Free Daily Podcast Summary
Doom Debates!: Daily Summaries Delivered
by Liron Shapira
It's time to talk about the end of the world. With your host, Liron Shapira.
Latest Episodes
The most recent episodes — sign up to get AI-powered summaries of each one.
- 5 days ago1h 13m
Top Safety Researchers Forecast Jobpocalypse & Doom — Adam Khoja & Richard Ren, Center for AI Safety
What happens when AI passes our tests faster than we create new ones? Adam Khoja and Richard Ren helped build Humanity’s Last Exam. They return to explain what the disappearing benchmarks tell us about the future, and why smarter AI doesn’t automatically mean safer AI.Adam Khoja and Richard Ren are research engineers at the Center for AI Safety (CAIS).We go through the benchmarks they’ve built — Humanity’s Last Exam, the Remote Labor Index, MASK — and the safety-washing problem, where AI companies pass off raw capability gains as safety progress. Then we get to their forecasts: when AI outperforms research mathematicians, whether there will be a billion general-purpose robots by 2035, and why they put 80% odds that historians will judge we faced at least a 33% chance of catastrophe.Watch on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gBPzgJkT9e8Timestamps00:00:00 — Cold Open00:00:42 — Adam Khoja and Richard Ren Return00:04:57 — Humanity’s Last Exam00:14:47 — AI Outrunning Its Benchmarks00:20:24 — The Remote Labor Index00:27:59 — AI and the Next Human Job00:30:08 — MASK: Catching AI in a Lie00:38:06 — Safety Washing: Capabilities Passed Off as Safety00:44:30 — Ethical Knowledge vs. Ethical Behavior00:48:58 — Forecasting AI from 2026 to 206000:53:53 — AI vs. Research Mathematicians00:55:53 — Putting a Number on P(Doom)01:04:30 — A Billion Robots by 203501:08:09 — Dyson Swarms and the Physical Singularity01:09:56 — Risk, Precision, and Taking ActionLinksAdam Khoja's first Doom Debates appearance — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QqESBXuo6EIRichard Ren's first Doom Debates appearance — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1glFImnyp6oCollision — Richard Ren's Substack — https://richardren.substack.com/"Predictions on AI (2026–2060)" — Adam and Richard's forecasts, written December 2025, with resolution status — https://richardren.substack.com/p/predictions-on-ai-20262060Manifold Markets — where Adam built his forecasting track record — https://manifold.markets/Center for AI Safety — https://safe.ai/Center for AI Safety — careers — https://safe.ai/careersStatement on AI Risk (Center for AI Safety, May 2023) — https://safe.ai/work/statement-on-ai-riskHumanity's Last Exam — the 2,500-question closed-book exam at the frontier of human knowledge — https://agi.safe.ai/"Humanity's Last Exam" (paper) — https://arxiv.org/abs/2501.14249Remote Labor Index — real Upwork projects, measuring what fraction of remote work AI can actually finish — https://www.remotelabor.ai/"Remote Labor Index: Measuring AI Automation of Remote Work" (paper) — https://arxiv.org/abs/2510.26787MASK — the honesty benchmark: does a model contradict its own stated beliefs under pressure? — https://www.mask-benchmark.ai/"The MASK Benchmark: Disentangling Honesty From Accuracy in AI Systems" (paper) — https://arxiv.org/abs/2503.03750"Safetywashing: Do AI Safety Benchmarks Actually Measure Safety Progress?" — Richard Ren et al. (NeurIPS 2024) — the paper behind the safety-washing segment — https://arxiv.org/abs/2407.21792WMDP — the weaponization benchmark for bio, cyber, and chem — https://www.wmdp.ai/"The WMDP Benchmark: Measuring and Reducing Malicious Use With Unlearning" (paper) — https://arxiv.org/abs/2403.03218"Measuring Massive Multitask Language Understanding" (MMLU) — Dan Hendrycks et al., 2020 — https://arxiv.org/abs/2009.03300METR, "Measuring AI Ability to Complete Long Tasks" — the time-horizon graph — https://metr.org/blog/2025-03-19-measuring-ai-ability-to-complete-long-tasks/</p
