?
- [03:18]
Peter Singer
This is an important issue. We're talking about over 200 million turkeys who are reared in a way that comes close to being described as torture. That is, they are mutilated in various ways. They're bred to live in such a way that it hurts them when they're getting near full weight. It hurts them to stand up because their immature leg bones don't bear the immense weight that they've been bred to put on. In a very short time, they suffer at slaughter. And then, as I describe in the book, if they get bird flu, the entire shed is killed by heat stroke quite commonly. It's not the only method used in the United States, but it's used on millions of of birds. The ventilation is stopped in the shed, heaters are brought in, and they are deliberately heated to death over a period of hours. I think that's something that Americans don't know, and it's really important that they should know because it should stop. So my concern is to reduce unnecessary, avoidable suffering where I can. That's one of my major goals throughout my career in philosophy and as an activist. And I think that that's definitely worth the time it took to write this book.
- [04:31]
David Marchese
In reading the book, it feels pretty hard to deny the unacceptable level of suffering that goes into our Thanksgiving turkey dinners, but millions of people are still going to have them. So do you feel at all like you're banging your head against a wall with this stuff?
- [04:47]
Peter Singer
No, I don't really feel like I'm banging my head against a wall. I feel like I'm banging my head against something, which is pretty hard, but not completely unyielding. In some parts of the world, we've made progress in the laws and regulations concerning animals. The entire European Union has legislation that provides better animal welfare conditions for animals in industrial agriculture than United States laws do, with the exception of a small number of states, California being the most notable, that have had citizens initiated referenda to produce better conditions. So on the whole, you know, yes, things are still very bad, but I think it's possible to make progress, and I think we have to keep bringing these facts in front of the public and getting them to think about what they're eating. And the Thanksgiving meal, as it's a family festive occasion, seems like a really good place to start.
- [05:48]
David Marchese
You know, there's a cliched journalistic trope of how to talk to your ideologically opposed relative at Thanksgiving. Have you learned anything about how we can talk to people who disagree with our ideas in a way that doesn't just make them sort of roll their eyes and ignore you? Like, if someone reads your book and then thinks, well, now I have something to say about whether or not we should be eating this turkey at Thanksgiving, what guidance can you give them about how to have that conversation?
- [06:20]
Peter Singer
Well, that of course, will depend on who your relatives are, what sort of relationship you have with them. So there's all different sorts of possibilities. But I do think that you can make progress with many people, be civil and reasonable, say, have a look at some of these facts and say, do you really want to support this? Do you really want to be complicit in these practices? If somebody doesn't accept the argument and just insists that, you know, this is irrelevant or they're not going to listen, at some point you might say, well, if you want me at your Thanksgiving, I don't want to be there with a big bird sitting on the table who I know has suffered in the ways that the standard American Thanksgiving turkey has suffered.
- [07:05]
David Marchese
At some point you would suggest drawing that hard line for someone.
- [07:09]
Peter Singer
Yes, at some point you wanted to say, and I mean, isn't that true of important moral issues? And I think this is that you just say, look, I'm sorry, I can't go along with that.
- [07:19]
David Marchese
This is just a question I have about what it's like to be you. There aren't a lot of well known philosophers around. Do you find that sort of in your life, people come to you looking for ethical advice?
- [07:34]
Peter Singer
Oh, they certainly do. They come to me online a lot nowadays. And in fact, in order to provide that and save my time time for more effective things, I have set up Peter Singer AI and so on my website you can connect to a chatbot who has been trained on all of my works and actually does remarkably well in terms of channeling my views to people with ethical queries. I didn't set it up. I had some support friends doing this who knew more about the technical side of it. But I have to say they've done a remarkably good job how do you.
- [08:09]
David Marchese
Feel about the fact that an AI has been able to adequately replicate your ethical responses to questions?
- [08:16]
Peter Singer
Oh, I'm really happy about it. I mean, partly just for the time saving reason that I mentioned, but also in a sense it means that I can be immortal. I mean, this me is not going to be around for, well, I hope another decade maybe, but not too much more than that, probably. Whereas the Peter Singer AI could be around for indefinitely. So that's great. It's a kind of immortality.
