Doom Debates!

Did you know there’s something called the Survival and Flourishing Fund, and right now it’s giving away $20 to $40 million in grants. The application deadline is April 22nd. 😱I’m personally involved as a recommender in the 2026 round, and I’m here to make sure you don’t miss this. If you have a project that could help the world — particularly around AI existential risk — you should apply ASAP!What Is the Survival and Flourishing Fund?The Survival and Flourishing Fund (SFF) is a grantmaking program funded by Jaan Tallinn, one of the most prolific funders of charitable causes in the AI safety and effective altruism ecosystem.Jaan was a core team member on Kazaa, then a founding engineer at Skype, then got into crypto early and did well. He started an investment arm called Metaplanet and led the Series A for a couple companies you might have heard of: “DeepMind” and “Anthropic”. He’s one of the largest shareholders of Anthropic right now.There’s a delicious irony to this whole funding round. As we watch Anthropic take off and generate enormous value in AI capabilities, some of that wealth is flowing back through one of their earliest investors into charitable causes — including existential risk reduction. You could, in a very real sense, take some of Anthropic’s money and use it for good.What Gets Funded?It all comes down to Jaan’s philanthropic priorities.AI Extinction RiskThis is priority number one — reducing humanity’s risk of destroying itself with AI. As Jaan writes on his website: “I wish more people would wake up to this issue since literally everyone under the age of 60 is personally at risk.”He breaks AI extinction risk work into two categories:Restrictive efforts — things like certifications on large data centers, speed limits on training runs, liability laws, labeling requirements (disclosing whether you’re interacting with a human or a machine), veto committees for large-scale model deployments, and global off switches. There is so much technology and policy work to be done across all of these.Constructive efforts — approaches that accept AI may be coming regardless and try to make it go as well as possible. This includes collective intelligence enhancement, AI health tech, “protective moralities” that could help an uncontrollable AI treat us well (even as a last-ditch effort, it’s better than nothing), guaranteed safe AI through human-legible quantitative safety guidelines, and hardware-level controls like automatic shutdown and reporting conditions.Some of these constructive efforts look a lot like restrictive efforts, just resigned to AI already arriving — running behind the train instead of standing in front of it holding a stop sign. But the philosophy is simple: throw everything at the problem. Let a thousand flowers bloom.The Tracks: Freedom and FairnessBeyond the main track (where I’m a recommender, alongside five others), SFF runs two specialized tracks:The Freedom Track asks: how can we avoid concentrations of authority and support uses of AI that strengthen freedom for humans and humanity? This includes protecting meaningful freedom of speech, ensuring the continuation of individual liberties like privacy and private property, and maintaining sovereignty for self-governing territories. (If you’ve heard Vitalik Buterin’s episode on Doom Debates about d/acc, this will resonate.)The Fairness Track starts from the premise that AI is a force multiplier for those who wish to control others. It asks: how can we support the use of AI to empower the disempowered? This means empowering the global majority with regard to AI technology, resisting monopolistic practices in AI development, diffusing conflicts and abuses of power, and fostering inclusivity in AI governance.Each of these tracks has three dedicated recommenders evaluating applications. If you’ve ever thought, “Why is everyone focused on the technology of preventing AI from killing us? What about the scenario where we’re all still alive but dealing with massive unfairness?” — well, SFF has an entire track with $3 million-plus in funding just for that.Theme RoundsSFF also runs theme rounds in climate change, animal welfare, and human self-enhancement. Jaan has thought of everything — spreading his bets like a good investor across different possible futures and different mechanisms of impact.How the Process WorksYou submit an application. That’s it. It’s not a super hard application — you detail what you’re doing, how much money you need, and what you’ll spend it on.Once submitted, there’s a two-phase process:Phase 1: Speculation Grants. About 40 speculators — including names like Eliezer Yudkowsky, Nate Soares, Andrew Critch, David Kruger, Oliver Habryka, Roman Yampolskiy, Tsvi Benson-Tilsen, and Zvi Mowshowitz — evaluate applications and may issue smaller initial grants. An individual speculator’s budget is on the order of $250,000, so these grants are smaller but fast: you could hear back as early as May 6th.Phase 2: The S-Process. A d

David Sirota helped create “Don’t Look Up” sometimes feels like we’re living inside his movie. Does he share my belief that the looming planetary threat is rogue AI?Sirota is an award-winning investigative journalist, bestselling author, and former speechwriter for Bernie Sanders. He was nominated for an Oscar for co-writing the story of Don’t Look Up.Find our more about David’s work at The Lever: https://www.levernews.com/Timestamps00:00:00 — Cold Open00:01:20 — Introducing David Sirota00:04:34 — Why David Fights Against Power and the Concentration of Power00:13:46 — From NAFTA to AI: The Warnings We Ignored00:22:05 — How Big Will the AI “Jobpocalypse” Be?00:25:28 — Superintelligence & the Parallel to Don’t Look Up00:28:37 — What’s Your P(Doom)™?00:31:44 — The Speed of the AI Threat00:36:26 — Society Is Losing a Collective Capacity to Focus00:38:34 — Is Climate Change David’s Biggest Existential Concern?00:45:01 — David Reacts to Bernie Sanders’ Data Center Moratorium Proposal00:49:11 — Can We Build The “Off Button”?00:52:08 — “Don’t Look Up” x AGI Mashup00:54:35 — Why There’s Still Hope00:58:14 — Living in “Don’t Look Up”00:59:46 — Wrap-Up: Where to Follow Major AI NewsLinksWatch Don't Look Up — https://www.netflix.com/gb/title/81252357 The Lever, investigative news outlet — https://www.levernews.com/David Sirota on X — https://x.com/davidsirotaDavid Sirota, Wikipedia — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_SirotaMaster Plan podcast — https://the.levernews.com/master-plan/David Sirota, “Hostile Takeover” on Amazon — https://www.amazon.com/Hostile-Takeover-Corruption-Conquered-Government/dp/0307237354The Three-Body Problem (novel), Wikipedia — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Three-Body_Problem_(novel)WarGames (1983 film), Wikipedia — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WarGamesAdam McKay, Wikipedia — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adam_McKayWatch Don’t Look Up — https://www.netflix.com/title/81252357AI 2027 scenario — https://ai-2027.com/Doom Debates’ Mission is to raise mainstream awareness of imminent extinction from AGI and build the social infrastructure for high-quality debate.Support the mission by subscribing to my Substack at DoomDebates.com and to youtube.com/@DoomDebates, or to really take things to the next level: Donate 🙏 Get full access to Doom Debates at lironshapira.substack.com/subscribe

The popular debate show, Middle Ground by Jubilee, invited me on to take the "anti-AI" side back in April 2024.This highlight reel of the episode shows my experience of the discussion.I'm a lifelong techno-optimist, and it's unnatural for me to represent an anti-tech position. It's just that our AI labs are admitting they're on the path to superintelligence they don't know how to control, which implies we're all about to die and the universe will be robbed of all value forever before our kids grow up. Other than that one little consideration, I'm normally pro-tech!Timestamps00:00:00 — Why Liron is Worried about AI00:02:13 — The Nuclear Analogy00:02:43 — Human Evolution and Neuralink00:03:14 — The AI Labs’ Own WarningsLinksFull episode on YouTube —https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=47fGrqzoFr8Doom Debates’ Mission is to raise mainstream awareness of imminent extinction from AGI and build the social infrastructure for high-quality debate.Support the mission by subscribing to my Substack at DoomDebates.com and to youtube.com/@DoomDebates, or to really take things to the next level: Donate 🙏 Get full access to Doom Debates at lironshapira.substack.com/subscribe

Multiple live callers join this month's Q&A as we react to Bernie Sanders and AOC's data center moratorium, the sudden shutdown of SORA 2, and the record breaking "Stop the AI Race" protest.I explain why Claude Code has me claiming a 700% productivity boost, what that means for takeoff timelines and debate instrumental convergence.Timestamps00:00:00 — Cold Open00:01:08 — Can AI Train on Its Own Data to Reach Superintelligence?00:03:42 — Are We in the Takeoff? 700% Faster with Claude Code00:04:27 — EJJ Joins: Is Instrumental Convergence Really That Dangerous?00:16:44 — The Positive Feedback Loop Problem00:20:09 — S-Risk, Consciousness, and Objective Morality00:22:27 — Futarchy and Prediction Markets00:24:31 — Low P(Doom) Arguments and Bayesian Updates00:31:05 — Lee Cyrano Joins: Superintelligence Won’t Matter for Decades01:02:45 — Lesaun Joins: Are There Adults in the Room?01:17:39 — Connor Leahy: “There Are No Adults in the Room”01:19:51 — Bernie Sanders Calls for a Data Center Moratorium01:24:23 — Claude Code Anecdotes and Audience Q&A01:35:49 — The Stop the AI Race Protest in San Francisco01:41:38 — Known Unknowns and Risk Assessment01:45:03 — From Waymo to Existential Risk01:51:28 — Closing: The Road to One Million SubscribersLinksQuintin Pope vs Liron Shapira debate on Doom Debates — https://lironshapira.substack.com/p/ai-alignment-is-solved-phd-researcherCAP theorem, Wikipedia — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CAP_theoremGoogle Cloud Spanner, Wikipedia — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanner_(database)Newcomb’s problem, Wikipedia — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newcomb%27s_paradoxGödel’s incompleteness theorems, Wikipedia — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%B6del%27s_incompleteness_theoremsDoom Debates’ Mission is to raise mainstream awareness of imminent extinction from AGI and build the social infrastructure for high-quality debate.Support the mission by subscribing to my Substack at DoomDebates.com and to youtube.com/@DoomDebates, or to really take things to the next level: Donate 🙏 Get full access to Doom Debates at lironshapira.substack.com/subscribe