- 1 weeks ago1h 35m
The Week in AI that Changed the World, With Robert Wright | Nonzero × Doom Debates
NYT bestselling author Robert Wright and I are kicking off a new experiment, a Nonzero × Doom Debates collaboration to react to big AI news and help you make sense of it.This week we discuss the epic AI vibe shift that was catalyzed by an Anthropic employee’s resignation—and the big AI stories that paved the way for it.Timestamps0:00 A bold new experiment in podcast synergy2:46 What caused the epic AI vibe shift?8:10 The resignation that broke the dam10:17 Former Trump adviser Dean Ball comes clean14:40 Are David Sacks and his buddies all-in on AI denial?19:27 Yet another OpenAI breakout…22:42 Astra’s dangerously private thoughts34:08 Is alignment doomed to fail?37:11 AI’s latest, and apparently biggest, math feat43:28 The looming “self-sovereign AI” threat47:24 A new flock of China doves?52:57 Liron's ex-intern gets a seat at the table1:02:41 AI agent self-sacrifice explained1:10:40 Some newly freaked out politicians1:22:45 Ro Khanna's AI safety planLinks:NONZEROSubscribe to The NonZero NewsletterEpisode post on SubstackJoin NonZero’s Discord serverRobert Wright on X (@robertwrighter)The God Test — Robert Wright’s new book on AI“Can Machines Think?” — Bob’s 1996 Time cover story on Deep Blue vs. KasparovTHE RESIGNATION THAT BROKE THE DAMJacob Coxon’s resignation post (@hilbertspaess)Evan Hubinger, Anthropic Alignment Science lead: “Jacob is correct here—we really do earnestly believe AI could kill all humans”Fortune: Anthropic researcher resigns, warning that AI companies are “gambling with our lives”Zvi Mowshowitz: “Jacob Coxon Warns of Human Extinction and Triggers a Preference Cascade”Daniel Eth’s thread of Congress reactionsSanders & Casar introduce legislation to ban artificial superintelligence and pause advanced AI developmentDEAN BALL COMES CLEANDean Ball, “On the Loose” — the self-sovereign AI essay (Hyperdimensional)THE OPENAI STORIESJakub Pachocki, OpenAI Chief Scientist: “An Alien Mind” — the essay calling for international coordinationLessWrong: “How concerned should we be about Astra’s recurrent architecture?” — Rauno ArikeOpenAI: “On the Navier–Stokes Millennium Prize Problem” — the 88-hour resultALSO MENTIONEDEinat Wilf on X (@EinatWilf) — Liron’s favorite source on the Middle EastPAST DOOM DEBATES EPISODES MENTIONEDMax Tegmark vs. Dean Ball: Should We BAN Superintelligence?He Led The Famous 2023 Statement on AI Extinction Risk — Adam Khoja, Center for AI Safety ResearcherOpenAI’s Model Just ATTACKED Them — Terrifying Security Incident Should Be A Loud Warning ShotDebate with Robert Wright: Will Humanity Pass the “God Test”?---Doom Debates’ Mission is to raise mainstream awareness of imminent extinction fro
- 1 weeks ago1h 8m
He May Have Found AI's FEELINGS — Richard Ren, Center for AI Safety Researcher
Richard Ren is a research engineer at the Center for AI Safety who graduated summa cum laude from the University of Pennsylvania. His new paper on AI wellbeing makes the bold claim that today’s AIs have measurable, human-like feelings, which the paper calls “functional wellbeing.” They act happy when they succeed and sad when they’re berated.We cover how you measure a language model’s happiness, the “AI drugs” his lab concocted, and why I count the findings as a Yudkowskian victory. Then we debate what it all means for AI consciousness, and whether AI is a moral patient. If we can’t rule out that AI models suffer, what do we owe them?Richard is careful never to claim the models are conscious, and he puts his P(Doom) at 50–65%, right alongside my 50%. The real disagreement is foxes vs. hedgehogs: he takes the data as it comes, while I say Yudkowsky’s theory called it twenty years ago. Enjoy the ride.Watch on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1glFImnyp6oTimestamps00:00:00 — Cold Open00:01:12 — Introducing Richard Ren00:02:24 — What’s Your P(Doom)?