Challenging Corporate Silence

Scott and Daniel break down every month from now until the 2027 intelligence explosion.

Scott Alexander is author of the highly influential blogs Slate Star Codex and Astral Codex Ten. Daniel Kokotajlo resigned from OpenAI in 2024, rejecting a non-disparagement clause and risking millions in equity to speak out about AI safety.

We discuss misaligned hive minds, Xi and Trump waking up, and automated Ilyas researching AI progress.

I came in skeptical, but I learned a tremendous amount by bouncing my objections off of them. I highly recommend checking out their new scenario planning document, AI 2027

Watch on Youtube; listen on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.

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Sponsors

* WorkOS helps today’s top AI companies get enterprise-ready. OpenAI, Cursor, Perplexity, Anthropic and hundreds more use WorkOS to quickly integrate features required by enterprise buyers. To learn more about how you can make the leap to enterprise, visit workos.com

* Jane Street likes to know what's going on inside the neural nets they use. They just released a black-box challenge for Dwarkesh listeners, and I had a blast trying it out. See if you have the skills to crack it at janestreet.com/dwarkesh

* Scale’s Data Foundry gives major AI labs access to high-quality data to fuel post-training, including advanced reasoning capabilities. If you’re an AI researcher or engineer, learn about how Scale’s Data Foundry and research lab, SEAL, can help you go beyond the current frontier at scale.com/dwarkesh

To sponsor a future episode, visit dwarkesh.com/advertise.

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Timestamps

(00:00:00) - AI 2027

(00:06:56) - Forecasting 2025 and 2026

(00:14:41) - Why LLMs aren't making discoveries

(00:24:33) - Debating intelligence explosion

(00:49:45) - Can superintelligence actually transform science?

(01:16:54) - Cultural evolution vs superintelligence

(01:24:05) - Mid-2027 branch point

(01:32:30) - Race with China

(01:44:47) - Nationalization vs private anarchy

(02:03:22) - Misalignment

(02:14:52) - UBI, AI advisors, & human future

(02:23:00) - Factory farming for digital minds

(02:26:52) - Daniel leaving OpenAI

(02:35:15) - Scott's blogging advice