The risks don't feel long-term in the sense of far away to me, necessarily. The longer term problem that I most focus on is we don't have good ways to ensure that the AI systems are actually trying to do what we intended to do. There was this now famous open letter calling for a six-month pause on the development of the biggest language models. Is that something you think would help? What are some concrete policy steps that could help avert some of these risks?
The U.S. surgeon general, Dr. Vivek Murthy, says social media poses a “profound risk of harm” to young people. Why do some in the tech industry disagree?
Then, Ajeya Cotra, an A.I. researcher, on how A.I. could lead to a doomsday scenario.
Plus: Pass the hat. Kevin and Casey play a game they call HatGPT.
On today’s episode:
Ajeya Cotra is a senior research analyst at Open Philanthropy
Additional reading:
The surgeon general issued an advisory about the risks of social media for young people.
Ajeya Cotra has researched the existential risks that A.I. poses unless countermeasures are taken.