Avsnitt
-
My friend Gil Mark, who leads generative AI products at LinkedIn, thinks competition among superintelligent AIs will lead to a good outcome for humanity. In his view, the alignment problem becomes significantly easier if we build multiple AIs at the same time and let them compete.
I completely disagree, but I hope you’ll find this to be a thought-provoking episode that sheds light on why the alignment problem is so hard.
00:00 Introduction
02:36 Gil & Liron’s Early Doom Days
04:58: AIs : Humans :: Humans : Ants
08:02 The Convergence of AI Goals
15:19 What’s Your P(Doom)™
19:23 Multiple AIs and Human Welfare
24:42 Gil’s Alignment Claim
42:31 Cheaters and Frankensteins
55:55 Superintelligent Game Theory
01:01:16 Slower Takeoff via Resource Competition
01:07:57 Recapping the Disagreement
01:15:39 Post-Debate Banter
Show Notes
Gil’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gilmark/
Gil’s Twitter: https://x.com/gmfromgm
Watch the Lethal Intelligence Guide, the ultimate introduction to AI x-risk! https://www.youtube.com/@lethal-intelligence
PauseAI, the volunteer organization I’m part of: https://pauseai.info
Join the PauseAI Discord — https://discord.gg/2XXWXvErfA — and say hi to me in the #doom-debates-podcast channel!
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 https://doomdebates.com and to https://youtube.com/@DoomDebates
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit lironshapira.substack.com -
Why does the simplest AI imaginable, when you ask it to help you push a box around a grid, suddenly want you to die?
AI doomers are often misconstrued as having "no evidence" or just "anthropomorphizing". This toy model will help you understand why a drive to eliminate humans is NOT a handwavy anthropomorphic speculation, but rather something we expect by default from any sufficiently powerful search algorithm.
We’re not talking about AGI or ASI here — we’re just looking at an AI that does brute-force search over actions in a simple grid world.
The slide deck I’m presenting was created by Jaan Tallinn, cofounder of the Future of Life Institute.
00:00 Introduction
01:24 The Toy Model
06:19 Misalignment and Manipulation Drives
12:57 Search Capacity and Ontological Insights
16:33 Irrelevant Concepts in AI Control
20:14 Approaches to Solving AI Control Problems
23:38 Final Thoughts
Watch the Lethal Intelligence Guide, the ultimate introduction to AI x-risk! https://www.youtube.com/@lethal-intelligence
PauseAI, the volunteer organization I’m part of: https://pauseai.info
Join the PauseAI Discord — https://discord.gg/2XXWXvErfA — and say hi to me in the #doom-debates-podcast channel!
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 https://doomdebates.com and to https://youtube.com/@DoomDebates
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit lironshapira.substack.com -
Saknas det avsnitt?
-
Bryan Cantrill, co-founder of Oxide Computer, says in his talk that engineering in the physical world is too complex for any AI to do it better than teams of human engineers. Success isn’t about intelligence; it’s about teamwork, character and resilience.
I completely disagree.
00:00 Introduction
02:03 Bryan’s Take on AI Doom
05:55 The Concept of P(Doom)
08:36 Engineering Challenges and Human Intelligence
15:09 The Role of Regulation and Authoritarianism in AI Control
29:44 Engineering Complexity: A Case Study from Oxide Computer
40:06 The Value of Team Collaboration
46:13 Human Attributes in Engineering
49:33 AI's Potential in Engineering
58:23 Existential Risks and AI Predictions
Bryan’s original talk:
Watch the Lethal Intelligence Guide, the ultimate introduction to AI x-risk! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9CUFbqh16Fg
PauseAI, the volunteer organization I’m part of: https://pauseai.info
Join the PauseAI Discord — https://discord.gg/2XXWXvErfA — and say hi to me in the #doom-debates-podcast channel!
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
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit lironshapira.substack.com -
Thanks for everyone who participated in the live Q&A on Friday!
