Doom Debates!

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 a...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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’...

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 think...

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:...

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...

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...

Prof. Lee Cronin is the Regius Chair of Chemistry at the University of Glasgow. His research aims to understand how life might arise from non-living matter. In 2017, he invented “Assembly Theory” as a way to measure the complexity of molecules and gain insight into the earliest evolution of life. Today we’re debating Lee's claims about the limits of AI capabilities, and my claims about the risk of...

Ben Horowitz, cofounder and General Partner at Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), says nuclear proliferation is good. I was shocked because I thought we all agreed nuclear proliferation is VERY BAD. If Ben and a16z can’t appreciate the existential risks of nuclear weapons proliferation, why would anyone ever take them seriously on the topic of AI regulation? 00:00 Introduction 00:49 Ben Horowitz on Nucle...

Today I’m reacting to Arvind Narayanan’s interview with Robert Wright on the Nonzero podcast: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MoB_pikM3NY Dr. Narayanan is a Professor of Computer Science and the Director of the Center for Information Technology Policy at Princeton. He just published a new book called AI Snake Oil: What Artificial Intelligence Can Do, What It Can’t, and How to Tell the Difference ....

Dr. Keith Duggar from Machine Learning Street Talk was the subject of my recent reaction episode about whether GPT o1 can reason . But instead of ignoring or blocking me, Keith was brave enough to come into the lion’s den and debate his points with me… and his P(doom) might shock you! First we debate whether Keith’s distinction between Turing Machines and Discrete Finite Automata is useful for und...

Sam Kirchner and Remmelt Ellen, leaders of the Stop AI movement, think the only way to effectively protest superintelligent AI development is with civil disobedience. Not only are they staging regular protests in front of AI labs, they’re barricading the entrances and blocking traffic, then allowing themselves to be repeatedly arrested. Is civil disobedience the right strategy to pause or stop AI?...

This episode is a continuation of Q&A #1 Part 1 where I answer YOUR questions! 00:00 Introduction 01:20 Planning for a good outcome? 03:10 Stock Picking Advice 08:42 Dumbing It Down for Dr. Phil 11:52 Will AI Shorten Attention Spans? 12:55 Historical Nerd Life 14:41 YouTube vs. Podcast Metrics 16:30 Video Games 26:04 Creativity 30:29 Does AI Doom Explain the Fermi Paradox? 36:37 Grabby Aliens 37:2...

Thanks for being one of the first Doom Debates subscribers and sending in your questions! This episode is Part 1; stay tuned for Part 2 coming soon. 00:00 Introduction 01:17 Is OpenAI a sinking ship? 07:25 College Education 13:20 Asperger's 16:50 Elon Musk: Genius or Clown? 22:43 Double Crux 32:04 Why Call Doomers a Cult? 36:45 How I Prepare Episodes 40:29 Dealing with AI Unemployment 44:00 AI Saf...

In today’s episode, instead of reacting to a long-form presentation of someone’s position, I’m reporting on the various AI x-risk-related tiffs happening in my part of the world. And by “my part of the world” I mean my Twitter feed. 00:00 Introduction 01:55 Followup to my MSLT reaction episode 03:48 Double Crux 04:53 LLMs: Finite State Automata or Turing Machines? 16:11 Amjad Masad vs. Helen Toner...

How smart is OpenAI’s new model, o1? What does “reasoning” ACTUALLY mean? What do computability theory and complexity theory tell us about the limitations of LLMs? Dr. Tim Scarfe and Dr. Keith Duggar, hosts of the popular Machine Learning Street Talk podcast, posted an interesting video discussing these issues… FOR ME TO DISAGREE WITH!!! 00:00 Introduction 02:14 Computability Theory 03:40 Turing M...

Yuval Noah Harari is a historian, philosopher, and bestselling author known for his thought-provoking works on human history, the future, and our evolving relationship with technology. His 2011 book, Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind , took the world by storm, offering a sweeping overview of human history from the emergence of Homo sapiens to the present day. Harari just published a new book w...

It's finally here, the Doom Debates / Dr. Phil crossover episode you've all been asking for 😂 The full episode is called “ AI: The Future of Education? " While the main focus was AI in education, I'm glad the show briefly touched on how we're all gonna die. Everything in the show related to AI extinction is clipped here. Join the conversation at DoomDebates.com or youtube.com/@DoomDebates , sugge...

Dr. Roman Yampolskiy is the director of the Cyber Security Lab at the University of Louisville. His new book is called AI: Unexplainable, Unpredictable, Uncontrollable . Roman’s P(doom) from AGI is a whopping 99.999%, vastly greater than my P(doom) of 50%. It’s a rare debate when I’m LESS doomy than my opponent! This is a cross-post from the For Humanity podcast hosted by John Sherman. For Humanit...

Jobst Landgrebe, co-author of Why Machines Will Never Rule The World: Artificial Intelligence Without Fear , argues that AI is fundamentally limited in achieving human-like intelligence or consciousness due to the complexities of the human brain which are beyond mathematical modeling. Contrary to my view, Jobst has a very low opinion of what machines will be able to achieve in the coming years and...

Today I’m reacting to the 20VC podcast with Harry Stebbings and Princeton professor Arvind Narayanan . Prof. Narayanan is known for his critical perspective on the misuse and over-hype of artificial intelligence, which he often refers to as “ AI snake oil ”. Narayanan’s critiques aim to highlight the gap between what AI can realistically achieve, and the often misleading promises made by companies...

Today I’m reacting to the Bret Weinstein’s recent appearance on the Diary of a CEO podcast with Steven Bartlett. Bret is an evolutionary biologist known for his outspoken views on social and political issues. Bret gets off to a promising start, saying that AI risk should be “top of mind” and poses “five existential threats”. But his analysis is shallow and ad-hoc, and ends in him dismissing the id...