Dr. Quintin Pope, PhD, is one of the few critics of AI doomerism who is truly fluent in the concepts and arguments. In Oct, 2023 he joined me for a debate in Twitter Spaces where he argued that AI alignment was basically already solved.His “inside view” on machine-learning forced me to update my position, but could he knock me off the doom train?Timestamps00:00:00 — Cold Open00:00:43 — Introductions00:01:22 — Quintin's Opening Statement00:02:32 — Liron's Opening Statement00:05:10 — Has RLHF Solved the Alignment Problem?00:07:52 — AI Capabilities Are Constrained by Training Data00:10:52 — Defining ASI and Could RLHF Align a Superintelligence?00:13:13 — Quintin Is More Optimistic Than OpenAI00:14:16 — What Is ASI in Your Mind?00:15:57 — AI in 5 Years (2028) & AI Coding Agents00:19:05 — Continuous or Discontinuous Capability Gains?00:19:39 — DEBATE: General Intelligence Algorithm in Humans00:30:02 — The Only Coherent Explanation of Humans Going to the Moon00:34:01 — Are We "Fully Cooked" as a General Optimizer?00:35:53 — Common Mistake in Forecasting Superintelligence00:42:22 — 'Neat' vs 'Scruffy': Will Interpretable Structure Emerge Inside Neural Nets?00:48:57 — Does This Disagreement Actually Matter for P(Doom)?00:54:33 — Thought Experiment: Could You Have Predicted a Species Would Go to the Moon?00:57:26 — The Basin of Attraction for Superintelligence00:59:35 — Does a Superintelligence Even Exist in Algorithm Space?01:09:59 — Closing Statements01:12:40 — Audience Q&A01:19:35 — Wrap UpLinksOriginal Twitter Spaces debate (Quintin Pope vs. Liron Shapira) — https://x.com/i/spaces/1YpJkwOzOqEJj/peekQuintin Pope on Twitter/X — https://twitter.com/QuintinPope5Quintin Pope, Alignment Forum profile — https://www.alignmentforum.org/users/quintin-popeInstructGPT, Wikipedia — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/InstructGPTAIXI, Wikipedia — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AIXIAlphaZero, Wikipedia — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AlphaZeroMuZero, Wikipedia — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MuZeroDeepMind AlphaZero and MuZero page — https://deepmind.google/research/alphazero-and-muzero/Midjourney — https://www.midjourney.com/DALL-E, Wikipedia — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DALL-EOpenAI Superalignment announcement — https://openai.com/index/introducing-superalignment/Shard Theory sequence on LessWrong — https://www.lesswrong.com/s/nyEFg3AuJpdAozmoX“Evolution Provides No Evidence for the Sharp Left Turn” — https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/hvz9qjWyv8cLX9JJR/evolution-provides-no-evidence-for-the-sharp-left-turn“My Objections to ‘We’re All Gonna Die with Eliezer Yudkowsky’” — https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/wAczufCpMdaamF9fy/my-objections-to-we-re-all-gonna-die-with-eliezer-yudkowsky“AI is Centralizing by Default; Let’s Not Make It Worse” — https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/zd5inbT4kYKivincm/ai-is-centralizing-by-default-let-s-not-make-it-worseSingular Learning Theory, Alignment Forum sequence — https://www.alignmentforum.org/s/mqwA5FcL6SrHEQzoxDoom Debates’ Mission is to raise mainstream awareness of imminent extinction from AGI and build the social infrastructure for high-quality debate.Support the mission by subscribing to my Substack at DoomDebates.com and to youtube.com/@DoomDebates, or to really take things to the next level: Donate 🙏 Get full access to Doom Debates at lironshapira.substack.com/subscribe

My new interview on Robert Wright's Nonzero Podcast where we dive into the agentic AI explosion. Bob is an exceptionally sharp interviewer who connects the dots between job displacement and AI doom.I highly recommend becoming a premium subscriber to Bob’s Nonzero Newsletter so you can watch the Overtime segment in every interview he does — https://nonzero.orgOur discussion continues in Overtime for premium subscribers — https://www.nonzero.org/p/early-access-the-allure-and-dangerLinksNonzero Podcast on YouTube — https://www.youtube.com/@nonzeroRobert Wright, The God Test (book, Amazon) — https://www.amazon.com/God-Test-Artificial-Intelligence-Reckoning/dp/1668061651Timestamps00:00:00 — Introduction and Today's Topics00:03:22 — Vibe Coding and the Agentic Revolution00:08:57 — The Future of Employment00:17:57 — Agents and What They Can Do00:27:59 — The "Can It" and "Will It" Framework for AI Doom00:30:27 — OpenClaw and Liron's Experience with AI Agents00:36:45 — The Case for Slowing Down AI Development00:43:28 — Anthropic, the Pentagon, and AI Politics00:48:37 — AI Safety Leadership Concerns00:52:06 — Closing and Overtime TeaseDoom Debates’ Mission is to raise mainstream awareness of imminent extinction from AGI and build the social infrastructure for high-quality debate.Support the mission by subscribing to my Substack at DoomDebates.com and to youtube.com/@DoomDebates, or to really take things to the next level: Donate 🙏 Get full access to Doom Debates at lironshapira.substack.com/subscribe

Noah Smith is an economist and author of Noahpinion, one of the most popular Substacks in the world.He returns to Doom Debates to share a massive update to his P(Doom), and things get a little heated.Timestamps00:00:00 — Cold Open00:00:41 — Welcome Back Noah Smith!00:01:40 — Noah's P(Doom) Update00:03:57 — The Chatbot-Genie-God Framework00:05:14 — What's Your P(Doom)™00:09:59 — Unpacking Noah's Update00:16:56 — Why Incidents of Rogue AI Lower P(Doom)00:20:04 — Noah's Mainline Doom Scenario: Much Worse Than COVID-1900:23:29 — Society Responds After Growing Pains00:29:25 — Agentic AI Contributed to Noah's Position00:31:35 — Should Yudkowsky Get Bayesian Credit?00:33:59 — Are We Communicating the Right Way with Policymakers?00:40:16 — Finding Common Ground on AI Policy00:47:07 — Wrap-Up: People Need to Be More ScaredLinksDoom Debate with Noah Smith — Part 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AwmJ-OnK2I4Noah’s Twitter — https://x.com/noahpinionNoah’s Substack — https://noahpinion.blogDoom Debates’ Mission is to raise mainstream awareness of imminent extinction from AGI and build the social infrastructure for high-quality debate.Support the mission by subscribing to my Substack at DoomDebates.com and to youtube.com/@DoomDebates, or to really take things to the next level: Donate 🙏 Get full access to Doom Debates at lironshapira.substack.com/subscribe

Dr. Claire Berlinski is a journalist, Oxford PhD, and author of The Cosmopolitan Globalist.She invited me to her weekly symposium to make the case for AI as an existential risk. Can we convince her sharp, skeptical audience that P(Doom) is high?Subscribe to The Cosmopolitan Globalist: https://claireberlinski.substack.com/Follow Claire on X: https://x.com/ClaireBerlinski“If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies” by Eliezer Yudkowsky & Nate Soares — https://ifanyonebuildsit.comTimestamps00:00:00 — Introduction00:02:10 — Welcome and Setting the Stage00:06:16 — Outcome Steering: The Magic of Intelligence00:10:40 — Collective Intelligence and the Path to ASI00:12:53 — The Five-Point Argument00:14:56 — The Alignment Problem and Control00:17:56 — The Genie Problem and Recursive Self-Improvement00:20:38 — Timeline: Five Years or Fifty?00:26:14 — Social Revolution and Pausing AI00:28:54 — Energy Constraints and Resource Limits00:31:23 — Morality, Empathy, and Superintelligence00:37:45 — How AI Is Actually Built00:38:31 — Computational Irreducibility and Co-Evolution00:44:57 — Foom and the Discontinuity Question00:46:44 — US-China Rivalry and the Arms Race00:49:36 — The Co-Evolution Argument00:55:36 — Alignment as Psychoanalysis00:57:24 — Anthropic’s “Harmless Slop” Paper01:00:33 — Policy Solutions: The Pause Button01:04:47 — Military AI and the Singularity01:07:10 — Cognitive Obstacles and Doom Fatigue01:09:07 — Why People Don’t Act01:13:00 — Reaching Representatives and Building a Platform01:17:12 — Sam Altman and the Manhattan Project Parallel01:19:14 — Community Building and Pause AI01:22:07 — Call to Action and ClosingDoom Debates’ Mission is to raise mainstream awareness of imminent extinction from AGI and build the social infrastructure for high-quality debate.Support the mission by subscribing to my Substack at DoomDebates.com and to youtube.com/@DoomDebates, or to really take things to the next level: Donate 🙏 Get full access to Doom Debates at lironshapira.substack.com/subscribe

