Doom Debates!

Let's CALL OUT the AI Doom “Enablers” Joining OpenAI & Anthropic — Dr. Holly Elmore, PauseAI US

June 30, 2026·1h 56m
Episode Description from the Publisher

Dr. Holly Elmore, executive director of PauseAI US, is done giving AI insiders the benefit of the doubt.In this spicy episode, Holly calls out a number of respected figures in the AI safety community for allegedly “selling out” the cause: Effective Altruists, Anthropic & OpenAI employees, Eliezer Yudkowsky, Zvi Mowshowitz—and even yours truly! Holly isn’t afraid to psychoanalyze her subjects, which I push back on, but I can’t deny she has a track record of pushing the Overton window and surfacing uncomfortable truths.Does Holly’s approach risk burning bridges with allies for little benefit, or does AI safety need a moral conscience willing to call out the rot nobody else will?Timestamps00:00:00 — Cold Open00:00:48 — Introducing Holly Elmore00:02:20 — Why Holly Moved to DC00:06:03 — What’s Your P(Doom)?™00:07:18 — How We Got Here: EA, Rationality, AI Alignment00:16:32 — “If Anyone Builds It” and LessWrong’s Missing Mood00:21:47 — Holly Supports the Government’s Fable Crackdown00:33:39 — Beef: Dean Ball (OpenAI)00:53:09 — Beef: Eliezer Yudkowsky00:56:14 — Beef: Zvi Mowshowitz01:11:50 — Beef: Liron Shapira!01:16:15 — Beef: Nirit Weiss-Blatt (Dr. Techlash) Being “Bad Faith”01:19:31 — Anthropic Took Over EA01:22:04 — Holly’s Basilisk: What If Building Superintelligence Becomes a Crime?01:32:35 — Beef: Amanda Askell, the “Mother of Claude”01:39:05 — Beef: Daniela Amodei, Co-Founder of Anthropic01:40:23 — Beef: Joe Carlsmith, Member of Technical Staff at Anthropic01:49:39 — Beef: Open Philanthropy / Coefficient Giving, Ben Goldhaber01:54:28 — Wrap-UpLinks* Support PauseAI US: https://www.pauseai-us.org/* Holly on Twitter/X: https://x.com/ilex_ulmus* Joe Carlsmith’s “Leaving Open Philanthropy, going to Anthropic” post: https://joecarlsmith.com/2025/11/03/leaving-open-philanthropy-going-to-anthropic/* Dean Ball joins OpenAI announcement (FAI post): https://www.thefai.org/posts/dean-ball-joins-openai-as-head-of-strategic-futures---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

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