- [08:39]
David Marchese
I'm sure. This is arguable, but I think of you as being best known for your work on animals and ethics, which I think flow out of utilitarian principles, which basically the belief that the right action is the one that produces the least suffering or the most good. But you're also seen as one of the godfathers of effective altruism. Can you explain what effective altruism is and how it's different or builds on utilitarianism?
- [09:10]
Peter Singer
Sure. So effective altruism is the view that firstly we ought to try to make the world a better place. That ought to be one of the goals of our life. Doesn't mean that we all have to become saints and think about that in everything we do. But it should be an important goal for people to think, what can I do to make the world better? Which might mean to reduce suffering, might mean to reduce premature death, and to think about that in a global way, not just for me and my family and those close to me, but to think about it for people anywhere in the world, and indeed for beings capable of suffering who are not of our species. So effective altruism then developed into a kind of a social movement to encourage people to do that and to think in that way. And effective altruists have done a lot of research to try to find which are the most effective charities in different areas. So it's become an important social movement. What is the connection with utilitarianism? I think if you are a utilitarian, you ought to be an effective altruist. Because if you're a utilitarian, you ought to want to reduce suffering and increase happiness. And given that we all have limited resources to do that, even Bill Gates has limits and most of us have much tighter limits on what we can do to make the world a better place. Surely we should be using those resources as effectively as possible to do as much good as we can with the money we can donate or the time we can volunteer or whatever it is. We want to make sure that that isn't spent. On something that does less good than some other alternative open to us.
- [11:00]
David Marchese
And you know, I think the rationality aspect of effective altruism is one of the reasons why it's been so broadly attractive, but also why it's been particularly attractive among entrepreneurs in the tech world. I think these are people who are sort of interested in the idea of rationality and quantification and return on investment. But of course we know that some pretty prominent advocates have been highly irrational. You know, the most egregious example would be a Sam Bankman Fried. Or you know, you could even look at something like was it that the Effective ventures Foundation paid £15 million for an English abbey? Like surely that money could have been used in ways that caused more well being. And my question for you is what, what advice do you have for effective altruists to guard against self interested self rationalization?
- [11:57]
Peter Singer
Yeah, I think that is a serious problem. And I think that may have been the problem with Sam Bankman Fried. It's not totally clear. Perhaps it wasn't exactly self rationalization, but it was certainly maybe a sense that I don't have to follow the ordinary rules that other people do because, you know, I'm such a whiz kid. I've been possible that there was some of that sort of thinking. And I certainly think anybody who is very successful needs to guard against that belief that somehow they are above the rules. But I don't see that generally as the case in the effective altruism movement. And the people who I talk to, I think most of them are genuine and they're not self deceived. And yes, there may be a couple of conspicuous exceptions or mistakes that have been made. So I think you need to take a hard look at that. But I really think that they're the exception. And I don't think that that's a reason for rejecting effective altruism as a positive social force.
- [13:09]
David Marchese
And you know, an offshoot of effective altruism is a long termism. Basically the idea that we have as much ethical responsibility to address threats to humanity far off in the future as we do to threats to human lives in the present. And I'm just curious, what do you make of longtermism?
- [13:30]
Peter Singer
I accept the idea that when suffering occurs, is not affected by time. So if I could be certain that something I did now would do more to reduce suffering in 100 or even theoretically a thousand years than anything I could do to relieve suffering in the present, then sure, I would think that would be the right thing to do. But of course we don't have that certainty about the future. So I think that's a big barrier to making a real priority to think about the future as more important than thinking about the present. The other question that needs to be raised is quite a deep philosophical question about the risk of extinction of our species. Because that's what a lot of long termists are focused on. They're saying if our species sort of survives, gets through the next century or two, then it's likely that humans will be around not just for thousands, but for many millions of years, because by then we'll be able to colonize other planets. And you say yes, but if we become extinct, none of that will happen. So we must give a very high priority to reducing the risk of extinction of our species. And that raises the question of is it as bad that beings do not come into existence and therefore do not have happy lives as it is that an already existing being who could have a happy life is prevented from having a happy life or even has a miserable life?
- [15:07]
David Marchese
And what's the answer?