Fan favorite Dr. Steven Byrnes returns to discuss recent AI progress and the concerning paradigm shift to "ruthless sociopath AI" he sees on the horizon.Steven Byrnes, UC Berkeley physics PhD and Harvard physics postdoc, is an AI safety researcher at the Astera Institute and one of the most rigorous thinkers working on the technical AI alignment problem.Timestamps00:00:00 — Cold Open00:00:48 — Welcoming Back the Returning Champion00:02:38 — Research Update: What's New in The Last 6 Months00:04:31 — The Rise of AI Agents00:07:49 — What's Your P(Doom)?™00:13:42 — "Brain-Like AGI": The Next Generation of AI00:17:01 — Can LLMs Ever Match the Human Brain?00:31:51 — Will AI Kill Us Before It Takes Our Jobs?00:36:12 — Country of Geniuses in a Data Center00:41:34 — Why We Should Expect "Ruthless Sociopathic" ASI00:54:15 — Post-Training & RLVR — A "Thin Layer" of Real Intelligence01:02:32 — Consequentialism and the Path to Superintelligence01:17:02 — Airplanes vs. Rockets: An Analogy for AI01:24:33 — FOOM and Recursive Self-ImprovementLinksSteven Byrnes’ Website & Research— https://sjbyrnes.com/Steve’s X—https://x.com/steve47285Astera Institute—https://astera.org/“Why We Should Expect Ruthless Sociopath ASI” — https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/ZJZZEuPFKeEdkrRyf/why-we-should-expect-ruthless-sociopath-asiIntro to Brain-Like-AGI Safety—https://www.alignmentforum.org/s/HzcM2dkCq7fwXBej8Steve on LessWrong—https://www.lesswrong.com/users/steve2152AI 2027 — Scenario Timeline — https://ai-2027.com/Part 1: “The Man Who Might SOLVE AI Alignment”—https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ZRUq3VEAc0Doom Debates’ Mission is to raise mainstream awareness of imminent extinction from AGI and build the social infrastructure for high-quality debate.Support the mission by subscribing to my Substack at DoomDebates.com and to youtube.com/@DoomDebates, or to really take things to the next level: Donate 🙏 Get full access to Doom Debates at lironshapira.substack.com/subscribe

Multiple live callers join this month's Q&A as we cover the imminent demise of programming as a profession, the Anthropic/Pentagon showdown, and debate the finer details of wireheading. I clarify my recent AI doom belief updates, and then the man behind Roko's Basilisk crashes the stream to argue I haven't updated nearly far enough.Timestamps00:00:00 — Cold Open00:00:56 — Welcome to the Livestream & Taking Questions from Chat00:12:44 — Anonymous Caller Asks If Rationalists Should Prioritize Attention-Grabbing Protests00:18:30 — The Good Case Scenario00:26:00 — Hugh Chungus Joins the Stream00:30:54 — Producer Ori, Liron's Recent Alignment Updates00:43:47 — We're In an Era of Centaurs00:47:40 — Noah Smith's Updates on AGI and Alignment00:48:44 — Co Co Chats Cybersecurity00:57:32 — The Attacker's Advantage in Offense/Defense Balance01:02:55 — Anthropic vs The Pentagon01:06:20 — "We're Getting Frog Boiled"01:11:06 — Stoner AI & Debating the Finer Points of Wireheading01:25:00 — A Caller Backs the Penrose Argument01:34:01 — Greyson Dials In01:40:21 — Surprise Guest Joins & Says Alignment Isn't a Problem02:05:15 — More Q&A with Chat02:14:26 — Closing ThoughtsLinks* Liron on X — https://x.com/liron* AI 2027 — https://ai-2027.com/* “Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die” (film) — https://www.imdb.com/title/tt38301748/* “The AI Doc” (film) — https://www.focusfeatures.com/the-ai-doc-or-how-i-became-an-apocaloptimistDoom Debates’ Mission is to raise mainstream awareness of imminent extinction from AGI and build the social infrastructure for high-quality debate.Support the mission by subscribing to my Substack at DoomDebates.com and to youtube.com/@DoomDebates, or to really take things to the next level: Donate 🙏 Get full access to Doom Debates at lironshapira.substack.com/subscribe

Professor Moshe Vardi thinks AI will kill us with kindness by automating away our jobs. I think they'll just kill us for real.Who’s right? Tune into this episode and decide where you get off the Doom Train™.Some highlights of Professor Vardi’s impressive CV:* University Professor at Rice — a rare distinction that lets him teach in any department.* 65,000+ citations, an H-index above 100, and nearly 50 years spent mechanizing reasoning, which makes him one of the most decorated computer scientists alive.* He ran the ACM’s flagship publication for a decade, and now bridges CS and policy at Rice’s Baker Institute.* He has been sounding the alarm on AI-driven job automation for over ten years.* He signed the 2023 AI extinction risk statement, and calls himself “part of the resistance.”Links* Moshe Vardi’s Wikipedia — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moshe_Vardi* Moshe Vardi, Rice University — https://profiles.rice.edu/faculty/moshe-y-vardi* Baker Institute for Public Policy — https://www.bakerinstitute.org/* Nick Bostrom, Deep Utopia: Life and Meaning in a Solved World — https://www.amazon.com/Deep-Utopia-Life-Meaning-Solved/dp/1646871642* Joseph Aoun, Robot-Proof: Higher Education in the Age of Artificial Intelligence — https://www.amazon.com/Robot-Proof-Higher-Education-Artificial-Intelligence/dp/0262535971Timestamps00:00:00 — Cold Open00:00:54 — Introducing Professor Vardi00:02:01 — Professor Vardi’s Academic Focus: CS, AI, & Public Policy00:07:18 — What’s Your P(Doom)™?00:12:28 — We’re Not Doomed, “We’re Screwed”00:16:44 — AI’s Impact on Meaning & Purpose00:27:47 — Let’s Ride the Doom Train ™00:35:43 — The Future of Jobs00:39:24 — A Country of Geniuses in a Data Center00:41:04 — Corporations as Superintelligence00:45:49 — Agency, Consciousness, and the Limits of AI00:50:07 — The Mad Scientist Scenario00:54:02 — Could a Data Center of Geniuses Destroy Humanity?01:03:13 — The WALL-E Meme and Fun Theory01:04:01 — Why Professor Vardi Signed the AI Extinction Risk Statement01:06:02 — Wrap-Up + 1 Way Ticket to DoomDoom Debates’ Mission is to raise mainstream awareness of imminent extinction from AGI and build the social infrastructure for high-quality debate.Support the mission by subscribing to my Substack at DoomDebates.com and to youtube.com/@DoomDebates, or to really take things to the next level: Donate 🙏 Get full access to Doom Debates at lironshapira.substack.com/subscribe

Fresh off my debate with Destiny, his Discord community invited me into their voice chat to talk about AI doom. Just like the man himself, his fans are sharp.Let's find out where they get off The Doom Train™.My recent debate with Destiny — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rNgffLZTeWwTimestamps00:00:00 — Cold Open00:00:54 — Liron Joins Destiny’s Discord00:02:21 — The AI Doom Premise00:03:27 — Defining Intelligence and Is An LLM Really AI?00:07:12 — Will AI Become Uncontrollable?00:12:44 — The AI Alignment Problem00:24:11 — The Difficulty of Pausing AI00:26:01 — AI vs The Human Brain00:32:41 — Future AI Capabilities, Steering Toward Goals, & Philosophical DisagreementsDoom Debates’ Mission is to raise mainstream awareness of imminent extinction from AGI and build the social infrastructure for high-quality debate.Support the mission by subscribing to my Substack at DoomDebates.com and to youtube.com/@DoomDebates, or to really take things to the next level: Donate 🙏 Get full access to Doom Debates at lironshapira.substack.com/subscribe