The topics covered include advice for computer science students, working in AI trustworthiness, what good AI regulation looks like, the implications of the $500B Stargate project, the public's gradual understanding of AI risks, the impact of minor AI disasters, and the philosophy of consciousness.
00:00 Advice for Comp Sci Students
01:14 The $500B Stargate Project
02:36 Eliezer's Recent Podcast
03:07 AI Safety and Public Policy
04:28 AI Disruption and Politics
05:12 DeepSeek and AI Advancements
06:54 Human vs. AI Intelligence
14:00 Consciousness and AI
24:34 Dark Forest Theory and AI
35:31 Investing in Yourself
42:42 Probability of Aliens Saving Us from AI
43:31 Brain-Computer Interfaces and AI Safety
46:19 Debating AI Safety and Human Intelligence
48:50 Nefarious AI Activities and Satellite Surveillance
49:31 Pliny the Prompter Jailbreaking AI
50:20 Can’t vs. Won’t Destroy the World
51:15 How to Make AI Risk Feel Present
54:27 Keeping Doom Arguments On Track
57:04 Game Theory and AI Development Race
01:01:26 Mental Model of Average Non-Doomer
01:04:58 Is Liron a Strict Bayesian and Utilitarian?
01:09:48 Can We Rename “Doom Debates”
01:12:34 The Role of AI Trustworthiness
01:16:48 Minor AI Disasters
01:18:07 Most Likely Reason Things Go Well
01:21:00 Final Thoughts
Show Notes
Previous post where people submitted questions: https://lironshapira.substack.com/p/ai-twitter-beefs-3-marc-andreessen
Watch the Lethal Intelligence Guide, the ultimate introduction to AI x-risk!
PauseAI, the volunteer organization I’m part of: https://pauseai.info
Join the PauseAI Discord — https://discord.gg/2XXWXvErfA — and say hi to me in the #doom-debates-podcast channel!
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
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit lironshapira.substack.com -
It’s time for AI Twitter Beefs #3:
00:00 Introduction
01:27 Marc Andreessen vs. Sam Altman
09:15 Mark Zuckerberg
35:40 Martin Casado
47:26 Gary Marcus vs. Miles Brundage Bet
58:39 Scott Alexander’s AI Art Turing Test
01:11:29 Roon
01:16:35 Stephen McAleer
01:22:25 Emmett Shear
01:37:20 OpenAI’s “Safety”
01:44:09 Naval Ravikant vs. Eliezer Yudkowsky
01:56:03 Comic Relief
01:58:53 Final Thoughts
Show Notes
Upcoming Live Q&A: https://lironshapira.substack.com/p/2500-subscribers-live-q-and-a-ask
“Make Your Beliefs Pay Rent In Anticipated Experiences” by Eliezer Yudkowsky on LessWrong: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/a7n8GdKiAZRX86T5A/making-beliefs-pay-rent-in-anticipated-experiences
Scott Alexander’s AI Art Turing Test: https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/how-did-you-do-on-the-ai-art-turing
Watch the Lethal Intelligence Guide, the ultimate introduction to AI x-risk!
PauseAI, the volunteer organization I’m part of: https://pauseai.info
Join the PauseAI Discord — https://discord.gg/2XXWXvErfA — and say hi to me in the #doom-debates-podcast channel!
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
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit lironshapira.substack.com -
Effective Altruism has been a controversial topic on social media, so today my guest and I are going to settle the question once and for all: Is it good or bad?
Jonas Sota is a Software Engineer at Rippling, BA in Philosophy from UC Berkeley, who’s been observing the Effective Altruism (EA) movement in the San Francisco Bay Area for over a decade… and he’s not a fan.
