Interview with Carrie Radomski on Cryonics, AI, Parenting, and Nine Inch Nails

Do you want to die?

What if someone who dies today could be brought back by future technology?

Would you rather have your body frozen, chemically preserved, or your mind uploaded into a computer?

And if a perfect copy woke up with all your memories, would that copy really be you or would you still be dead?

These are the kinds of questions that weirdos like me and Carrie Radomski think about.

Carrie works in biostasis—the attempt to preserve people today so that future technology might someday be able to revive them. She has worked across nearly every part of the field: funding research and emergency infrastructure, investing in both cryonics and chemopreservation companies, helping build a standby organization in Canada, and participating in actual preservation cases.

She is even signed up with multiple cryonics organizations because apparently one chance at cheating death isn’t enough.

Carrie and I were Facebook friends before finally meeting in person last year. We had a great conversation, and I knew she would make an interesting interview guest. When she returned to the Bay Area for a longevity conference, I was lucky enough to sit down and record one with her.

We talked about whether cryonics or chemical preservation gives you a better chance of survival, what might remain of a person after death, and whether an uploaded copy with all your memories would actually be you.

We also discussed AI safety, the probability of AI killing everyone, rationalism and effective altruism, Carrie’s childhood and adult autism diagnosis, parenting an autistic child, information hazards, aphantasia, psychedelics, Nine Inch Nails, movies, and much more.

Carrie is smart, high agency woman with a lot to say!

Enjoy the interview!

Would you ever preserve your body after death? Would you choose cryonics or chemopreservation? And would you enter a teleporter if it destroyed the original you and created a perfect copy somewhere else?

Let me know what you think, what questions I should ask in the future, and who I should interview next!

Timestamps

0:00
Highlights

1:15
Introduction

2:08
Carrie’s background and work in biostasis

4:18
What is biostasis?
Cryonics versus chemopreservation

5:31
Which cryonics organization is Carrie signed up with?

7:24
Investing in cryonics and chemopreservation companies

8:10
Personal identity, mind uploading, and copies of yourself

13:15
The scientific cases for cryonics and chemopreservation
Viability versus preservation of information

28:32
Which preservation method should you choose?

34:45
AI safety, p(doom), rationalism, and effective altruism

44:24
Will we create artificial general intelligence?
AI timelines and alignment

54:03
Mass unemployment, societal collapse, and escaping to Switzerland

56:13
Carrie’s childhood, autism, and rewriting the story of her life

59:19
Her family’s experiences under communism in China

1:07:44
Race, dating, autism, and the incel problem

1:18:27
Parenting, siblings, and raising children

1:19:48
Her son’s autism, ADHD, and problems at school

1:43:30
Infohazards and protecting your limited mental space

1:53:30
Aphantasia, internal dialogue, and how Carrie thinks

1:55:34
Psychedelics and Carrie’s disastrous MDMA experience

2:00:00
Music, Nine Inch Nails, and movies

2:09:33
What is Carrie most proud of?

2:12:57
Closing thoughts

If you enjoyed this, you should definitely check out this interview:

I have many more interviews being edited so don’t forget to subscribe and let me know who else I should interview and what questions you’d like to see me ask!

Thanks so much for watching!