Renowned scientists just set The Doomsday Clock closer than ever to midnight.I agree our collective doom seems imminent, but why do the clocksetters point to climate change—not rogue AI—as an existential threat?UChicago Professor Daniel Holz, a top physicist who sets the Doomsday Clock, joins me to debate society’s top existential risks.00:00:00 — Cold Open 00:00:51 — Introducing Professor Holz00:02:08 — The Doomsday Clock is at 85 Seconds to Midnight! 00:04:37 — What's Your P(Doom)?™ 00:08:09 — Making A Probability of Doomsday, or P(Doom), Equation 00:12:07 — How We All Die: Nuclear vs Climate vs AI 00:21:08 — Nuclear Close Calls from The Cold War 00:28:38 — History of The Doomsday Clock 00:30:18 — The Threat of Biological Risks Like Mirror Life 00:33:40 — Professor Holz’s Position on AI Misalignment Risk 00:44:49 — Does The Doomsday Clock Give Short Shrift to AI Misalignment Risk? 00:59:09 — Why Professor Holz Founded UChicago’s Existential Risk Laboratory (XLab) 01:06:22 — The State of Academic Research on AI Safety & Existential Risks 01:12:32 — The Case for Pausing AI Development 01:17:11 — Debate: Is Climate Change an Existential Threat? 01:28:48 — Call to Action: How to Reduce Our Collective ThreatLinksProfessor Daniel Holz’s Wikipedia — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_HolzXLab (Existential Risk Laboratory) — https://xrisk.uchicago.edu/2026 Doomsday Clock Statement — https://thebulletin.org/doomsday-clock/2026-statement/The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists (Nonprofit that produces the clock)— https://thebulletin.org/UChicago Magazine features Prof. Holz’s class — “Are We Doomed?”: https://mag.uchicago.edu/science-medicine/are-we-doomedThe Doomsday Machine by Daniel Ellsberg — https://www.amazon.com/Doomsday-Machine-Confessions-Nuclear-Planner/dp/1608196704If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies by Eliezer Yudkowsky & Nate Soares — https://www.amazon.com/Anyone-Builds-Everyone-Dies-Superhuman/dp/0316595640Learn more about pausing frontier AI development from PauseAI — https://pauseai.infoDoom Debates’ Mission is to raise mainstream awareness of imminent extinction from AGI and build the social infrastructure for high-quality debate.Support the mission by subscribing to my Substack at DoomDebates.com and to youtube.com/@DoomDebates, or to really take things to the next level: Donate 🙏 Get full access to Doom Debates at lironshapira.substack.com/subscribe

Liron was invited to give a presentation to some of the most promising creators in AI safety communications.Get a behind-the-scenes look at Doom Debates and how the channel has grown so quickly. Learn more about the Frame Fellowship: https://framefellowship.com/Timestamps00:00:00 — Liron tees up the presentation00:02:28 — Liron’s Frame Fellowhip Presentation00:06:03 — Introducing Doom Debates00:07:44 — Meeting the Frame Fellows00:19:38 — Why I Started Doom Debates00:30:20 — Handling Hate and Criticism00:31:56 — The Talent Stack00:39:34 — Finding Your Unique Niche00:40:58 — Q&A00:42:04 — On Funding the Show00:48:05 — Audience Demographics & Gender Strategy00:51:17 — How to communicate AI Risk Effectively00:56:22 — Social Media Strategy00:58:10 — Closing RemarksDoom Debates’ Mission is to raise mainstream awareness of imminent extinction from AGI and build the social infrastructure for high-quality debate.Support the mission by subscribing to my Substack at DoomDebates.com and to youtube.com/@DoomDebates, or to really take things to the next level: Donate 🙏 Get full access to Doom Debates at lironshapira.substack.com/subscribe

Destiny has racked up millions of views for his sharp takes on political and cultural news. Now, I finally get to ask him about a topic he’s been agnostic on: Will AI end humanity?Come ride with us on the Doom Train™ 🚂Timestamps00:00:00 — Teaser00:01:16 — Welcoming Destiny00:02:54 — What’s Your P(Doom)?™00:04:46 — 2017 vs 2026: Destiny’s views on AI00:11:04 — AI could vastly surpass human intelligence00:16:02 — Can AI doom us?00:18:42 — Intelligence doesn’t guarantee morality00:22:18 — The vibes-based case against doom00:29:58 — The human brain is inefficient00:35:17 — Does every intelligence in the universe self-destruct via AI?00:37:28 — Destiny turns the tables: Where does Liron get off The Doom Train™00:46:07 — Will a warning shot cause society to develop AI safely?00:54:10 — Roko’s Basilisk, the AI box problem00:59:37 — Will Destiny update his P(Doom)?™01:04:19 — Closing thoughtsLinksDestiny's YouTube — https://www.youtube.com/@destinyDestiny's X account — https://x.com/TheOmniLiberalMarc Andreessen saying AI isn’t dangerous because “it is math” — https://a16z.com/ai-will-save-the-world/Will Smith eating spaghetti AI video — https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/ai-will-smith-eating-spaghettiRoko’s Basilisk on LessWrong — https://www.lesswrong.com/tag/rokos-basiliskEliezer Yudkowsky’s AI Box Experiment — https://www.yudkowsky.net/singularity/aiboxDoom Debates’ Mission is to raise mainstream awareness of imminent extinction from AGI and build the social infrastructure for high-quality debate.Support the mission by subscribing to my Substack at DoomDebates.com and to youtube.com/@DoomDebates, or to really take things to the next level: Donate 🙏 Get full access to Doom Debates at lironshapira.substack.com/subscribe

On the eve of superintelligence, real AI safety is a nonexistent field. I break down why in my latest essay, The Facade of AI Safety Will Crumble.This is a podcast reading of a recent Substack post: https://lironshapira.substack.com/p/the-facade-of-ai-safety-will-crumbleDoom Debates’ Mission is to raise mainstream awareness of imminent extinction from AGI and build the social infrastructure for high-quality debate.Support the mission by subscribing to my Substack at DoomDebates.com and to youtube.com/@DoomDebates, or to really take things to the next level: Donate 🙏 Get full access to Doom Debates at lironshapira.substack.com/subscribe

Elon Musk just made a stunning admission about the insane future he’s steering us toward.In a new interview with Dwarkesh Patel and John Collison on the Cheeky Pint podcast, Elon said that humanity can’t expect to be “in charge” of AI for long, because humans will soon only have 1% of the combined total human+AI intelligence.Then, he claimed to have a plan to build AI overlords that will naturally support humanity's flourishing.In this mini episode, I react to Elon's remarks and expose why his plan for humanity's survival in the age of AI is dangerously flimsy.My original tweet: https://x.com/liron/status/2020906862397489492Clip source: Elon Musk – "In 36 months, the cheapest place to put AI will be space”Doom Debates’ Mission is to raise mainstream awareness of imminent extinction from AGI and build the social infrastructure for high-quality debate.Support the mission by subscribing to my Substack at DoomDebates.com and to youtube.com/@DoomDebates, or to really take things to the next level: Donate 🙏 Get full access to Doom Debates at lironshapira.substack.com/subscribe

California gubernatorial candidate Zoltan Istvan reveals his P(Doom) and makes the case for universal basic income and radical life extension.Timestamps00:00:00 — Teaser00:00:50 — Meet Zoltan, Democratic Candidate for California Governor00:08:30 — The 2026 California Governor's Race00:12:50 — Zoltan's Platform Is Automated Abundance00:19:45 — What's Your P(Doom)™00:28:26 — Campaigning on Existential Risk00:32:36 — Does Zoltan Support a Global AI Pause?00:48:39 — Exploring His Platform: Education, Crime, and Affordability01:08:55 — Exploring His Platform:: Super Cities, Space, and Longevity01:13:00 — Closing ThoughtsLinksZoltan Istvan’s Campaign for California Governor – zoltanistvan2026.comThe Transhumanist Wager by Zoltan Istvan – https://www.amazon.com/Transhumanist-Wager-Zoltan-Istvan/dp/0988616114Wired Article on the “Bunker” Party – https://www.wired.com/story/ai-risk-party-san-francisco/PauseAI – pauseai.infoSL4 Mailing List Archive – sl4.org/archiveDoom Debates’ Mission is to raise mainstream awareness of imminent extinction from AGI and build the social infrastructure for high-quality debate.Support the mission by subscribing to my Substack at DoomDebates.com and to youtube.com/@DoomDebates, or to really take things to the next level: Donate 🙏 Get full access to Doom Debates at lironshapira.substack.com/subscribe