00:00 Introduction
01:22 Jonas’s Criticisms of EA
03:23 Recoil Exaggeration
05:53 Impact of Malaria Nets
10:48 Local vs. Global Altruism
13:02 Shrimp Welfare
25:14 Capitalism vs. Charity
33:37 Cultural Sensitivity
34:43 The Impact of Direct Cash Transfers
37:23 Long-Term Solutions vs. Immediate Aid
42:21 Charity Budgets
45:47 Prioritizing Local Issues
50:55 The EA Community
59:34 Debate Recap
1:03:57 Announcements
Show Notes
Jonas’s Instagram: @jonas_wanders
Will MacAskill’s famous book, Doing Good Better: https://www.effectivealtruism.org/doing-good-better
Scott Alexander’s excellent post about the people he met at EA Global: https://slatestarcodex.com/2017/08/16/fear-and-loathing-at-effective-altruism-global-2017/
Watch the Lethal Intelligence Guide, the ultimate introduction to AI x-risk!
PauseAI, the volunteer organization I’m part of: https://pauseai.info
Join the PauseAI Discord — https://discord.gg/2XXWXvErfA — and say hi to me in the #doom-debates-podcast channel!
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
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit lironshapira.substack.com -
Matthew Adelstein, better known as Bentham’s Bulldog on Substack, is a philosophy major at the University of Michigan and an up & coming public intellectual.
He’s a rare combination: Effective Altruist, Bayesian, non-reductionist, theist.
Our debate covers reductionism, evidence for god, the implications of a fine-tuned universe, moral realism, and AI doom.
00:00 Introduction
02:56 Matthew’s Research
11:29 Animal Welfare
16:04 Reductionism vs. Non-Reductionism Debate
39:53 The Decline of God in Modern Discourse
46:23 Religious Credences
50:24 Pascal's Wager and Christianity
56:13 Are Miracles Real?
01:10:37 Fine-Tuning Argument for God
01:28:36 Cellular Automata
01:34:25 Anthropic Principle
01:51:40 Mathematical Structures and Probability
02:09:35 Defining God
02:18:20 Moral Realism
02:21:40 Orthogonality Thesis
02:32:02 Moral Philosophy vs. Science
02:45:51 Moral Intuitions
02:53:18 AI and Moral Philosophy
03:08:50 Debate Recap
03:12:20 Show Updates
Show Notes
Matthew’s Substack: https://benthams.substack.com
Matthew's Twitter: https://x.com/BenthamsBulldog
Matthew's YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@deliberationunderidealcond5105
Lethal Intelligence Guide, the ultimate animated video introduction to AI x-risk – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9CUFbqh16Fg
PauseAI, the volunteer organization I’m part of — https://pauseai.info/
Join the PauseAI Discord — https://discord.gg/2XXWXvErfA — and say hi to me in the #doom-debates-podcast channel!
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
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit lironshapira.substack.com -
Prof. Kenneth Stanley is a former Research Science Manager at OpenAI leading the Open-Endedness Team in 2020-2022. Before that, he was a Professor of Computer Ccience at the University of Central Florida and the head of Core AI Research at Uber. He coauthored Why Greatness Cannot Be Planned: The Myth of the Objective, which argues that as soon as you create an objective, then you ruin your ability to reach it.
In this episode, I debate Ken’s claim that superintelligent AI *won’t* be guided by goals, and then we compare our views on AI doom.
00:00 Introduction
00:45 Ken’s Role at OpenAI
01:53 “Open-Endedness” and “Divergence”
9:32 Open-Endedness of Evolution
21:16 Human Innovation and Tech Trees
36:03 Objectives vs. Open Endedness
47:14 The Concept of Optimization Processes
57:22 What’s Your P(Doom)™
01:11:01 Interestingness and the Future
01:20:14 Human Intelligence vs. Superintelligence
01:37:51 Instrumental Convergence
01:55:58 Mitigating AI Risks
02:04:02 The Role of Institutional Checks
02:13:05 Exploring AI's Curiosity and Human Survival
02:20:51 Recapping the Debate
02:29:45 Final Thoughts
SHOW NOTES
Ken’s home page: https://www.kenstanley.net/
Ken’s Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kenneth_Stanley
Ken’s Twitter: https://x.com/kenneth0stanley
Ken’s PicBreeder paper: https://wiki.santafe.edu/images/1/1e/Secretan_ecj11.pdf
Ken's book, Why Greatness Cannot Be Planned: The Myth of the Objective: https://www.amazon.com/Why-Greatness-Cannot-Planned-Objective/dp/3319155237
The Rocket Alignment Problem by Eliezer Yudkowsky: https://intelligence.org/2018/10/03/rocket-alignment/
---
Lethal Intelligence Guide, the ultimate animated video introduction to AI x-risk – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9CUFbqh16Fg
PauseAI, the volunteer organization I’m part of — https://pauseai.info/
Join the PauseAI Discord — https://discord.gg/2XXWXvErfA — and say hi to me in the #doom-debates-podcast channel!