- [15:09]
Peter Singer
Well, as I say, that's a really difficult philosophical question. I think it's still an open question, really. Personally I do think that it would be a tragic loss if our species became extinct. But how do we compare that tragedy with tragedies that might occur now to a billion people or several billion people? And I can't really give a good answer to that. So in other words, what I'm saying is it might be reasonable to discount the future of these beings who might not exist at all. I think that's possible. I think it could be reasonable to say no, we should focus on the present where we can have greater confidence in what we're doing than focus on the long term. Really distant future.
- [16:00]
David Marchese
I mean, I'm just a ding dong, but for me it sort of seems like there are common sense objections to long termism. You know, it's like what would be an example be like if I see there's like an immediate fire in my yard that I could put out and save some people? Like shouldn't I obviously do that rather than say, well I'm working on a fire retardant system that could save millions of lives at some undefined point in the future. And that's always what the longtermism stuff sounds like. It sounds like sci fi philosophizing. Do you think there's like a common sense problem? It runs into.
- [16:43]
Peter Singer
It runs into what appears to be a common sense problem because our intuitions obviously are to help the people, right there Now, Right. We've evolved to deal with problems that are right there and now. And our ancestors survived because they dealt with those problems. They didn't survive because they had strong intuitions that we ought to act for the distant future because there was nothing that they could do about the distant future. We now are in a position where we have more influence on whether there will be a human future or not. So I'm inclined, not really to trust those common sense intuitions. My answer would still be, sure, you should put out the fire. Not because that's just your common sense intuition, but because you can be highly confident that you can do a lot of good there. And anyway, you can put out the fire and go back to your work on the fire retardant tomorrow.
- [17:36]
David Marchese
I think not trusting your common sense intuitions is sort of Peter Singer's whole bag.
- [17:42]
Peter Singer
I think that's right. I think a lot of my work, you know, don't trust your common intuitions to think that you ought to help your neighbors in your affluent community rather than distant people elsewhere in the world that you can't relate to. That's part of what I talk about. Don't trust your intuitions in thinking that really it's only humans that matter or human suffering that always is higher priority than any number of non human animals suffering. Yeah, I think you're right. I'm somewhat skeptical about trusting those moral intuitions.
- [18:14]
David Marchese
Yeah. So you take these subjects or these moral intuitions about things that people really hold closely, like what we eat or how we spend our money, or even the notion that we are good, and you say, well, hold on a second. Are you really. Where do you think your impulse to do that comes from?
- [18:36]
Peter Singer
Well, it's something that came gradually, I believe that I started thinking about particular issues where it was obvious that you could reduce suffering, but people had intuitive reasons for not doing so. And one of those was actually in the area of biomedical ethics, because I got involved in those questions because I was interested in issues about death and dying. And I've for a very long time been a supporter of medical assistance in dying. And when I started talking to people about that, especially doctors, they would say, look, it's all right for us to allow people who are suffering to die by not treating them, but we can't cross that line that actually assists them in dying because. And some of them would quote this little thing that said, thou shalt not kill, but need not try officiously to keep alive. And, you know, they would just trot that out as a kind of Thing that, yes, that's obviously true, you know, And I would say, well, why? You know, so, I mean, I think that example was one where I was critical of intuitions. They were perhaps religiously based intuitions. That was one part of it. So the fact that I wasn't religious may have led me to challenge those intuitions. But then I started thinking about a whole range of other intuitions that are probably not religious, but may, like the example I gave, be based in what is it that helped our ancestors to survive in the circumstances in which they were trying to survive and reproduce when those circumstances may no longer apply to us?
- [20:30]
David Marchese
I was reading the academic journal that you edit, which is called the Journal of Controversial Ideas. The idea, as I understand behind the journal, is to give sort of rigorous academic treatment and platform to ideas that might be seen as beyond the pale for other outlets. And there are plenty of what seem to me relevant arguments to do with, like, public health and sort of learning in academia. And then there are also, you know, there were like, multiple pieces about when blackface should be allowed, or I think the specific term is cross racial makeup. Or there was another piece in there, in one of the issues about arguing for zoophilia, probably people more people know as bestiality. And I thought, well, who, who, who's clamoring for deeper arguments in support of either of these things? What is the point other than provocation?