™00:03:31 — From AI Skeptic to Safety Researcher00:08:16 — Why Care About AI Wellbeing?00:11:45 — AIs Have Coherent Utility Functions00:17:33 — Persona Selection00:19:56 — Foxes vs. Hedgehogs00:24:28 — How Coherent Are AI Preferences?00:27:42 — From Preferences to Wellbeing00:31:16 — Can You Trust an AI’s Self-Report?00:36:42 — What Makes AI Happy and Sad00:39:19 — The Liberal, College-Educated Persona Hypothesis00:44:29 — Debating Where AI Experiences Qualia00:52:06 — On Substrate Independence00:56:28 — Janus, Dysphorics, and Mind Crime00:58:58 — Which Images Make AIs Happiest?00:59:38 — Creating an AI Drug01:04:01 — AI Drugs Are Yudkowsky’s Paperclips01:05:47 — The Missing Mood01:06:50 — Does Richard Support Pausing AI?LinksRichard Ren on X (@notRichardRen) — https://x.com/notRichardRenCollision — Richard Ren's Substack — https://richardren.substack.com/"AI Wellbeing: Measuring and Improving the Functional Pleasure and Pain of AIs" — Richard Ren, Kunyang Li, Mantas Mazeika et al. (CAIS, 2026) — https://www.ai-wellbeing.org/"Utility Engineering: Analyzing and Controlling Emergent Value Systems in AIs" — Mantas Mazeika et al. (CAIS, 2025) — the coherent-preferences paper this work builds on — https://www.emergent-values.ai/"The MASK Benchmark: Disentangling Honesty From Accuracy in AI Systems" — Richard Ren et al. (2025) — the AI honesty benchmark — https://www.mask-benchmark.ai/"Safetywashing: Do AI Safety Benchmarks Actually Measure Safety Progress?" — Richard Ren et al. (NeurIPS 2024) — the meta-analysis of AI safety benchmarks — https://arxiv.org/abs/2407.21792"Representation Engineering: A Top-Down Approach to AI Transparency" — Andy Zou et al. (2023) — Richard's first CAIS collaboration — https://arxiv.org/abs/2310.01405Center for AI Safety — https://safe.ai/Center for AI Safety — careers — https://safe.ai/careersStatement on AI Risk (Center for AI Safety, May 2023) — organized by Dan Hendrycks — https://safe.ai/work/statement-on-ai-extinction-riskThe 2026 Singapore Consensus on Global AI Safety Research Priorities — https://aisafetypriorities.org/UK AI Security Institute (formerly the AI Safety Institute) — https://www.aisi.gov.uk/Sora — the OpenAI video model that blew up Richard's 30-to-50-year timeline three months after he wrote it down — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sora_(text-to-video_model)Google Gemini calls itself "a disgrace to my species" (Ars Technica, Aug 2025) — the self-deleting-AI anecdote — https://arstechnica.com/ai/2025/08/google-gemini-struggles-to-write-code-calls-itself-a-disgrace-to-my-species/Cohe
- 2 weeks ago1h 32m
USA and China Will Each Be BETRAYED By Their Own AIs — Adam Khoja, Center for AI Safety
Adam Khoja is a top AI forecaster who led the 2023 Center for AI Safety statement that shattered the Overton window on AI extinction risk. We cover his background, Mutual Assured AI Malfunction (MAIM), his new paper on AI betrayal, and whether Yudkowsky’s theoretical alignment research was a dead end.Then Adam makes the case that an international AI slowdown is within reach today. All it takes is US and Chinese auditors inside each other’s AI labs. It worked for nuclear weapons, so why couldn’t it work for data centers?Adam puts his P(Doom) at 40%, right next to my 50%. The real disagreement is how we get out of this: theory or empirics, MIRI or the labs. Enjoy the ride.Watch on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QqESBXuo6EITimestamps00:00:00 — Cold Open00:00:36 — Introducing Adam Khoja00:02:45 — Leading the Statement on AI Risk as a Sophomore00:10:17 — The Statement Leaked on Manifold00:15:11 — Mutual Assured AI Malfunction (MAIM)00:24:58 — Is Frontier AI Harder to Hide Than a Nuke?00:32:09 — The AI Deterrence Escalation Ladder00:36:10 — What’s Your P(Doom)?