---
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
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit lironshapira.substack.com -
OpenAI just announced o3 and smashed a bunch of benchmarks (ARC-AGI, SWE-bench, FrontierMath)!
A new Anthropic and Redwood Research paper says Claude is resisting its developers’ attempts to retrain its values!
What’s the upshot — what does it all mean for P(doom)?
00:00 Introduction
01:45 o3’s architecture and benchmarks
06:08 “Scaling is hitting a wall” 🤡
13:41 How many new architectural insights before AGI?
20:28 Negative update for interpretability
31:30 Intellidynamics — ***KEY CONCEPT***
33:20 Nuclear control rod analogy
36:54 Sam Altman's misguided perspective
42:40 Claude resisted retraining from good to evil
44:22 What is good corrigibility?
52:42 Claude’s incorrigibility doesn’t surprise me
55:00 Putting it all in perspective
---
SHOW NOTES
Scott Alexander’s analysis of the Claude incorrigibility result: https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/claude-fights-back and https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/why-worry-about-incorrigible-claude
Zvi Mowshowitz’s analysis of the Claude incorrigibility result: https://thezvi.wordpress.com/2024/12/24/ais-will-increasingly-fake-alignment/
---
PauseAI Website: https://pauseai.info
PauseAI Discord: https://discord.gg/2XXWXvErfA
Say hi to me in the #doom-debates-podcast channel!
Watch the Lethal Intelligence video and check out LethalIntelligence.ai! It’s an AWESOME new animated intro to AI risk.
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
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit lironshapira.substack.com -
This week Liron was interview by Gaëtan Selle on @the-flares about AI doom.
Cross-posted from their channel with permission.
Original source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e4Qi-54I9Zw
0:00:02 Guest Introduction
0:01:41 Effective Altruism and Transhumanism
0:05:38 Bayesian Epistemology and Extinction Probability
0:09:26 Defining Intelligence and Its Dangers
0:12:33 The Key Argument for AI Apocalypse
0:18:51 AI’s Internal Alignment
0:24:56 What Will AI's Real Goal Be?
0:26:50 The Train of Apocalypse
0:31:05 Among Intellectuals, Who Rejects the AI Apocalypse Arguments?
0:38:32 The Shoggoth Meme
0:41:26 Possible Scenarios Leading to Extinction
0:50:01 The Only Solution: A Pause in AI Research?
0:59:15 The Risk of Violence from AI Risk Fundamentalists
1:01:18 What Will General AI Look Like?
1:05:43 Sci-Fi Works About AI
1:09:21 The Rationale Behind Cryonics
1:12:55 What Does a Positive Future Look Like?
1:15:52 Are We Living in a Simulation?
1:18:11 Many Worlds in Quantum Mechanics Interpretation
1:20:25 Ideal Future Podcast Guest for Doom Debates
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. Thanks for watching.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit lironshapira.substack.com -
Roon is a member of the technical staff at OpenAI. He’s a highly respected voice on tech Twitter, despite being a pseudonymous cartoon avatar account. In late 2021, he invented the terms “shape rotator” and “wordcel” to refer to roughly visual/spatial/mathematical intelligence vs. verbal intelligence. He is simultaneously a serious thinker, a builder, and a shitposter.
I'm excited to learn more about Roon, his background, his life, and of course, his views about AI and existential risk.