- [21:25]
Peter Singer
I think both those issues, although they're certainly far less significant than many of the other issues that articles in the journal discuss, I think they both have some significance. I mean, the question about blackface, which was the word that was used in the journal, is relevant to drawing lines about what are people going to get criticized for? And the article takes a nuanced approach to that. It acknowledges that there would be cases in which using blackface would be offensive and, say, inappropriate. But it also refers to other cases in which it's not objectionable. And so if people are going to be sort of outed in some way for doing this, and I know it happened to Justin Trudeau, I think, for having done that a long time ago, then do need to say, well, what are the cases in which this is not such a bad thing to do and which are the cases where it should be? And in the case of zoophilia, I mean.
- [22:23]
David Marchese
Yeah, tell me that one.
- [22:25]
Peter Singer
Well, this is a crime. People go to jail for this, and they may not be causing any harm. I think that it's reasonable to say, if somebody is going to be sent to prison, to ask, have you harmed any sentient being. Should this be a crime? Why should it be a crime? Now, this may be very small number of cases where get prosecuted, but I think it's, you know, I think that's enough justification for airing the issue.
- [22:52]
David Marchese
And I know that people have, have criticized you for not taking enough into account sort of aspects of personal experience about which you might be fundamentally ignorant. You know, the, the example I'm. I'm thinking of here is the idea that parents should have the right to terminate babies born with severe disabilities that might cause them to terribly. And the critics say that, you know, you just can't wrap your head around the fact that lives very different from your own might be just as valuable or involve just as much happiness. And also that, you know, sort of these ideas might be stigmatizing or objectifying of non normative bodies. And I don't have a particularly insightful way of putting the question, but do you think there's something to that criticism that just sort of rationally theorizing from a distance is missing something essential?
- [23:48]
Peter Singer
I think that rationally theorizing from a distance easily can miss something essential, certainly. But I don't think that applies to my views about these cases because I formed those views after having discussions not only with doctors in charge of treating infants born with severe disabilities, but also some of the parents of those infants or parents of those children who were no longer infants. I had, you know, discussed this with a number of people and both in person and in letters that I had from people who. I remember one who said something, you know, was really bitter, said the doctors got to play with their toys, you know, meaning their surgical equipment and their skills at helping my son to survive. And then they handed the baby over to us. And the result has been that my child has suffered for nine years. So I do think I find it strange that people in the disability, or some people, I should say, in the disability movement, who are mentally as gifted as anyone but happen to be in wheelchairs, think that the fact that they are in a wheelchair gives them greater insight into what it's like to be a child with severe disabilities that are not just physical but also mental, or what it's like to be the parents of children like that.
- [25:17]
David Marchese
But I don't know that they're saying necessarily that it gives them particular insights into that specific example. I think they're saying they might have specific insights into what it's like to live a different kind of life that you, for example, don't have and can't have access to.
- [25:35]
Peter Singer
Yeah, that's true, but, you know, that's generally not the kind of case that I'm talking about in suggesting that parents ought to have the option of euthanasia in cases of very severe disabilities.
- [25:50]
David Marchese
But do you think there's any way in which airing some of the more controversial philosophical views you have has maybe been detrimental to your larger project? And this is the idea that people might be turned off by what Peter Singer has to say about people with disabilities, and therefore they're not going to pay attention to what he has to say about animal rights. Do you think there's any trade off there between saying what you think is true and saying what you think will have the most impact?
- [26:23]
Peter Singer
I think there is a possible trade off, yes. But it's particularly difficult as a philosopher because I will always get asked these kinds of questions, and if I start to prevaricate or to try to be fuzzy about the answer, I think my reputation standing as a philosopher falls because of that. I think it's important to try to follow the argument wherever it goes. And yes, there may be some costs to it, but it's hard to balance those costs against the fact that you're regarded as a rigorous, clear thinking philosopher. And so people pay more attention to what you say for that reason.
- [26:59]
David Marchese
You know, I read your memoir and I thought it was interesting. Three of your four grandparents, I think they were living in Vienna, died at the hands of the Nazis in the Holocaust. And you're right about your grandfather. Is his name David Oppenheim?
- [27:14]
Peter Singer
That's correct, yes.