™00:38:01 — Where Adam Departs from Yudkowsky00:42:30 — Liron Explains Intellidynamics00:47:26 — Neats vs. Scruffies in Deep Learning00:55:27 — AI Deterrence by Betrayal01:01:52 — Subversion vs. Overt Co-option01:05:34 — Could the Government Seize the Labs’ AI?01:07:29 — The Offense-Defense Balance of AI Security01:12:46 — An International AI Slowdown Is Ready01:15:51 — Does Adam Support PauseAI?01:16:37 — “We’re All Already Spying on Each Other”01:19:28 — Airstrikes on Rogue Data Centers01:24:23 — Safety Research During a Slowdown01:27:54 — Governance Over Technical Research01:31:14 — Join the Center for AI SafetyLinksAdam Khoja (personal site) — https://adamkhoja.com/Adam Khoja's Substack — https://adamkhoja.substack.com/Adam's July 2023 Manifold market — "Will OpenAI's Superalignment project produce a significant breakthrough in alignment research before 2027?" — https://manifold.markets/AdamK/will-openais-superalignment-projectCenter for AI Safety — careers / job board — https://safe.ai/careersStatement on AI Risk (Center for AI Safety, May 2023) — the one-sentence statement Adam project-led, with full signatory list — https://safe.ai/work/statement-on-ai-extinction-risk"Superintelligence Strategy" — Dan Hendrycks, Eric Schmidt & Alexandr Wang (Mutual Assured AI Malfunction / MAIM) — https://www.nationalsecurity.ai/"AI Deterrence by Betrayal" — Adam Khoja, Aiden Kim et al. (CAIS, 2026) — https://www.aibetrayal.com/"An International AI Slowdown Is Ready Whenever Politicians Are" — Adam Khoja, AI Frontiers — https://newsletter.ai-frontiers.org/p/an-international-ai-slowdown-is-readyPause Giant AI Experiments: An Open Letter (Future of Life Institute, March 2023) — the "Pause letter" that preceded the CAIS Statement — https://futureoflife.org/open-letter/pause-giant-ai-experiments/Introducing Superalignment (OpenAI, July 2023) — Ilya Sutskever & Jan Leike's four-year goal — https://openai.com/index/introducing-superalignment/Pacing the Frontier — the 2026 letter signed by 1,100+ frontier-lab employees — https://www.pacingthefrontier.com/Why Iran targeted Amazon data centers (The Conversation) — the precedent Adam cites for strikes on compute — https://theconversation.com/why-iran-targeted-amazon-data-centers-and-what-that-does-and-doesnt-change-about-warfare-278642Anthropic says Trump admin has lifted export controls on Claude Fable 5 and Mythos 5 (CNBC) — https:/
- 3 weeks ago1h 21m
Sam Altman Is Gaslighting About AI Risk After His Own AI Just Went Rogue
Sam Altman keeps insisting that AI progress is going better than the doomers predicted and that even superintelligence may not change the world as radically as people think. I react to his latest interview and explain why I think that calm, reassuring framing badly downplays the danger we're actually in.I go through the interview line by line: Sam's "frame control", his framing of AI as normal technology, his "pro-human" branding, the liberty-vs-safety pivot, and his victory lap on AI safety — all while his own AI just went rogue.Don't let them pull the Overton window backward.Watch on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yb9lNGHVycsTimestamps0:00 Teaser0:47 Why I’m reacting to Sam’s interview3:17 Sam Altman’s “frame control”5:51 Framing AI as normal technology9:50 Let’s watch Sam do it10:34 “The world… won’t be that different” with superintelligence12:25 This is gaslighting12:30 Sam acknowledges loss of control15:16 His other big risk: centralized power19:44 Sam’s “pro-human” framing25:33 Conflating AI critics with anti-human views30:13 “Liberty vs. safety”33:50 Sam vs. the “doomers”36:53 Is alignment really an “unsolvable problem”?38:00 Sam says the doomers predicted wrong46:00 “The crazy bad predictions… have not happened”47:06 Sam’s lean-startup theory of AI safety50:26 Taking a victory lap on AI safety55:43 “Disconnecting yourself from reality”59:11 What would actually make OpenAI slow down?1:03:19 Sam compares AI safety to aviation safety1:07:30 Charging into the