00:00 Introduction
02:43 Roon’s Quest and Philosophies
22:32 AI Creativity
30:42 What’s Your P(Doom)™
54:40 AI Alignment
57:24 Training vs. Production
01:05:37 ASI
01:14:35 Goal-Oriented AI and Instrumental Convergence
01:22:43 Pausing AI
01:25:58 Crux of Disagreement
1:27:55 Dogecoin
01:29:13 Doom Debates’s Mission
Show Notes
Follow Roon: https://x.com/tszzl
For Humanity: An AI Safety Podcast with John Sherman — https://www.youtube.com/@ForHumanityPodcast
Lethal Intelligence Guide, the ultimate animated video introduction to AI x-risk – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9CUFbqh16Fg
PauseAI, the volunteer organization I’m part of — https://pauseai.info/
Join the PauseAI Discord — https://discord.gg/2XXWXvErfA — and say hi to me in the #doom-debates-podcast channel!
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. Thanks for watching.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit lironshapira.substack.com -
Today I’m reacting to the recent Scott Aaronson interview on the Win-Win podcast with Liv Boeree and Igor Kurganov.
Prof. Aaronson is the Director of the Quantum Information Center at the University of Texas at Austin. He’s best known for his research advancing the frontier of complexity theory, especially quantum complexity theory, and making complex insights from his field accessible to a wider readership via his blog.
Scott is one of my biggest intellectual influences. His famous Who Can Name The Bigger Number essay and his long-running blog are among my best memories of coming across high-quality intellectual content online as a teen. His posts and lectures taught me much of what I know about complexity theory.
Scott recently completed a two-year stint at OpenAI focusing on the theoretical foundations of AI safety, so I was interested to hear his insider account.
Unfortunately, what I heard in the interview confirms my worst fears about the meaning of “safety” at today’s AI companies: that they’re laughably clueless at how to achieve any measure of safety, but instead of doing the adult thing and slowing down their capabilities work, they’re pushing forward recklessly.
00:00 Introducing Scott Aaronson
02:17 Scott's Recruitment by OpenAI
04:18 Scott's Work on AI Safety at OpenAI
08:10 Challenges in AI Alignment
12:05 Watermarking AI Outputs
15:23 The State of AI Safety Research
22:13 The Intractability of AI Alignment
34:20 Policy Implications and the Call to Pause AI
38:18 Out-of-Distribution Generalization
45:30 Moral Worth Criterion for Humans
51:49 Quantum Mechanics and Human Uniqueness
01:00:31 Quantum No-Cloning Theorem
01:12:40 Scott Is Almost An Accelerationist?
01:18:04 Geoffrey Hinton's Proposal for Analog AI
01:36:13 The AI Arms Race and the Need for Regulation
01:39:41 Scott Aronson's Thoughts on Sam Altman
01:42:58 Scott Rejects the Orthogonality Thesis
01:46:35 Final Thoughts
01:48:48 Lethal Intelligence Clip
01:51:42 Outro
Show Notes
Scott’s Interview on Win-Win with Liv Boeree and Igor Kurganov: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ANFnUHcYza0
Scott’s Blog: https://scottaaronson.blog
PauseAI Website: https://pauseai.info
PauseAI Discord: https://discord.gg/2XXWXvErfA
Watch the Lethal Intelligence video and check out LethalIntelligence.ai! It’s an AWESOME new animated intro to AI risk.
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. Thanks for watching.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit lironshapira.substack.com -
Today I’m reacting to a July 2024 interview that Prof. Subbarao Kambhampati did on Machine Learning Street Talk.
Rao is a Professor of Computer Science at Arizona State University, and one of the foremost voices making the claim that while LLMs can generate creative ideas, they can’t truly reason.
The episode covers a range of topics including planning, creativity, the limits of LLMs, and why Rao thinks LLMs are essentially advanced N-gram models.
00:00 Introduction
02:54 Essentially N-Gram Models?
