Steve Hayes is joined by Jonah Goldberg, Mike Warren, and Klon Kitchen to discuss the resignation of an Anthropic researcher over concerns that AI may “kill us all,” yet another flip-flop by the Trump administration on Ukraine, and President Trump’s $5,000 bribe to voters during the midterm convention.
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AI → join → convention
On today's podcast, we discuss the end of humanity.
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we → discuss → humanity
Last week, Anthropic researcher Jacob Coxen quit the leading AI firm, arguing that, quote, "The people building AI earnestly believe that it could kill us all by the end of the decade," unquote.
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it → quit → decade
His comments, supported by other leading AI researchers, kicked off a feverish debate about the future of AI and humans.
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comments → support → AI
We take a careful and sober look at that debate and the issues involved.
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We → take → debate
Then the Trump administration over the weekend blamed Ukraine for prolonging the war Russia started nearly five years ago, and for creating a diesel fuel crisis with its attempts to defend itself.
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Russia → blame → itself
And finally, not worth your time, the president stakes the midterms on a five thousand dollars bribe?
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president → stake → bribe
I'm joined by Jonah Goldberg, Dispatch co-founder, Mike Warren, politics editor at The Dispatch, and Klon Kitchen, who for fifteen years served as an intelligence officer focusing on counterterrorism, cyber operations, and covert actions.
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who → join → counterterrorism
Klon
was National Security Advisor to former Senator Ben Sasse and played a pivotal role in the US Cyberspace Solarium Commission, crafting the strategic blueprint for America's cyber defense.
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Klon → play → defense
Let's dive right in.
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's → let → ?
The latest debate on AI started with a tweet from Jacob Coxen, an AI researcher from Anthropic who had spent three years at OpenAI before that.
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who → start → that
Coxen tweeted last week that he was quitting the company, Anthropic, because of his concerns that the race to win on, quote, "Self-improving superintelligence has the companies acting irresponsibly."
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companies → tweet → superintelligence
As of Monday morning, his lead tweet in the thread has one hundred and seventy-one million views.
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tweet → have → views
"I resigned from Anthropic today.
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I → resign → Anthropic
I spent the last three years doing pre-training research at both OpenAI and Anthropic.
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I → spend → Anthropic
Neither company is acting responsibly.
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company → act → ?
They are racing straight to self-improving superintelligence and gambling with our lives.
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They → race → lives
These will soon be superhuman systems that can hack anything, revolutionize any field overnight, and acquire real power and resources.
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that → hack → power
We've all witnessed the progress in each of these domains, and progress is not slowing.
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progress → witness → domains
The people building AI earnestly believe that it could kill us all by the end of the decade.
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it → build → decade
If anything, many executives and senior researchers will couch their phrasing in the press to sound sensible, but I hear the same people express fear privately.
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people → couch → fear
No other human activity poses this level of danger."
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activity → pose → danger
Klon, immediately after he tweeted that, several other senior people in AI safety research echoed his claims, including Evan Hubinger, a team lead at Anthropic, Alex Turner, a former research scientist at Google DeepMind, and Jakub Pača-Pachunks-Chucksky, chief scientist at OpenAI, urging extreme caution.
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people → tweet → caution
Clawn, you spend a lot of your time these days looking at AI, thinking about AI, talking about AI with the people driving these developments.
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you → spend → developments
When you hear this, "The people building AI earnestly believe that it could kill all of us by the end of the decade,"
what do you think?
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you → hear → what
Well, I think Jacob is accurately representing a significant portion of the AI safety group out there.
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Jacob → think → group
And look, there's enough capability that's been on display, which I can talk about in detail, and enough concerning developments to continue to justify some of these concerns.
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I → look → concerns
But not everybody feels equally alarmed by what Jacob is highlighting.
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Jacob → feel → what
Let me just begin with kind of some of the presuppositions behind what he laid out.
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he → let → what
The particular advancement that is driving what he wrote about is what's called recursive self-improvement, RSI.
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what → drive → what
It's the idea of AIs building themselves, right?
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AIs → build → themselves
And so the, the fundamental concern is, up until this point, as we have been building artificial intelligence,
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we → build → intelligence
The Aporia