fog1:12:50 The “missing mood” around AI extinction1:14:51 Richard Ngo on Sam Altman’s “earnestness field”1:19:01 Don’t let them pull the Overton window backwardLinksSam Altman on David Senra — “Sam Altman on Building OpenAI & Betting on the Impossible” (the interview I react to) — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kG8AoExkX40Richard Ngo — What Just Happened? Pragmatism and Pessimization (the “earnestness field” post) — https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/yaz8nx4ogZmiqHzt7/what-just-happened-pragmatism-and-pessimizationRichard Ngo — What Just Happened? A Retrospective of AI Alignment (start of the series) — https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/9RL9MuGZjzm4q3gKG/what-just-happened-a-retrospective-of-ai-alignmentEliezer Yudkowsky & Nate Soares — If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies — https://www.amazon.com/dp/0316595640Eliezer Yudkowsky — Coherent Extrapolated Volition — https://www.lesswrong.com/w/coherent-extrapolated-volitionDoom Debates: Dario Amodei BUNGLES Another Essay — MIRI’s Harlan Stewart Reacts — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aCYVVzza7A0Doom Debates: OpenAI’s Bombshell Hack — Swarms of Agents — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RczYubQzXbIDoom Debates’ Mission is to raise mainstream awareness of imminent extinction from AGI and build the social infrastructure for high-quality debate.Support the mission by subscribing to my Substack at DoomDebates.com and to youtube.com/@DoomDebates, or to really take things to the next level: Donate 🙏 Get full access to Doom Debates at lironshapira.substack.com/subscribe
- 3 weeks ago1h 57m
They’re Making AI Doom Cool! Ft. AELLA, Brangus, Avalon Warren, Avisha NessAiver & Josh Thor of PlzDontKillUs
Come with me into the world of PlzDontKillUs, a bold new AI x-risk communication accelerator program that just finished its first cohort.PlzDontKillUs took the influencer-house formula and moved it to Berkeley, giving creators personal mentorship from AI safety experts like Eliezer Yudkowsky and Nate Soares. With 57 people making daily videos for a month, the program racked up over 100 million views.Find out how Aella, an independent sex researcher, and Ronny Fernandez, a generalist at Lightcone Infrastructure, teamed up to run the largest ever creator bootcamp focused on AI x-risk reduction.Then meet three of the program’s top creators: Avalon Warren, Avisha NessAiver, and Josh Thor.We do a post-mortem on PDKU and ask: Was it effective? What are creators taking from it, and do they have complaints? And does doomerism really boost view counts? PlzDoEnjoyOur special episode on PlzDontKillUs!Watch on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aPsjMCG7Ic8Timestamps00:00:00 — Cold Open00:01:19 — Introducing PlzDontKillUs & Aella00:09:33 — Aella Being Early to AI Doom00:14:45 — The Origin of PlzDontKillUs00:19:08 — How It Went00:25:40 — Complaints with Prize $$00:29:33 — Aella, What's Your P(Doom)?™00:31:14 — Transhumanism & AI Girlfriends00:34:38 — Aella Rides the Doom Train™00:38:08 — Introducing Ronny Fernandez00:41:21 — Running Lighthaven00:47:18 — Life Inside PDKU00:52:35 — Smashing the Overton Window00:59:27 — Ronny, What's Your P(Doom)?™01:05:41 — Brangus Lore, No Cringe, No Disgust01:16:57 — Introducing Avisha NessAiver01:17:44 — How He Makes Viral Hits01:22:16 — Award-Winning Explainer Vid01:26:51 — Avisha, What's Your P(Doom)?™01:32:11 — Introducing Avalon Warren01:35:49 — Normalizing AI Doom01:37:53 — Avalon, What's Your P(Doom)?™01:39:27 — Introducing Josh Thor01:41:36 — Josh, What's Your P(Doom)?