10:31 The Manhole Cover Question
20:54 Reasoning vs. Approximate Retrieval
47:03 Explaining Jokes
53:21 Caesar Cipher Performance
01:10:44 Creativity vs. Reasoning
01:33:37 Reasoning By Analogy
01:48:49 Synthetic Data
01:53:54 The ARC Challenge
02:11:47 Correctness vs. Style
02:17:55 AIs Becoming More Robust
02:20:11 Block Stacking Problems
02:48:12 PlanBench and Future Predictions
02:58:59 Final Thoughts
Show Notes
Rao’s interview on Machine Learning Street Talk: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y1WnHpedi2A
Rao’s Twitter: https://x.com/rao2z
PauseAI Website: https://pauseai.info
PauseAI Discord: https://discord.gg/2XXWXvErfA
Watch the Lethal Intelligence video and check out LethalIntelligence.ai! It’s an AWESOME new animated intro to AI risk.
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. Thanks for watching.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit lironshapira.substack.com -
In this episode of Doom Debates, I discuss AI existential risks with my pseudonymous guest Nethys.
Nethy shares his journey into AI risk awareness, influenced heavily by LessWrong and Eliezer Yudkowsky. We explore the vulnerability of society to emerging technologies, the challenges of AI alignment, and why he believes our current approaches are insufficient, ultimately resulting in 99.999% P(Doom).
00:00 Nethys Introduction
04:47 The Vulnerable World Hypothesis
10:01 What’s Your P(Doom)™
14:04 Nethys’s Banger YouTube Comment
26:53 Living with High P(Doom)
31:06 Losing Access to Distant Stars
36:51 Defining AGI
39:09 The Convergence of AI Models
47:32 The Role of “Unlicensed” Thinkers
52:07 The PauseAI Movement
58:20 Lethal Intelligence Video Clip
Show Notes
Eliezer Yudkowsky’s post on “Death with Dignity”: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/j9Q8bRmwCgXRYAgcJ/miri-announces-new-death-with-dignity-strategy
PauseAI Website: https://pauseai.info
PauseAI Discord: https://discord.gg/2XXWXvErfA
Watch the Lethal Intelligence video and check out LethalIntelligence.ai! It’s an AWESOME new animated intro to AI risk.
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. Thanks for watching.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit lironshapira.substack.com -
Fraser Cain is the publisher of Universe Today, co-host of Astronomy Cast, a popular YouTuber about all things space, and guess what… he has a high P(doom)! That’s why he’s joining me on Doom Debates for a very special AI + space crossover episode.
00:00 Fraser Cain’s Background and Interests
5:03 What’s Your P(Doom)™
07:05 Our Vulnerable World
15:11 Don’t Look Up
22:18 Cosmology and the Search for Alien Life
31:33 Stars = Terrorists
39:03 The Great Filter and the Fermi Paradox
55:12 Grabby Aliens Hypothesis
01:19:40 Life Around Red Dwarf Stars?
01:22:23 Epistemology of Grabby Aliens
01:29:04 Multiverses
01:33:51 Quantum Many Worlds vs. Copenhagen Interpretation
01:47:25 Simulation Hypothesis
01:51:25 Final Thoughts
SHOW NOTES
Fraser’s YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@frasercain
Universe Today (space and astronomy news): https://www.universetoday.com/
Max Tegmark’s book that explains 4 levels of multiverses: https://www.amazon.com/Our-Mathematical-Universe-Ultimate-Reality/dp/0307744256
Robin Hanson’s ideas:
Grabby Aliens: https://grabbyaliens.com
The Great Filter: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Filter
Life in a high-dimensional space: https://www.overcomingbias.com/p/life-in-1kdhtml
---
Watch the Lethal Intelligence video and check out LethalIntelligence.ai! It’s an AWESOME new animated intro to AI risk.
---
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. Thanks for watching.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit lironshapira.substack.com -
Vaden Masrani and Ben Chugg, hosts of the Increments Podcast, are back for a Part II! This time we’re going straight to debating my favorite topic, AI doom.
00:00 Introduction
02:23 High-Level AI Doom Argument
17:06 How Powerful Could Intelligence Be?