Get ready for a rematch with the one & only Bentham’s Bulldog, a.k.a. Matthew Adelstein! Our first debate covered a wide range of philosophical topics.Today’s Debate #2 is all about Matthew’s new argument against the inevitability of AI doom. He comes out swinging with a calculated P(Doom) of just 2.6% , based on a multi-step probability chain that I challenge as potentially falling into a “Type 2 Conjunction Fallacy” (a.k.a. Multiple Stage Fallacy).We clash on whether to expect “alignment by default” and the nature of future AI architectures. While Matthew sees current RLHF success as evidence that AIs will likely remain compliant, I argue that we’re building “Goal Engines” — superhuman optimization modules that act like nuclear cores wrapped in friendly personalities. We debate whether these engines can be safely contained, or if the capability to map goals to actions is inherently dangerous and prone to exfiltration.Despite our different forecasts (my 50% vs his sub-10%), we actually land in the “sane zone” together on some key policy ideas, like the potential necessity of a global pause.While Matthew’s case for low P(Doom) hasn’t convinced me, I consider his post and his engagement with me to be super high quality and good faith. We’re not here to score points, we just want to better predict how the intelligence explosion will play out.Timestamps00:00:00 — Teaser00:00:35 — Bentham’s Bulldog Returns to Doom Debates00:05:43 — Higher-Order Evidence: Why Skepticism is Warranted00:11:06 — What’s Your P(Doom)™00:14:38 — The “Multiple Stage Fallacy” Objection00:21:48 — The Risk of Warring AIs vs. Misalignment00:27:29 — Historical Pessimism: The “Boy Who Cried Wolf”00:33:02 — Comparing AI Risk to Climate Change & Nuclear War00:38:59 — Alignment by Default via Reinforcement Learning00:46:02 — The “Goal Engine” Hypothesis00:53:13 — Is Psychoanalyzing Current AI Valid for Future Systems?01:00:17 — Winograd Schemas & The Fragility of Value01:09:15 — The Nuclear Core Analogy: Dangerous Engines in Friendly Wrappers01:16:16 — The Discontinuity of Unstoppable AI01:23:53 — Exfiltration: Running Superintelligence on a Laptop01:31:37 — Evolution Analogy: Selection Pressures for Alignment01:39:08 — Commercial Utility as a Force for Constraints01:46:34 — Can You Isolate the “Goal-to-Action” Module?01:54:15 — Will Friendly Wrappers Successfully Control Superhuman Cores?02:04:01 — Moral Realism and Missing Out on Cosmic Value02:11:44 — The Paradox of AI Solving the Alignment Problem02:19:11 — Policy Agreements: Global Pauses and China02:26:11 — Outro: PauseCon DC 2026 PromoLinksBentham’s Bulldog Official Substack — https://benthams.substack.comThe post we debated — https://benthams.substack.com/p/against-if-anyone-builds-it-everyoneApply to PauseCon DC 2026 here or via https://pauseai-us.orgForethought Institute’s paper: Preparing for the Intelligence ExplosionTom Davidson (Forethought Institute)’s post: How quick and big would a software intelligence explosion be?Scott Alexander on the Coffeepocalypse Argument---Doom Debates’ Mission is to raise mainstream awareness of imminent extinction from AGI and build the social infrastructure for high-quality debate.Support the mission by subscribing to my Substack at DoomDebates.com and to youtube.com/@DoomDebates, or to really take things to the next level: Donate 🙏 Get full access to Doom Debates at lironshapira.substack.com/subscribe

Harlan Stewart works in communications for the Machine Intelligence Research Institute (MIRI). In this episode, Harlan and I give our honest opinions on Dario Amodei's new essay "The Adolescence of Technology".Timestamps0:00:00 — Cold Open0:00:47 — How Harlan Stewart Got Into AI Safety0:02:30 — What’s Your P(Doom)?™0:04:09 — The “Doomer” Label0:06:13 — Overall Reaction to Dario’s Essay: The Missing Mood0:09:15 — The Rosy Take on Dario’s Essay0:10:42 — Character Assassination & Low Blows0:13:39 — Dario Amodei is Shifting the Overton Window in The Wrong Direction0:15:04 — Object-Level vs. Meta-Level Criticisms0:17:07 — The “Inevitability” Strawman Used by Dario0:19:03 — Dario Refers to Doom as a Self-Fulfilling Prophecy0:22:38 — Dismissing Critics as “Too Theoretical”0:43:18 — The Problem with Psychoanalyzing AI0:56:12 — “Intellidynamics” & Reflective Stability1:07:12 — Why Is Dario Dismissing an AI Pause?1:11:45 — Final TakeawaysLinksHarlan’s X — https://x.com/HumanHarlan“The Adolescence of Technology” by Dario Amodei — https://www.darioamodei.com/essay/the-adolescence-of-technologyDoom Debates’ Mission is to raise mainstream awareness of imminent extinction from AGI and build the social infrastructure for high-quality debate.Support the mission by subscribing to my Substack at DoomDebates.com and to youtube.com/@DoomDebates, or to really take things to the next level: Donate 🙏 Get full access to Doom Debates at lironshapira.substack.com/subscribe

Check out the new Doom Debates studio in this Q&A with special guest Producer Ori! Liron gets into a heated discussion about whether doomers must validate short-term risks, like data center water usage, in order to build a successful political coalition.Originally streamed on Saturday, January 24.Timestamps00:00:00 — Cold Open00:00:26 — Introduction and Studio Tour00:08:17 — Q&A: Alignment, Accelerationism, and Short-Term Risks00:18:15 — Dario Amodei, Davos, and AI Pause00:27:42 — Producer Ori Joins: Locations and Vibes00:35:31 — Legislative Strategy vs. Social Movements (The Tobacco Playbook)00:45:01 — Ethics of Investing in or Working for AI Labs00:54:23 — Defining Superintelligence and Human Limitations01:02:58 — Technical Risks: Self-Replication and Cyber Warfare01:19:08 — Live Debate with Zane: Short-Term vs. Long-Term Strategy01:53:15 — Marketing Doom Debates and Guest Outreach01:56:45 — Live Call with Jonas: Scenarios for Survival02:05:52 — Conclusion and Mission StatementLinksLiron’s X Post about Destiny — https://x.com/liron/status/2015144778652905671?s=20Why Laws, Treaties, and Regulations Won’t Save Us from AI | For Humanity Ep. 77 — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IUX00c5x2UMDoom Debates’ Mission is to raise mainstream awareness of imminent extinction from AGI and build the social infrastructure for high-quality debate.Support the mission by subscribing to my Substack at DoomDebates.com and to youtube.com/@DoomDebates, or to really take things to the next level: Donate 🙏 Get full access to Doom Debates at lironshapira.substack.com/subscribe

Audrey Tang was the youngest minister in Taiwanese history. Now she's working to align AI with democratic principles as Taiwan's Cyber Ambassador.In this debate, I probe her P(doom) and stress-test her vision for safe AI development.Timestamps00:00:00 — Episode Preview00:01:43 — Introducing Audrey Tang, Cyber Ambassador of Taiwan00:07:20 — Being Taiwan’s First Digital Minister00:17:19 — What's Your P(Doom)? ™00:21:10 — Comparing AI Risk to Nuclear Risk00:22:53 — The Statement on AI Extinction Risk00:27:29 — Doomerism as a Hyperstition00:30:51 — Audrey Explains Her Vision of "Plurality"00:37:17 — Audrey Explains Her Principles of Civic Ethics, The "6-Pack of Care"00:45:58 — AGI Timelines: "It's Already Here"00:54:41 — The Apple Analogy01:03:09 — What If AI FOOMs?01:11:19 — What AI Can vs What AI Will Do01:15:20 — Lessons from COVID-1901:19:59 — Is Society Ready? Audrey Reflects on a Personal Experience with Mortality01:23:50 — AI Alignment Cannot Be Top-Down01:34:04 — AI-as-Mother vs AI-as-Gardener01:37:26 — China and the Geopolitics of AI Chip Manufacturing in Taiwan01:40:47 — Red Lines, International Treaties, and the Off Button01:48:26 — Debate Wrap-UpLinksPlurality: The Future of Collaborative Technology and Democracy by Glen Weyl and Audrey Tang — https://www.amazon.com/Plurality-Future-Collaborative-Technology-Democracy/dp/B0D98RPKCKAudrey’s X — https://x.com/audreytAudrey’s Wikipedia — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Audrey_TangDoom Debates’ Mission is to raise mainstream awareness of imminent extinction from AGI and build the social infrastructure for high-quality debate.Support the mission by subscribing to my Substack at DoomDebates.com and to youtube.com/@DoomDebates, or to really take things to the next level: Donate 🙏 Get full access to Doom Debates at lironshapira.substack.com/subscribe

I joined Steve Bannon’s War Room Battleground to talk about AI doom.Hosted by Joe Allen, we cover AGI timelines, raising kids with a high p(doom), and why improving our survival odds requires a global wake-up call.00:00:00 — Episode Preview00:01:17 — Joe Allen opens the show and introduces Liron Shapira00:04:06 — Liron: What’s Your P(Doom)?00:05:37 — How Would an AI Take Over?00:07:20 — The Timeline to AGI00:08:17 — Benchmarks & AI Passing the Turing Test00:14:43 — Liron Is Typically a Techno-Optimist00:18:00 — Raising a Family with a High P(Doom)00:23:48 — Mobilizing a Grassroots AI Survival Campaign00:26:45 — Final Message: A Wake-Up Call00:29:23 — Joe Allen’s Closing Message to the War Room PosseLinks: Joe’s Substack — https://substack.com/@joebotJoe’s Twitter — https://x.com/JOEBOTxyzBannon’s War Room Twitter — https://x.com/Bannons_WarRoomWarRoom Battleground EP 922: AI Doom Debates with Liron Shapira on Rumble — https://rumble.com/v742oo4-warroom-battleground-ep-922-ai-doom-debates-with-liron-shapira.htmlDoom Debates’ Mission is to raise mainstream awareness of imminent extinction from AGI and build the social infrastructure for high-quality debate.Support the mission by subscribing to my Substack at DoomDebates.com and to youtube.com/@DoomDebates, or to really take things to the next level: Donate 🙏 Get full access to Doom Debates at lironshapira.substack.com/subscribe

