Philosopher Nick Bostrom is surprisingly cheerful for someone who has spent so much time worrying about ways that humanity might destroy itself. In photographs he often looks deadly serious, perhaps appropriately haunted by the existential dangers roaming around his brain. When we talk over Zoom, he looks relaxed and is smiling. Bostrom has made it his life's work to ponder far-off technological advancement and existential risks to humanity. With the publication of his last book, Superintelligence: Paths, Dangers, Strategies, in 2014, Bostrom drew public attention to what was then a fringe idea--that AI would advance to a point where it might turn against and delete humanity. To many in and outside of AI research the idea seemed fanciful, but influential figures including Elon Musk cited Bostrom's writing.

Oxford University this week shut down an academic institute run by one of Elon Musk's favorite philosophers. The Future of Humanity Institute, dedicated to the long-termism movement and other Silicon Valley-endorsed ideas such as effective altruism, closed this week after 19 years of operation. Musk had donated 1m to the FIH in 2015 through a sister organization to research the threat of artificial intelligence. He had also boosted the ideas of its leader for nearly a decade on X, formerly Twitter. The center was run by Nick Bostrom, a Swedish-born philosopher whose writings about the long-term threat of AI replacing humanity turned him into a celebrity figure among the tech elite and routinely landed him on lists of top global thinkers. OpenAI chief executive Sam Altman, Microsoft founder Bill Gates and Tesla chief Musk all wrote blurbs for his 2014 bestselling book Superintelligence.

Most of us assume that the world around us is real. We take it for granted that everything we interact with is the true essence of reality, and not an illusion created by someone else. After all, this world is all we've ever known. We can explain how it works using science and philosophy and other fields of knowledge… can't we? In 2003, philosopher Nick Bostrom introduced his famous "simulation theory" in which he explores the probability that we are all living inside an artificial simulation. Bostrom discusses how a future society could become so technologically advanced that its inhabitants learn how to generate complex artificial worlds using powerful computers.

Future building, it has to be said, is tough–really tough. Especially when the aim is to create a future that's better than the past, and not just one that's different. The irony is that we live in a time when there is so much incredible potential to build a better future. And yet, we have more ways of destroying, or at least seriously diminishing, what lies in front of us, than ever before. On the one hand there are the in-your-face planetary threats–the charismatic megafauna of the global threats world–threats like climate change, environmental pollution and loss of biodiversity; all of them having their roots in our myopic profligacy as a species.

The existential question that we should be asking ourselves, is are we living in a simulated universe? The idea that we are living in a simulated reality may seem unconventional and irrational to the general public, but it is a belief shared by many of the brightest minds of our time including Neil deGrasse Tyson, Ray Kurzweil and Elon Musk. Elon Musk famously asked the question'What's outside the simulation?' in a podcast with Lex Fridman a research scientist at MIT. To understand how we could be living in a simulation, one needs to explore the simulation hypothesis or simulation theory which proposes that all of reality, including the Earth and the universe, is in fact an artificial simulation. While the idea dates back as far as the 17th-century and was initially proposed by philosopher René Descartes, the idea started to gain mainstream interest when Professor Nick Bostrom of Oxford University, wrote a seminal paper in 2003 titled "Are you Living in a Computer Simulation?" Nick Bostrom has since doubled down on his claims and uses probabilistic analysis to prove his point.

The Matrix, Terminator, Iron Man – the list of films in which some type of AI suddenly goes crazy and tries to take over the planet is long. The idea has been around since the 50s, but it seems we're getting closer to a world where computers are as smart as humans or even smarter. The narrative of a robot revolution or'AI taking over the world' is so overused that it has become a cliché. The question is: what will that look like? Will the machines be able to rebel against us?

Nick Bostrom is a philosopher at University of Oxford and the director of the Future of Humanity Institute. He has worked on fascinating and important ideas in existential risks, simulation hypothesis, human enhancement ethics, and the risks of superintelligent AI systems, including in his book Superintelligence. I can see talking to Nick multiple times on this podcast, many hours each time, but we have to start somewhere. This conversation is part of the Artificial Intelligence podcast.

If you go back a few hundred years, what we take for granted today would seem like magic – being able to talk to people over long distances, to transmit images, flying, accessing vast amounts of data like an oracle. These are all things that would have been considered magic a few hundred years ago.

Are artificial intelligence (AI) and superintelligent machines the best or worst thing that could ever happen to humankind? This has been a question in existence since the 1940s when computer scientist Alan Turing wondered and began to believe that there would be a time when machines could have an unlimited impact on humanity through a process that mimicked evolution. Is Artificial Intelligence (AI) A Threat To Humans? When Oxford University Professor Nick Bostrom's New York Times best-seller, Superintelligence: Paths, Dangers, Strategies was first published in 2014, it struck a nerve at the heart of this debate with its focus on all the things that could go wrong. However, in my recent conversation with Bostrom, he also acknowledged there's an enormous upside to artificial intelligence technology.

In a fast paced world where people desire more in less, Ted Talks are evolving the landscape of learning and spreading education and awareness among people who need it. This platform of education is transforming lectures into interesting interactions consuming less time as several professionals are unable to attend day-long conferences to educate and update themselves. Moreover, in terms of technology or particularly artificial intelligence (AI), the introduction of TED Talks is also beneficial with regard to money owing to its free availability online. Presenters, who are passionate technology experts, take on the stage and speak with such energy and momentum where their enthusiasm contagiously boosts up youngsters. Therefore, here we have brought you the top AI Ted Talks that will elevate your reasoning and education about the technology.