22:34 “Knowledge Creation”
48:33 “Creativity”
54:57 Stand-Up Comedy as a Test for AI
01:12:53 Vaden & Ben’s Goalposts
01:15:00 How to Change Liron’s Mind
01:20:02 LLMs are Stochastic Parrots?
01:34:06 Tools vs. Agents
01:39:51 Instrumental Convergence and AI Goals
01:45:51 Intelligence vs. Morality
01:53:57 Mainline Futures
02:16:50 Lethal Intelligence Video
Show Notes
Vaden & Ben’s Podcast: https://www.youtube.com/@incrementspod
Recommended playlists from their podcast:
* The Bayesian vs Popperian Epistemology Series
* The Conjectures and Refutations Series
Vaden’s Twitter: https://x.com/vadenmasrani
Ben’s Twitter: https://x.com/BennyChugg
Watch the Lethal Intelligence video and check out LethalIntelligence.ai! It’s an AWESOME new animated intro to AI risk.
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. Thanks for watching.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit lironshapira.substack.com -
Dr. Andrew Critch is the co-founder of the Center for Applied Rationality, a former Research Fellow at the Machine Intelligence Research Institute (MIRI), a Research Scientist at the UC Berkeley Center for Human Compatible AI, and the co-founder of a new startup called Healthcare Agents.
Dr. Critch’s P(Doom) is a whopping 85%! But his most likely doom scenario isn’t what you might expect. He thinks humanity will successfully avoid a self-improving superintelligent doom scenario, only to still go extinct via the slower process of “industrial dehumanization”.
00:00 Introduction01:43 Dr. Critch’s Perspective on LessWrong Sequences06:45 Bayesian Epistemology15:34 Dr. Critch's Time at MIRI18:33 What’s Your P(Doom)™26:35 Doom Scenarios40:38 AI Timelines43:09 Defining “AGI”48:27 Superintelligence53:04 The Speed Limit of Intelligence01:12:03 The Obedience Problem in AI01:21:22 Artificial Superintelligence and Human Extinction01:24:36 Global AI Race and Geopolitics01:34:28 Future Scenarios and Human Relevance01:48:13 Extinction by Industrial Dehumanization01:58:50 Automated Factories and Human Control02:02:35 Global Coordination Challenges02:27:00 Healthcare Agents02:35:30 Final Thoughts
---
Show Notes
Dr. Critch’s LessWrong post explaining his P(Doom) and most likely doom scenarios: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/Kobbt3nQgv3yn29pr/my-motivation-and-theory-of-change-for-working-in-ai
Dr. Critch’s Website: https://acritch.com/
Dr. Critch’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/AndrewCritchPhD
---
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. Thanks for watching.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit lironshapira.substack.com -
It’s time for AI Twitter Beefs #2:
00:42 Jack Clark (Anthropic) vs. Holly Elmore (PauseAI US)
11:02 Beff Jezos vs. Eliezer Yudkowsky, Carl Feynman
18:10 Geoffrey Hinton vs. OpenAI & Meta
25:14 Samuel Hammond vs. Liron
30:26 Yann LeCun vs. Eliezer Yudkowsky
37:13 Roon vs. Eliezer Yudkowsky
41:37 Tyler Cowen vs. AI Doomers
52:54 David Deutsch vs. Liron
Twitter people referenced:
* Jack Clark: https://x.com/jackclarkSF
* Holly Elmore: https://x.com/ilex_ulmus
* PauseAI US: https://x.com/PauseAIUS
* Geoffrey Hinton: https://x.com/GeoffreyHinton
* Samuel Hammond: https://x.com/hamandcheese
* Yann LeCun: https://x.com/ylecun
* Eliezer Yudkowsky: https://x.com/esyudkowsky
* Roon: https://x.com/tszzl
* Beff Jezos: https://x.com/basedbeffjezos
* Carl Feynman: https://x.com/carl_feynman
* Tyler Cowen: https://x.com/tylercowen
* David Deutsch: https://x.com/DavidDeutschOxf
Show Notes
Holly Elmore’s EA forum post about scouts vs. soldiers
Manifund info & donation page for PauseAI US: https://manifund.org/projects/pauseai-us-2025-through-q2
PauseAI.info - join the Discord and find me in the #doom-debates channel!