- [27:14]
David Marchese
David Oppenheim, who was a collaborator of Freud's. And you have a line in there where you say, or you write that he spent his life trying to understand his fellow human beings, yet seems to have failed to take the Nazi threat to the Jews seriously enough. Maybe he had too much confidence in human reason and humanist values. And I just wonder what the connection is between your grandfather's work and your work. Do you see them as sort of interacting with each other or paralleling each other in any way?
- [27:46]
Peter Singer
Possibly paralleling, but not really interacting. Because I didn't read my grandfather's work until the late 1990s, and I'd already written Animal Liberation, I'd already written Practical Ethics, I'd already written Rethinking Life and Death. So those books expressed my ideas relating to animals, relating to global poverty, relating to abortion and assisted dying. But what you could point to, I suppose, would be that some of my grandfather's general attitudes were passed down to me by my mother. She may have got them from her father. And that would include the fact that I'm not religious. So some of that I think did get passed down to me, but not in terms of my specific views about suffering. Now, were they influenced by the knowledge of the suffering that the Nazis inflicted on my grandparents and other members of my extended family and indeed on my parents by driving them out of their home in Vienna? Of course, yes, perhaps. And perhaps a sort of the brutality of what the Nazis did, the horror of that has had an effect on me. And that might have led to why? Trying to reduce suffering, trying to prevent unnecessary suffering has been a very leading impulse in the work that I've written.
- [29:15]
David Marchese
You say it might have led. Are you just being nice to my line of questioning or do you think it did lead to that?
- [29:21]
Peter Singer
No, I honestly don't know. I mean, I think it's. I don't have this sort of self awareness to say. To what extent was this knowledge of the Holocaust background of my family decisive in leading me in that direction? Would I not have had that if I had not had that background? I think, you know, it's really impossible to answer that question.
- [29:44]
David Marchese
And this is a self awareness question. When your mom was dying from Alzheimer's.
- [29:52]
Peter Singer
Yeah, it was some form of dementia. I don't know if it was Alzheimer's exactly. She certainly had dementia. Yes.
- [29:58]
David Marchese
You know, you spent a fair amount of money on providing her care towards the end of her life, which is obviously completely understandable. But was that the most utilitarian use of your money at that time? And if not, did that teach you something about the limits of rational thinking when it comes comes to helping people?
- [30:22]
Peter Singer
I think it was probably not the most utilitarian thing to do with those resources. But there would have been personal cost to me both in thinking that I hadn't looked after my mother and also I had a sister. If I had said, you can pay for our mother's care, but I'm not going to, obviously that would have totally disrupted the really close and warm relationship that I had with my sister all the way through her life. And that would have been a really heavy cost to me. Now you could argue that. Okay. But the money could have helped many people in important ways and therefore I was being in a sense self interested in not wanting to cause that family rupture. But, you know, I think it was, yes. So I guess that gets to your second question. Does it say there's limits? Yes, I think there are limits and certainly I'm aware that there are limits to things. That I am prepared to do in order to produce the greatest good. So to give a philosophical sort of mock example, if I'm at a beach and the current has swept a number of people out to sea, and I'm a strong swimmer and I can jump in and save my daughter who's being swept out to my left, or I can jump in and save two people, strangers who are being swept out to the right, am I going to save more people and let my daughter drown? No. So yes, in that sense there were limits. But these limits still allow us obviously to do much, much more good than most people are doing, because generally we don't have to make those tragic choices between saving our children and saving a larger number of strangers. So yes, I'm working mostly in that area between those extremely demanding things that ethics may require and where most people are, where they don't even make very small sacrifices, arguably not even sacrifices at all, given the fulfillment and meaning that people get out of helping others.
- [32:32]
David Marchese
Are those limits you just described, are they a version of common sense?
- [32:37]
Peter Singer
Well, I think they're a version of what we can reasonably expect people to do. And maybe it's not good to ask people to do more than we can reasonably expect them to do. So to put it in ethical terms, I think there's a distinction between what would be the right thing to do to the extent that we act in a perfectly ethical way, and what is the right thing to ask others to do and perhaps even to do yourself, to, to think about, you know, or to feel guilty if you don't do yourself. And that might take more account of the fact that we are not perfectly rational beings, not perfectly ethical beings, that we are to some extent self interested, and it's not going to be very productive or effective to ask people to do more than those limits.