Economist Noah Smith is the author of Noahpinion, one of the most popular Substacks in the world.Far from worrying about human extinction from superintelligent AI, Noah is optimistic AI will create a world where humans still have plentiful, high-paying jobs!In this debate, I stress-test his rosy outlook. Let’s see if Noah can instill us with more confidence about humanity’s rapidly approaching AI future.Timestamps00:00:00 - Episode Preview00:01:41 - Introducing Noah Smith00:03:19 - What’s Your P(Doom)™00:04:40 - Good vs. Bad Transhumanist Outcomes00:15:17 - Catastrophe vs. Total Extinction00:17:15 - Mechanisms of Doom00:27:16 - The AI Persuasion Risk00:36:20 - Instrumental Convergence vs. Peace00:53:08 - The “One AI” Breakout Scenario01:01:18 - The “Stoner AI” Theory01:08:49 - Importance of Reflective Stability01:14:50 - Orthogonality & The Waymo Argument01:21:18 - Comparative Advantage & Jobs01:27:43 - Wealth Distribution & Robot Lords01:34:34 - Supply Curves & Resource Constraints01:43:38 - Policy of Reserving Human Resources01:48:28 - Closing: The Case for OptimismLinksNoah’s Substack — https://noahpinion.blog“Plentiful, high-paying jobs in the age of AI” — https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/plentiful-high-paying-jobs-in-the“My thoughts on AI safety” — https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/my-thoughts-on-ai-safetyNoah’s Twitter — https://x.com/noahpinion---Doom Debates’ Mission is to raise mainstream awareness of imminent extinction from AGI and build the social infrastructure for high-quality debate.Support the mission by subscribing to my Substack at DoomDebates.com and to youtube.com/@DoomDebates, or to really take things to the next level: Donate 🙏 Get full access to Doom Debates at lironshapira.substack.com/subscribe

In September of 2023, when OpenAI’s GPT-4 was still a fresh innovation and people were just beginning to wrap their heads around large language models, I was invited to debate Beff Jezos, Bayeslord, and other prominent “effective accelerationists” a.k.a. “e/acc” folks on an X Space.E/acc’s think building artificial superintelligence is unlikely to disempower humanity and doom the future, because that’d be an illegal exception to the rule that accelerating new technology is always the highest-expected-value for humanity.As you know, I disagree — I think doom is extremely likely and imminent possibility.This debate took place 9 months before I started Doom Debates, and was one of the experiences that made me realize debating AI doom was my calling. It’s also the only time Beff Jezos has ever not been too chicken to debate me.Timestamps00:00:00 — Liron’s New Intro00:04:15 — Debate Starts Here: Litigating FOOM00:06:18 — Defining the Recursive Feedback Loop00:15:05 — The Two-Part Doomer Thesis00:26:00 — When Does a Tool Become an Agent?00:44:02 — The Argument for Convergent Architecture00:46:20 — Mathematical Objections: Ergodicity and Eigenvalues01:03:46 — Bayeslord Enters: Why Speed Doesn’t Matter01:12:40 — Beff Jezos Enters: Physical Priors vs. Internet Data01:13:49 — The 5% Probability of Doom by GPT-501:20:09 — Chaos Theory and Prediction Limits01:27:56 — Algorithms vs. Hardware Constraints01:35:20 — Galactic Resources vs. Human Extermination01:54:13 — The Intelligence Bootstrapping Script Scenario02:02:13 — The 10-Megabyte AI Virus Debate02:11:54 — The Nuclear Analogy: Noise Canceling vs. Rubble02:37:39 — Controlling Intelligence: The Roman Empire Analogy02:44:53 — Real-World Latency and API Rate Limits03:03:11 — The Difficulty of the Off Button03:24:47 — Why Liron is “e/acc at Heart”Doom Debates’ Mission is to raise mainstream awareness of imminent extinction from AGI and build the social infrastructure for high-quality debate.Support the mission by subscribing to my Substack at DoomDebates.com and to youtube.com/@DoomDebates, or to really take things to the next level: Donate 🙏 Get full access to Doom Debates at lironshapira.substack.com/subscribe

AGI timelines, offense/defense balance, evolution vs engineering, how to lower P(Doom), Eliezer Yudkowksy, and much more!Timestamps:00:00 Trailer03:10 Is My P(Doom) Lowering?11:29 First Caller: AI Offense vs Defense Balance16:50 Superintelligence Skepticism25:05 Agency and AI Goals29:06 Communicating AI Risk36:35 Attack vs Defense Equilibrium38:22 Can We Solve Outer Alignment?54:47 What is Your P(Pocket Nukes)?1:00:05 The “Shoggoth” Metaphor Is Outdated1:06:23 Should I Reframe the P(Doom) Question?1:12:22 How YOU Can Make a Difference1:24:43 Can AGI Beat Biology?1:39:22 Agency and Convergent Goals1:59:56 Viewer Poll: What Content Should I Make?2:26:15 AI Warning Shots2:32:12 More Listener Questions: Debate Tactics, Getting a PhD, Specificity2:53:53 Closing ThoughtsLinks:Support PauseAI — https://pauseai.info/Support PauseAI US — https://www.pauseai-us.org/Support LessWrong / Lightcone Infrastructure — LessWrong is fundraising!Support MIRI — MIRI’s 2025 FundraiserAbout the show:Doom Debates’ Mission is to raise mainstream awareness of imminent extinction from AGI and build the social infrastructure for high-quality debate.Support the mission by subscribing to my Substack at DoomDebates.com and to youtube.com/@DoomDebates, or to really take things to the next level: Donate 🙏 Get full access to Doom Debates at lironshapira.substack.com/subscribe

Devin Elliot is a former pro snowboarder turned software engineer who has logged thousands of hours building AI systems. His P(Doom) is a flat ⚫. He argues that worrying about an AI takeover is as irrational as fearing your car will sprout wings and fly away.We spar over the hard limits of current models: Devin insists LLMs are hitting a wall, relying entirely on external software “wrappers” to feign intelligence. I push back, arguing that raw models are already demonstrating native reasoning and algorithmic capabilities.Devin also argues for decentralization by claiming that nuclear proliferation is safer than centralized control.We end on a massive timeline split: I see superintelligence in a decade, while he believes we’re a thousand years away from being able to “grow” computers that are truly intelligence.Timestamps00:00:00 Episode Preview00:01:03 Intro: Snowboarder to Coder00:03:30 "I Do Not Have a P(Doom)"00:06:47 Nuclear Proliferation & Centralized Control00:10:11 The "Spotify Quality" House Analogy00:17:15 Ideal Geopolitics: Decentralized Power00:25:22 Why AI Can't "Fly Away"00:28:20 The Long Addition Test: Native or Tool?00:38:26 Is Non-Determinism a Feature or a Bug?00:52:01 The Impossibility of Mind Uploading00:57:46 "Growing" Computers from Cells01:02:52 Timelines: 10 Years vs. 1,000 Years01:11:40 "Plastic Bag Ghosts" & Builder Intuition01:13:17 Summary of the Debate01:15:30 Closing ThoughtsLinksDevin’s Twitter — https://x.com/devinjelliot---Doom Debates’ Mission is to raise mainstream awareness of imminent extinction from AGI and build the social infrastructure for high-quality debate.Support the mission by subscribing to my Substack at DoomDebates.com and to youtube.com/@DoomDebates, or to really take things to the next level: Donate 🙏 Get full access to Doom Debates at lironshapira.substack.com/subscribe

Dr. Michael Timothy Bennett, Ph.D, is an award-winning young researcher who has developed a new formal framework for understanding intelligence. He has a TINY P(Doom) because he claims superintelligence will be resource-constrained and tend toward cooperation.In this lively debate, I stress-test Michael’s framework and debate whether its theorized constraints will actually hold back superintelligent AI.Timestamps* 00:00 Trailer* 01:41 Introducing Michael Timothy Bennett* 04:33 What’s Your P(Doom)?™* 10:51 Michael’s Thesis on Intelligence: “Abstraction Layers”, “Adaptation”, “Resource Efficiency”* 25:36 Debate: Is Einstein Smarter Than a Rock?* 39:07 “Embodiment”: Michael’s Unconventional Computation Theory vs Standard Computation* 48:28 “W-Maxing”: Michael’s Intelligence Framework vs. a Goal-Oriented Framework* 59:47 Debating AI Doom* 1:09:49 Debating Instrumental Convergence* 1:24:00 Where Do You Get Off The Doom Train™ — Identifying The Cruxes of Disagreement* 1:44:13 Debating AGI Timelines* 1:49:10 Final RecapLinksMichael’s website — https://michaeltimothybennett.comMichael’s Twitter — https://x.com/MiTiBennettMichael’s latest paper, “How To Build Conscious Machines” — https://osf.io/preprints/thesiscommons/wehmg_v1?view_onlyDoom Debates' Mission is to raise mainstream awareness of imminent extinction from AGI and build the social infrastructure for high-quality debate.Support the mission by subscribing to my Substack at DoomDebates.com and to youtube.com/@DoomDebates, or to really take things to the next level: Donate 🙏 Get full access to Doom Debates at lironshapira.substack.com/subscribe

