Voice
David Deutsch
Physicist & Philosopher · Oxford · site
Quantum-computing pioneer and founder of critical rationalism as applied to the theory of knowledge. Argues that problems are soluble and knowledge grows without limit through conjecture and refutation.
Key writings
Positions on problems
“All evils are caused by insufficient knowledge. Problems are inevitable. Problems are soluble.”
AI safety is a knowledge problem, not a limit problem. Aligned AGI is achievable through better explanations, not through halting development.
Bad explanations waste billions of childhood hours. Good explanations compound across generations. Pedagogy is an epistemology problem.
The Beginning of Infinity, chapter on bad philosophy
Progress depends on the unhindered creation of good explanations. Institutions that reward criticism outperform those that reward consensus.
The Beginning of Infinity, multiple chapters