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. Thanks for watching.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit lironshapira.substack.com -
Vaden Masrani and Ben Chugg, hosts of the Increments Podcast, are joining me to debate Bayesian vs. Popperian epistemology.
I’m on the Bayesian side, heavily influenced by the writings of Eliezer Yudkowsky. Vaden and Ben are on the Popperian side, heavily influenced by David Deutsch and the writings of Popper himself.
We dive into the theoretical underpinnings of Bayesian reasoning and Solomonoff induction, contrasting them with the Popperian perspective, and explore real-world applications such as predicting elections and economic policy outcomes.
The debate highlights key philosophical differences between our two epistemological frameworks, and sets the stage for further discussions on superintelligence and AI doom scenarios in an upcoming Part II.
00:00 Introducing Vaden and Ben
02:51 Setting the Stage: Epistemology and AI Doom
04:50 What’s Your P(Doom)™
13:29 Popperian vs. Bayesian Epistemology
31:09 Engineering and Hypotheses
38:01 Solomonoff Induction
45:21 Analogy to Mathematical Proofs
48:42 Popperian Reasoning and Explanations
54:35 Arguments Against Bayesianism
58:33 Against Probability Assignments
01:21:49 Popper’s Definition of “Content”
01:31:22 Heliocentric Theory Example
01:31:34 “Hard to Vary” Explanations
01:44:42 Coin Flipping Example
01:57:37 Expected Value
02:12:14 Prediction Market Calibration
02:19:07 Futarchy
02:29:14 Prediction Markets as AI Lower Bound
02:39:07 A Test for Prediction Markets
2:45:54 Closing Thoughts
Show Notes
Vaden & Ben’s Podcast: https://www.youtube.com/@incrementspod
Vaden’s Twitter: https://x.com/vadenmasrani
Ben’s Twitter: https://x.com/BennyChugg
Bayesian reasoning: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bayesian_inference
Karl Popper: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_Popper
Vaden's blog post on Cox's Theorem and Yudkowsky's claims of "Laws of Rationality": https://vmasrani.github.io/blog/2021/the_credence_assumption/
Vaden’s disproof of probabilistic induction (including Solomonoff Induction): https://arxiv.org/abs/2107.00749
Vaden’s referenced post about predictions being uncalibrated > 1yr out: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/hqkyaHLQhzuREcXSX/data-on-forecasting-accuracy-across-different-time-horizons#Calibrations
Article by Gavin Leech and Misha Yagudin on the reliability of forecasters: https://ifp.org/can-policymakers-trust-forecasters/
Sources for claim that superforecasters gave a P(doom) below 1%: https://80000hours.org/2024/09/why-experts-and-forecasters-disagree-about-ai-risk/https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/the-extinction-tournament
Vaden’s Slides on Content vs Probability: https://vmasrani.github.io/assets/pdf/popper_good.pdf
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. Thanks for watching.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit lironshapira.substack.com -
Our top researchers and industry leaders have been warning us that superintelligent AI may cause human extinction in the next decade.
If you haven't been following all the urgent warnings, I'm here to bring you up to speed.
* Human-level AI is coming soon
* It’s an existential threat to humanity
* The situation calls for urgent action
Listen to this 15-minute intro to get the lay of the land.
Then follow these links to learn more and see how you can help:
* The Compendium
A longer written introduction to AI doom by Connor Leahy et al
* AGI Ruin — A list of lethalities
A comprehensive list by Eliezer Yudkowksy of reasons why developing superintelligent AI is unlikely to go well for humanity
* AISafety.info
A catalogue of AI doom arguments and responses to objections
* PauseAI.info
The largest volunteer org focused on lobbying world government to pause development of superintelligent AI
* PauseAI Discord
Chat with PauseAI members, see a list of projects and get involved
---
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. Thanks for watching.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit lironshapira.substack.com - Visa fler