My guest today achieved something EXTREMELY rare and impressive: Coming onto my show with an AI optimist position, then admitting he hadn’t thought of my counterarguments before, and updating his beliefs in realtime! Also, he won the 2013 Nobel Prize in computational biology.I’m thrilled that Prof. Levitt understands the value of raising awareness about imminent extinction risk from superintelligent AI, and the value of debate as a tool to uncover the truth — the dual missions of Doom Debates!Timestamps0:00 — Trailer1:18 — Introducing Michael Levitt4:20 — The Evolution of Computing and AI12:42 — Measuring Intelligence: Humans vs. AI23:11 — The AI Doom Argument: Steering the Future25:01 — Optimism, Pessimism, and Other Existential Risks34:15 — What’s Your P(Doom)™36:16 — Warning Shots and Global Regulation55:28 — Comparing AI Risk to Pandemics and Nuclear War1:01:49 — Wrap-Up1:06:11 — Outro + New AI safety resourceShow NotesMichael Levitt’s Twitter — https://x.com/MLevitt_NP2013-- Get full access to Doom Debates at lironshapira.substack.com/subscribe

Michael Ellsberg, son of the legendary Pentagon Papers leaker Daniel Ellsberg, joins me to discuss the chilling parallels between his father’s nuclear war warnings and today’s race to AGI.We discuss Michael’s 99% probability of doom, his personal experience being “obsoleted” by AI, and the urgent moral duty for insiders to blow the whistle on AI’s outsize risks.Timestamps0:00 Intro1:29 Introducing Michael Ellsberg, His Father Daniel Ellsberg, and The Pentagon Papers5:49 Vietnam War Parallels to AI: Lies and Escalation25:23 The Doomsday Machine & Nuclear Insanity48:49 Mutually Assured Destruction vs. Superintelligence Risk55:10 Evolutionary Dynamics: Replicators and the End of the “Dream Time”1:10:17 What’s Your P(doom)?™1:14:49 Debating P(Doom) Disagreements1:26:18 AI Unemployment Doom1:39:14 Doom Psychology: How to Cope with Existential Risk1:50:56 The “Joyless Singularity”: Aligned AI Might Still Freeze Humanity2:09:00 A Call to Action for AI InsidersShow Notes:Michael Ellsberg’s website — https://www.ellsberg.com/Michael’s Twitter — https://x.com/MichaelEllsbergDaniel Ellsberg’s website — https://www.ellsberg.net/The upcoming book, “Truth and Consequence” — https://geni.us/truthandconsequenceMichael’s AI-related substack “Mammalian Wetware” — https://mammalianwetware.substack.com/Daniel’s debate with Bill Kristol in the run-up to the Iraq war — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HyvsDR3xnAg--Doom Debates’ Mission is to raise mainstream awareness of imminent extinction from AGI and build the social infrastructure for high-quality debate.Support the mission by subscribing to my Substack at DoomDebates.com and to youtube.com/@DoomDebates, or to really take things to the next level: Donate 🙏 Get full access to Doom Debates at lironshapira.substack.com/subscribe

Today's Debate: Should we ban the development of artificial superintelligence until scientists agree it is safe and controllable?Arguing FOR banning superintelligence until there’s a scientific consensus that it’ll be done safely and controllably and with strong public buy-in: Max Tegmark. He is an MIT professor, bestselling author, and co-founder of the Future of Life Institute whose research has focused on artificial intelligence for the past 8 years.Arguing AGAINST banning superintelligent AI development: Dean Ball. He is a Senior Fellow at the Foundation for American Innovation who served as a Senior Policy Advisor at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy under President Trump, where he helped craft America’s AI Action Plan.Two of the leading voices on AI policy engaged in high-quality, high-stakes debate for the benefit of the public!This is why I got into the podcast game — because I believe debate is an essential tool for humanity to reckon with the creation of superhuman thinking machines.Timestamps0:00 - Episode Preview1:41 - Introducing The Debate3:38 - Max Tegmark’s Opening Statement5:20 - Dean Ball’s Opening Statement9:01 - Designing an “FDA for AI” and Safety Standards21:10 - Liability, Tail Risk, and Biosecurity29:11 - Incremental Regulation, Timelines, and AI Capabilities54:01 - Max’s Nightmare Scenario57:36 - The Risks of Recursive Self‑Improvement1:08:24 - What’s Your P(Doom)?™1:13:42 - National Security, China, and the AI Race1:32:35 - Closing Statements1:44:00 - Post‑Debate Recap and Call to ActionShow NotesStatement on Superintelligence released by Max’s organization, the Future of Life Institute — https://superintelligence-statement.org/Dean’s reaction to the Statement on Superintelligence — https://x.com/deanwball/status/1980975802570174831America’s AI Action Plan — https://www.whitehouse.gov/articles/2025/07/white-house-unveils-americas-ai-action-plan/“A Definition of AGI” by Dan Hendrycks, Max Tegmark, et. al. —https://www.agidefinition.ai/Max Tegmark’s Twitter — https://x.com/tegmarkDean Ball’s Twitter — https://x.com/deanwball Get full access to Doom Debates at lironshapira.substack.com/subscribe

Max Harms and Jeremy Gillen are current and former MIRI researchers who both see superintelligent AI as an imminent extinction threat.But they disagree on whether it’s worthwhile to try to aim for obedient, “corrigible” AI as a singular target for current alignment efforts.Max thinks corrigibility is the most plausible path to build ASI without losing control and dying, while Jeremy is skeptical that this research path will yield better superintelligent AI behavior on a sufficiently early try.By listening to this debate, you’ll find out if AI corrigibility is a relatively promising effort that might prevent imminent human extinction, or an over-optimistic pipe dream.Timestamps0:00 — Episode Preview1:18 — Debate Kickoff3:22 — What is Corrigibility?9:57 — Why Corrigibility Matters11:41 — What’s Your P(Doom)™16:10 — Max’s Case for Corrigibility19:28 — Jeremy’s Case Against Corrigibility21:57 — Max’s Mainline AI Scenario28:51 — 4 Strategies: Alignment, Control, Corrigibility, Don’t Build It37:00 — Corrigibility vs HHH (”Helpful, Harmless, Honest”)44:43 — Asimov’s 3 Laws of Robotics52:05 — Is Corrigibility a Coherent Concept?1:03:32 — Corrigibility vs Shutdown-ability1:09:59 — CAST: Corrigibility as Singular Target, Near Misses, Iterations1:20:18 — Debating if Max is Over-Optimistic1:34:06 — Debating if Corrigibility is the Best Target1:38:57 — Would Max Work for Anthropic?1:41:26 — Max’s Modest Hopes1:58:00 — Max’s New Book: Red Heart2:16:08 — OutroShow NotesMax’s book Red Heart — https://www.amazon.com/Red-Heart-Max-Harms/dp/108822119XLearn more about CAST: Corrigibility as Singular Target — https://www.lesswrong.com/s/KfCjeconYRdFbMxsy/p/NQK8KHSrZRF5erTbaMax’s Twitter — https://x.com/raelifinJeremy’s Twitter — https://x.com/jeremygillen1---Doom Debates’ Mission is to raise mainstream awareness of imminent extinction from AGI and build the social infrastructure for high-quality debate.Support the mission by subscribing to my Substack at DoomDebates.com and to youtube.com/@DoomDebates, or to really take things to the next level: Donate 🙏 Get full access to Doom Debates at lironshapira.substack.com/subscribe

Holly Elmore leads protests against frontier AI labs, and that work has strained some of her closest relationships in the AI-safety community.She says AI safety insiders care more about their reputation in tech circles than actually lowering AI x-risk. This is our full conversation from my “If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies” unofficial launch party livestream on Sept 16, 2025.Timestamps0:00 Intro1:06 Holly’s Background and The Current Activities of PauseAI US4:41 The Circular Firing Squad Problem of AI Safety7:23 Why the AI Safety Community Resists Public Advocacy11:37 Breaking with Former Allies at AI Labs13:00 LessWrong’s reaction to Eliezer’s public turnShow NotesPauseAI US — https://pauseai-us.orgInternational PauseAI — https://pauseai.infoHolly’s Twitter — https://x.com/ilex_ulmusHolly’s Substack: https://substack.com/@hollyelmoreHolly’s post covering how AI isn’t another “technology”: https://hollyelmore.substack.com/p/the-technology-bucket-errorRelated EpisodesHolly and I dive into the rationalist community’s failure to rally behind a cause: https://lironshapira.substack.com/p/lesswrong-circular-firing-squadThe full IABED livestream: https://lironshapira.substack.com/p/if-anyone-builds-it-everyone-dies-party Get full access to Doom Debates at lironshapira.substack.com/subscribe