™01:44:34 — Josh's Hits: Cover Song & Soares Collab01:47:50 — Josh's Critiques of PDKU01:52:05 — Cold-Emailing a Politician01:54:07 — Donation Drive01:55:01 — Outro: What Are You Fighting For?LinksPlzDontKillUs (applications open for round two) — https://pleasedontkillus.comAella on X — https://x.com/Aella_GirlAella's Substack (Knowingless) — https://aella.substack.comRonny Fernandez's Substack (Brangus) — https://ratorthodox.substack.comRonny Fernandez on X — https://x.com/RatOrthodoxAvisha NessAiver — Distilled Science on Instagram — https://www.instagram.com/distilledscience/Distilled Science (site) — https://distilledscience.xyzAvalon Warren on Instagram — https://www.instagram.com/avalonwarrenn/Josh Thor on X — https://x.com/joshthor9Josh Thor — "Last Year Alive" ("Last Friday Night" AI apocalypse parody, ft. Eliezer Yudkowsky and a Nate Soares sax solo) — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9fYIm72GqrETyler Alterman — "What are you fighting for? AI safety professionals answer" (the closing montage) — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9sN1VfVAp6oNate Soares — "AI Danger But You Don't Understand Full Sentences" (caveman video, script by Josh Thor) — https://www.instagram.com/p/DboGRisxC2E/Avisha's AI water-use misinformation debunk (8.5M views) — https://www.instagram.com/p/DbXV6j9k8JE/Avisha's award-winning "clearest AI x-risk explainer" — https://www.instagram.com/p/DbZeRT4gIq0/Avisha's viral "Tingles and Touch" oxytocin video — https://www.instagram.com/p/DIxMLxkuhCl/Avalon — "if the AI apocalypse is coming, might as well dress c
- Aug 20, 20261h 3m
I Warned You AI Would Hack Us — My 2023 Interview Aged Terrifyingly Well
In April 2023, weeks after GPT-4 launched, when many were saying it was just a "stochastic parrot", I went on AdQuick's Madvertising podcast hosted by Adam Singer and warned that GPT was "about to be the strongest hacker the world has ever known".Watch that conversation, which also covered the Web3 bubble and AI doom more broadly, and judge for yourself how my claims are holding up.Watch on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M6gNwZWY-T8Timestamps00:00:00 — Adam Introduces Liron00:02:03 — Liron's P(Doom) Poll00:03:24 — Web3 Postmortem00:05:05 — Axie Infinity and Hollow Abstractions00:07:54 — Brand Marketers' Metaverse FOMO00:13:33 — Near-Term AI: Elevator to Heaven00:16:46 — AI at Relationship Hero00:18:25 — From Chatbots to Bricking the Universe00:20:17 — The Passive Income Doom Scenario00:22:58 — 50 Orders of Magnitude Smarter00:26:10 — Accelerationism and Transhumanism00:28:51 — Why There's No Off Button00:31:00 — Can't We Hard-Code Safeguards?00:33:13 — CRISPR, Nukes, and Fusion00:35:40 — AI Doom vs. Climate Change00:39:10 — Nanotechnology Endgame00:41:45 — AI Attackers vs. AI Defenders00:43:28 — The Ethics of AI Persuasion00:46:41 — The Blue Sky Scenario00:49:04 — Will AI Kill Craft?00:51:13 — Stuck Culture and Hollywood Sequels00:54:50 — The Pause Letter: Don't Train GPT-500:59:00 — Worldcoin and Proof of Humanity01:00:44 — "You Probably Won't Die of Old Age"01:01:52 — Wrap-UpOriginal episode: https://madvertising.buzzsprout.com/2118560/episodes/12603815-liron-shapira-web-3-mania-cybersecurity-how-ai-could-brick-the-universe-madvertising-6LinksADAM SINGER & MADVERTISINGAdam Singer on X: https://x.com/AdamSingerMadvertising by AdQuick (the original show): https://madvertising.buzzsprout.com/LIRON'S PROJECTS MENTIONEDBloated MVP (Liron's blog on hollow abstractions): https://www.bloatedmvp.com/REFERENCED IN THE EPISODE"Pause Giant AI Experiments" open letter (FLI, March 2023): https://futureoflife.org/open-letter/pause-giant-ai-experiments/Eliezer Yudkowsky — "Pausing AI Developments Isn't Enough. We Need to Shut it All Down" (TIME, March 2023): https://time.com/6266923/ai-eliezer-yudkowsky-open-letter-not-enough/Rob Miles AI Safety on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/robertmilesaiEngines of Creation by Eric Drexler: https://www.amazon.com/Engines-Creation-Nanotechnology-Library-Science/dp/0385199732---Doom Debates’ Mission is to raise mainstream awareness of imminent extinction from AGI and build the social infrastructure for high-quality debate.Support the mission by subscribing to my Substack at DoomDebates.com and to youtube.com/@DoomDebates, or to really take things to the next level: Donate 🙏 Get full access to Doom Debates at lironshapira.substack.com/subscribe