- [33:34]
David Marchese
After the break, I asked Peter Singer about the places where his heart is in conflict with his head.
- [33:41]
Eric Kim
Let's say punishing people who are really evil and have done horrible, cruel things using the death penalty. I can feel a pull of that. I feel a retributive sense of that. Foreign.
- [34:08]
David Marchese
This podcast is supported by Google Gemini.
- [34:11]
Google Gemini
Google Gemini is an AI assistant you can talk to any time you need help brainstorming, prepping for something important like an interview or exam, or just learning something new. The best part is you already know how to use it. Just open the app, start talking, and Gemini will do the rest. And by the way, this script was actually read by Gemini. You can download the Gemini app For free on iOS or Android must be 18 to use Gemini Live.
- [34:34]
Eric Kim
I use New York Times cooking at least three to four times a week.
- [34:38]
Google Gemini
I love sheet pan bibimbap. It said 35 minutes, it was 35 minutes.
- [34:42]
Peter Singer
The cucumber salad with soy, ginger and garlic.
- [34:45]
David Marchese
Oh, my God.
- [34:45]
Eric Kim
That is just to die for.
- [34:47]
David Marchese
This turkey chili has over 17 10,000 five star ratings. So easy, so delicious. The instructions are so clear, so simple, and it just works. Hey, it's Eric Kim from New York Times Cooking.
- [35:01]
Eric Kim
Come cook with us. Go to nytcooking.com.
- [35:11]
David Marchese
Hi, Professor Singer. How are you?
- [35:13]
Eric Kim
I'm very well.
- [35:18]
David Marchese
I pulled up AI Peter Singer and was messing around with it. You know, it punts on questions that I bet you're willing to have more definitive answers to. You know, just for example, I asked it, you know, is it okay to kill one innocent person in order to save two? And it doesn't give an answer. It just suggests I consider different perspectives. You know, the perspectives of virtue ethics or the perspective of utilitarianism. What's the point of AI Peter Singer if it's unable or unwilling to answer specific ethical questions related to your work? With definitive answers like real life, Peter Singer can.
- [36:01]
Eric Kim
Well, thank you for trying it out. You know, we are still at the trial stage. We've been getting some feedback, and I am actually aware of what you've just described, and I am in contact with the person who does the actual tinkering with the algorithms. And I think that's a good point. Obviously, we don't want Peter Singer AI to make very definitive statements on areas on questions where I would not be prepared to give a definitive answer. But certainly I think it should give straighter answers than it does.
- [36:38]
David Marchese
It made me wonder if legal considerations are baked into AI Peter Singer.
- [36:42]
Eric Kim
Not as far as I'm aware. Or you think somebody might sue it?
- [36:47]
David Marchese
Well, not sue it. Or maybe there could be liability issues or uncomfortable issues might arise if someone were to ask AI Peter Singer for ethical advice, you know, in matters of life or death, and then went ahead and.
- [37:02]
Peter Singer
I see.
- [37:03]
Eric Kim
So it would become an accomplice to the crime. I don't know. I mean, interesting. Perhaps that would depend on the free speech, the constitutional situation of freedom of speech in the country in which the person was. Really interesting issue which I've never hadn't thought about yet.
- [37:22]
David Marchese
We need to get your legal team on it.
- [37:25]
Eric Kim
If I had a legal team, yes.
- [37:30]
David Marchese
And one of the things that I find myself struggling with about your philosophical ideas is, you know, it relates to what Derek Parfit called The repugnant conclusion that if you follow some of your ideas through to their logical conclusions, you can wind up in some sort of morally disturbing places. You know, an example would be that you know and tell me if I'm wrong, but according to your thinking, a large number of people with lives barely worth living could be considered better than a smaller number of people living great lives. And your response to that is what?
- [38:07]
Eric Kim
My response on that particular case is that I'm actually that's not. But now I'm being like you said Peter Singer AI that's not my clear view. I'm still somewhat open minded on that issue. But maybe you're asking a broader question about whether use of this type, whether I might hold views that leave me uncomfortable in some way or other. And yes, I think there are such views that I hold that will leave me quite uncomfortable.
- [38:40]
David Marchese
Like what?
