657. Prophecy and Prediction: Exploring AI’s Future with Carissa Véliz

About this episode

Greg LaBlanc interviews Carissa Véliz about the implications of prediction in AI and its impact on society.

Carissa Véliz is an Associate Professor in Philosophy at the Institute for Ethics in AI, a Fellow at Hertford College at the University of Oxford, and the author of multiple books, including, most recently, Prophecy: Prediction, Power, and the Fight for the Future, from Ancient Oracles to AI. Greg and Carissa discuss Carissa’s newest work, where she links prediction to surveillance and argues that forecasts are speech acts that intervene in the world, often becoming self-fulfilling or self-defeating. She says humans seek prophecy to relieve anxiety, but this grants power to predictors and can undermine autonomy, democracy, and fairness, especially via opaque algorithms, social-credit-style control, and pattern-matching decisions like lending. Carissa urges transparent, contestable criteria, skepticism about incentives behind predictions, and treating unwanted forecasts as invitations to defy rather than “obey in advance.” Their conversation critiques utilitarianism and effective altruism for relying on long-term prediction, discusses fatalism and moral luck, and advocates resilience, scenario planning, Epicurean agency, and literature as an antidote to doomscrolling, shrinking…

People in this episode

Host: Greg LaBlanc

Guest: Carissa Véliz

Topics covered

• AI ethics
• prediction
• surveillance
• autonomy
• democracy
• utilitarianism
• cultural convergence

Keywords

• AI
• prediction
• surveillance
• autonomy
• democracy
• utilitarianism
• effective altruism
• fatalism
• scenario planning
• Epicurean agency

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Institute for Ethics in AI, Hertford College, University of Oxford

Books & works: Prophecy: Prediction, Power, and the Fight for the Future

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