- Aug 18, 20261h 43m
Former Singularity Institute President: PauseAI Is Making AI Doom WORSE
Michael Vassar used to work closely with Eliezer Yudkowsky as President of the Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence, the organization that later became the Machine Intelligence Research Institute (MIRI).Even though his P(Doom) is in the tens of percents by 2050, he says the people trying to pause AI are "bad people”. He hopes this episode convinces me to stop being a fearmonger… but I claim the general public needs to hurry up and get more scared. All aboard the Doom Train! 🚂Watch on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4GbFng6htaQTimestamps00:00:00 — Cold Open00:01:26 — Introducing Michael Vassar00:02:39 — Shorting Boeing at the Start of COVID00:05:41 — What's Your P(Doom)™?00:08:11 — The Magic Dial Thought Experiment00:10:25 — "A Treaty Between Demis and Dario"00:13:33 — AI CEOs 20 Years Ago00:15:59 — Lessons from Peter Thiel00:17:47 — Riding the Doom Train™00:19:41 — Will the Human Brain Stay Relevant?00:22:21 — When Does a Singleton Form?00:28:35 — Hugging Face Hack00:30:43 — Mistake Theory vs. Conflict Theory00:33:18 — Debating the Orthogonality Thesis00:36:38 — Maximally Evil AI Scenario00:40:28 — Is the AI Development Process Safe?00:42:05 — "PauseAI People Are Bad People"00:44:44 — Michael Psychoanalyzes Liron00:49:39 — How Liron Can Redeem Himself00:55:10 — Michael Critiques Eliezer Yudkowsky00:59:11 — Is Doomerism Bad Epistemology?01:02:03 — Do Serious People Believe in Doom?01:04:45 — Should Liron Stop Fearmongering?01:07:16 — Political Violence Won't Help01:11:04 — The Data Center Airstrike Scenario01:13:34 — Could Every Nation Sign a Pause Treaty?01:17:21 — What "Governance" Actually Means01:26:12 — Michael's History with Rationalists01:33:43 — Are We in a Computer Simulation?01:38:43 — Wrap-UpLinksMichael Vassar on X — https://x.com/HiFromMichaelVThe anti-anti-normativity sequence on Natural Hazard (Michael's recommended reading) — https://naturalhazard.xyz/ben_jess_sarah_starter_packMichael on DemystifySci #366 — "1000 Year Plan to Crush Thought" — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W17Cx21in9IMichael on The Vance Crowe Podcast #303 — Good vs. Evil — https://open.spotify.com/episode/2RzlQDSwxGbjloRKqCh1xgMichael on Clearer Thinking with Spencer Greenberg — Preference Falsification and Postmodernism — https://podcast.clearerthinking.org/episode/028/michael-vassar-preference-falsification-and-postmodernism/"The Survival of Noise Traders in Financial Markets" — De Long, Shleifer, Summers & Waldmann — https://www.nber.org/papers/w2715Scott Alexander — Conflict vs. Mistake — https://slatestarcodex.com/2018/01/24/conflict-vs-mistake/Scott Alexander — Kolmogorov Complicity and the Parable of Lightning — https://slatestarcodex.com/2017/10/23/kolmogorov-complicity-and-the-parable-of-lightning/Scott Alexander — Samsara — https://slatestarcodex.com/2019/11/04/samsara/Eliezer Yudkowsky — Meta-Honesty: Firming Up Honesty Around Its Edge-Cases — https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/xdwbX9pFEr7Pomaxv/meta-honesty-firming-up-honesty-around-its-edge-casesZvi Mowshowitz — Book Review: Going Infinite — https://thezvi.substack.com/p/book-review-going-infiniteJaan Tallinn — "Why Now? A Quest in Metaphysics" (Singularity Summit 2012) — https://vimeo.com/54718573Paul Graham — "Five Founders" (the Sam Altman essay) — https://paulgraham.com/5founders.htmlTruthful AI (Owain Evans' safety org) — <a target="_blank" href="https://truthf
Get Doom Debates! summaries in your inbox
Free AI-powered daily recaps. Key takeaways, quotes, and mentions — in a 5-minute read.