- [38:42]
Eric Kim
Views about distribution of well being. Suppose that you have the choice of helping people who are very badly off by a small amount or helping people who are reasonably well off already by a much larger amount. And you can't do both. I mean I think you can imagine cases where you spend a vast amount of resources making people a small number of people who are really badly off slightly, just barely perceptibly better off or you make, let's say 95% of the population very significantly better off. I think the right thing to do is to make 95% of the population significantly better off. But I'm uncomfortable about the thought that, well, here are these people who are worse off and you could help them, but you don't.
- [39:31]
David Marchese
But I'm trying to understand if there's ever a scenario in which an action is warranted simply because we believe it's the right thing, regardless of what the empirical balance in lives lost or not might be. I mean, do you ever. Is there an example of an ethical place where your heart wins out over your head?
- [39:55]
Eric Kim
Oh, I've just given you one.
- [39:56]
Peter Singer
Right.
- [39:56]
David Marchese
I mean, but not, not in like a thought experiment way, in like a practical, oh, I see real life way.
- [40:06]
Eric Kim
Let'S say punishing really people who are really evil and have done horrible cruel things using the death penalty. I can feel a pull of that. I feel a retributive sense of that. But I'm not a retributivist.
- [40:24]
David Marchese
I think most people, or I suspect most people see themselves as trying to make the world a better place or on balance a net good for the world. But how does someone know if they're doing enough to make the world a better place.
- [40:48]
Eric Kim
Very few people are doing enough to make the world a better place. They're probably not. I don't think that I'm doing enough to make the world a better place. But if you wanted to know, how would you know? You would look around for other ways of doing more to make the world a better place, and you would say there aren't any. That's the extreme position. As I say, I can't claim to live up to that myself, but that would be the ultimate limit where you could be confident that you've done everything you could to make the world a better place.
- [41:20]
David Marchese
So where is the line short of that?
- [41:23]
Eric Kim
The line short of that, I think, is to say I'm doing a lot. I'm thinking about how to make the world a better place. I'm doing a lot more than the current social standard is. I'm trying to raise that standard. I'm setting an example of doing more than the current standard is. I think if you can say all of those things, you can be content with what you're doing.
- [41:50]
David Marchese
Professor Singer, thank you for taking the time to speak with me. I appreciate it.
- [41:54]
Eric Kim
Thanks very much, David. I've enjoyed both the conversations.
- [41:58]
David Marchese
Hey, wait. One last bonus ethical question. I'm in the closet again.
- [42:02]
Eric Kim
Yeah, I've noticed.
- [42:03]
David Marchese
Because a different neighbor is reconstructing. Because different neighbors reconstruction. Do you give me permission to have sweet revenge on that guy?
- [42:11]
Eric Kim
No, no revenge. But maybe more double glazing would help to keep the sand out.
- [42:19]
David Marchese
All right, that I can do. That I can do.
- [42:21]
Peter Singer
Thank you very much.
- [42:22]
Eric Kim
Great. Thanks a lot, David.
- [42:30]
David Marchese
That's Peter Singer. His latest book, Consider the Turkey, is available now. This conversation was produced by Wyatt Orme. It was edited by Annabelle Bacon, mixing by Efim Shapiro. Original music by Dan Powell, Diane Wong and Marion Lozano. Photography by Adam Ferguson. Our senior booker is Priya Matthew and Seth Kelly is our senior producer. Our executive producer is Alison Benedict. Special thanks to Rory Walsh, Renan Borelli, Jeffrey Miranda, Matty Masiello, Jake Silverstein, Paula Schuman and Sam Dolnick. If you like what you're hearing, follow or subscribe to the interview. Wherever you get your podcasts. To read or listen to any of our conversations, you can always go to nytimes.com theinterview and you can email us anytime@theinterviewytimes.com I'm David Marchese and this is the interview from the New York Times. This podcast is supported by Google Gemini.
- [43:50]
Google Gemini
For anyone new to Gemini, it's an AI Assistant. You can have real conversations with Whether you want to brainstorm something, prep for a presentation or interview, or just learn something new, Gemini can help you do it smarter and faster. And by the way, this script was actually read by Gemini. You can download the Gemini app for free on iOS or Android. Must be 18 to use Gemini Live.