Examining AI's Sycophantic Behavior and Deployment Risks

What’s the most likely (“mainline”) AI doom scenario? How does the existence of LLMs update the original Yudkowskian version? I invited my friend Jim Babcock to help me answer these questions.

Jim is a member of the LessWrong engineering team and its parent organization, Lightcone Infrastructure. I’ve been a longtime fan of his thoughtful takes.

This turned out to be a VERY insightful and informative discussion, useful for clarifying my own predictions, and accessible to the show’s audience.

00:00 Introducing Jim Babcock

01:29 The Evolution of LessWrong Doom Scenarios

02:22 LessWrong’s Mission

05:49 The Rationalist Community and AI

09:37 What’s Your P(Doom)™

18:26 What Are Yudkowskians Surprised About?

26:48 Moral Philosophy vs. Goal Alignment

36:56 Sandboxing and AI Containment

42:51 Holding Yudkowskians Accountable

58:29 Understanding Next Word Prediction

01:00:02 Pre-Training vs Post-Training

01:08:06 The Rocket Alignment Problem Analogy

01:30:09 FOOM vs. Gradual Disempowerment

01:45:19 Recapping the Mainline Doom Scenario

01:52:08 Liron’s Outro

Show Notes

Jim’s LessWrong — https://www.lesswrong.com/users/jimrandomh

Jim’s Twitter — https://x.com/jimrandomh

The Rocket Alignment Problem by Eliezer Yudkowsky — https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/Gg9a4y8reWKtLe3Tn/the-rocket-alignment-problem

Optimality is the Tiger and Agents Are Its Teeth — https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/kpPnReyBC54KESiSn/optimality-is-the-tiger-and-agents-are-its-teeth

Doom Debates episode about the research paper discovering AI's utility function — https://lironshapira.substack.com/p/cais-researchers-discover-ais-preferences

Come to the Less Online conference on May 30 - Jun 1, 2025: https://less.online

Watch the Lethal Intelligence Guide, the ultimate introduction to AI x-risk! https://www.youtube.com/@lethal-intelligence

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Join the PauseAI Discord — https://discord.gg/2XXWXvErfA — and say hi to me in the #doom-debates-podcast channel!

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