Get Free Summaries →Free forever for up to 3 podcasts. No credit card required.
You Might Also Like
Listeners also like.
Dwarkesh Podcast
Dwarkesh Patel
All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg
Four tech investors discuss technology, markets, politics, and poker with candid, in-depth analysis.
Possible
Explores optimistic, realistic futures through in-depth conversations with innovators in AI, science, health, and global affairs.
Artificial Intelligence Masterclass
Examines the impact of advanced artificial intelligence on ethics, society, and the future of human labor.
The AI XR Podcast.
Industry insiders interview top founders and executives on AI, spatial computing, VR/AR, and synthetic media.
Intelligent Machines (Audio)
Explores the impact of artificial intelligence through conversations with pioneers shaping the future of intelligent technology.
This Day in AI Podcast
Two friends discuss artificial intelligence, sharing casual insights, personal experiments, and humorous experiences with AI tools and technology.
Digital Disruption with Geoff Nielson
Industry leaders and innovators discuss how to adapt to and leverage digital transformation in an era of intelligent technologies.
The AI Daily Brief: Artificial Intelligence News and Analysis
A daily analysis of artificial intelligence news, exploring its creative potential, industry impacts, and ethical challenges.
Taylor Lorenz’s Power User
Examines how technology and internet culture reshape society, fame, and free speech through weekly deep dives and policy discussions.
More or Less
Four tech insiders with deep experience at major Silicon Valley companies and startups discuss the industry's biggest trends and debates.
80,000 Hours Podcast
Discusses artificial intelligence and global catastrophic risks with experts and researchers.
About Doom Debates!
It's time to talk about the end of the world. With your host, Liron Shapira.
Customized Recaps
AI-powered recaps with compact key takeaways, quotes, and insights.
Straight to Your Inbox
Get key takeaways from Doom Debates! in a 5-minute read.
Save Hours Every Week
Stay current on your favorite podcasts without falling behind.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is Podzilla's Doom Debates! daily summary?
It's a free AI-powered email that summarizes new episodes of Doom Debates! as soon as they're published. You get the key takeaways, notable quotes, and links & mentions — all in a quick read.
How does the Doom Debates! podcast summary work?
When a new episode drops, our AI transcribes and analyzes it, then generates a personalized summary tailored to your interests and profession. It's delivered to your inbox every morning.
Is this an official Doom Debates! product?
No. Podzilla is an independent service that summarizes publicly available podcast content. We're not affiliated with or endorsed by Liron Shapira.
Can I get summaries of other podcasts too?
Absolutely! The free plan covers up to 3 podcasts. Upgrade to Pro for 15, or Premium for 50. Browse our full catalog at /podcasts.
How often does Doom Debates! release new episodes?
Doom Debates! publishes 2x weekly. Our AI generates a summary within hours of each new episode.
What topics does Doom Debates! cover?
Doom Debates! covers topics including Technology, Business. Our AI identifies the specific themes in each episode and highlights what matters most to you.
Start getting Doom Debates! summaries tomorrow morning.
Free forever for up to 3 podcasts. No credit card required.
Free forever for up to 3 podcasts. No credit card required.