Sparks fly in the finale of my series with ex-MIRI researcher Tsvi Benson-Tilsen as we debate his AGI timelines.Tsvi is a champion of using germline engineering to create smarter humans who can solve AI alignment.I support the approach, even though I’m skeptical it’ll gain much traction before AGI arrives.Timestamps0:00 Debate Preview0:57 Tsvi’s AGI Timeline Prediction 3:03 The Least Impressive Task AI Cannot Do In 2 years6:13 Proposed Task: Solve Cantor’s Theorem From Scratch 8:20 AI Has Limitations Related to Sample Complexity 11:41 We Need Clear Goalposts for Better AGI Predictions 13:19 Counterargument: LLMs May Not Be a Path to AGI16:01 Is Tsvi Setting a High Bar for Progress Towards AGI? 19:17 AI Models Are Missing A Spark of Creativity28:17 Liron’s “Black Box” AGI Test 32:09 Are We Going to Enter an AI Winter? 35:09 Who Is Being Overconfident? 42:11 If AI Makes Progress on Benchmarks, Would Tsvi Shorten His Timeline? 50:34 Recap & Tsvi’s ResearchShow NotesLearn more about Tsvi’s organization, the Berkeley Genomics Project — https://berkeleygenomics.orgDoom Debates’ Mission is to raise mainstream awareness of imminent extinction from AGI and build the social infrastructure for high-quality debate.Support the mission by subscribing to my Substack at DoomDebates.com and to youtube.com/@DoomDebates, or to really take things to the next level: Donate 🙏 Get full access to Doom Debates at lironshapira.substack.com/subscribe

Today I’m sharing my AI doom interview on Donal O’Doherty’s podcast.I lay out the case for having a 50% p(doom). Then Donal plays devil’s advocate and tees up every major objection the accelerationists throw at doomers. See if the anti-doom arguments hold up, or if the AI boosters are just serving sophisticated cope.Timestamps0:00 — Introduction & Liron’s Background 1:29 — Liron’s Worldview: 50% Chance of AI Annihilation 4:03 — Rationalists, Effective Altruists, & AI Developers 5:49 — Major Sources of AI Risk 8:25 — The Alignment Problem 10:08 — AGI Timelines 16:37 — Will We Face an Intelligence Explosion? 29:29 — Debunking AI Doom Counterarguments 1:03:16 — Regulation, Policy, and Surviving The Future With AIShow NotesIf you liked this episode, subscribe to the Collective Wisdom Podcast for more deeply researched AI interviews: https://www.youtube.com/@DonalODoherty Transcript Introduction & Liron’s BackgroundDonal O’Doherty 00:00:00Today I’m speaking with Liron Shapira. Liron is an investor, he’s an entrepreneur, he’s a rationalist, and he also has a popular podcast called Doom Debates, where he debates some of the greatest minds from different fields on the potential of AI risk.Liron considers himself a doomer, which means he worries that artificial intelligence, if it gets to superintelligence level, could threaten the integrity of the world and the human species.Donal 00:00:24Enjoy my conversation with Liron Shapira.Donal 00:00:30Liron, welcome. So let’s just begin. Will you tell us a little bit about yourself and your background, please? I will have introduced you, but I just want everyone to know a bit about you.Liron Shapira 00:00:39Hey, I’m Liron Shapira. I’m the host of Doom Debates, which is a YouTube show and podcast where I bring in luminaries on all sides of the AI doom argument.Liron 00:00:49People who think we are doomed, people who think we’re not doomed, and we hash it out. We try to figure out whether we’re doomed. I myself am a longtime AI doomer. I started reading Yudkowsky in 2007, so it’s been 18 years for me being worried about doom from artificial intelligence.My background is I’m a computer science bachelor’s from UC Berkeley.Liron 00:01:10I’ve worked as a software engineer and an entrepreneur. I’ve done a Y Combinator startup, so I love tech. I’m deep in tech. I’m deep in computer science, and I’m deep into believing the AI doom argument.I don’t see how we’re going to survive building superintelligent AI. And so I’m happy to talk to anybody who will listen. So thank you for having me on, Donal.Donal 00:01:27It’s an absolute pleasure.Liron’s Worldview: 50% Chance of AI AnnihilationDonal 00:01:29Okay, so a lot of people where I come from won’t be familiar with doomism or what a doomer is. So will you just talk through, and I’m very interested in this for personal reasons as well, your epistemic and philosophical inspirations here. How did you reach these conclusions?Liron 00:01:45So I often call myself a Yudkowskian, in reference to Eliezer Yudkowsky, because I agree with 95% of what he writes, the Less Wrong corpus. I don’t expect everybody to get up to speed with it because it really takes a thousand hours to absorb it all.I don’t think that it’s essential to spend those thousand hours.Liron 00:02:02I think that it is something that you can get in a soundbite, not a soundbite, but in a one-hour long interview or whatever. So yeah, I think you mentioned epistemic roots or whatever, right? So I am a Bayesian, meaning I think you can put probabilities on things the way prediction markets are doing.Liron 00:02:16You know, they ask, oh, what’s the chance that this war is going to end? Or this war is going to start, right? What’s the chance that this is going to happen in this sports game? And some people will tell you, you can’t reason like that.Whereas prediction markets are like, well, the market says there’s a 70% chance, and what do you know? It happens 70% of the time. So is that what you’re getting at when you talk about my epistemics?Donal 00:02:35Yeah, exactly. Yeah. And I guess I’m very curious as well about, so what Yudkowsky does is he conducts thought experiments. Because obviously some things can’t be tested, we know they might be true, but they can’t be tested in experiments.Donal 00:02:49So I’m just curious about the role of philosophical thought experiments or maybe trans-science approaches, in terms of testing questions that we can’t actually conduct experiments on.Liron 00:03:00Oh, got it. Yeah. I mean this idea of what can and can’t be tested. I mean, tests are nice, but they’re not the only way to do science and to do productive reasoning.Liron 00:03:10There are times when you just have to do your best without a perfect test. You know, a recent example was the James Webb Space Telescope, right? It’s the successor to the Hubble Space Telescope. It worked really well, but it had to get into this really difficult orbit.This very interesting Lagrange point, I think in t

Tsvi Benson-Tilsen spent seven years tackling the alignment problem at the Machine Intelligence Research Institute (MIRI). Now he delivers a sobering verdict: humanity has made “basically 0%” progress towards solving it. Tsvi unpacks foundational MIRI research insights like timeless decision theory and corrigibility, which expose just how little humanity actually knows about controlling superintelligence. These theoretical alignment concepts help us peer into the future, revealing the non-obvious, structural laws of “intellidynamics” that will ultimately determine our fate. Time to learn some of MIRI’s greatest hits.P.S. I also have a separate interview with Tsvi about his research into human augmentation: Watch here!Timestamps 0:00 — Episode Highlights 0:49 — Humanity Has Made 0% Progress on AI Alignment 1:56 — MIRI’s Greatest Hits: Reflective Probability Theory, Logical Uncertainty, Reflective Stability 6:56 — Why Superintelligence is So Hard to Align: Self-Modification 8:54 — AI Will Become a Utility Maximizer (Reflective Stability) 12:26 — The Effect of an “Ontological Crisis” on AI 14:41 — Why Modern AI Will Not Be ‘Aligned By Default’ 18:49 — Debate: Have LLMs Solved the “Ontological Crisis” Problem? 25:56 — MIRI Alignment Greatest Hit: Timeless Decision Theory 35:17 — MIRI Alignment Greatest Hit: Corrigibility 37:53 — No Known Solution for Corrigible and Reflectively Stable Superintelligence39:58 — RecapShow NotesStay tuned for part 3 of my interview with Tsvi where we debate AGI timelines! Learn more about Tsvi’s organization, the Berkeley Genomics Project: https://berkeleygenomics.orgWatch part 1 of my interview with Tsvi: TranscriptEpisode HighlightsTsvi Benson-Tilsen 00:00:00If humans really f*cked up, when we try to reach into the AI and correct it, the AI does not want humans to modify the core aspects of what it values.Liron Shapira 00:00:09This concept is very deep, very important. It’s almost MIRI in a nutshell. I feel like MIRI’s whole research program is noticing: hey, when we run the AI, we’re probably going to get a bunch of generations of thrashing. But that’s probably only after we’re all dead and things didn’t happen the way we wanted. I feel like that is what MIRI is trying to tell the world. Meanwhile, the world is like, “la la la, LLMs, reinforcement learning—it’s all good, it’s working great. Alignment by default.”Tsvi 00:00:34Yeah, that’s certainly how I view it.Humanity Has Made 0% Progress on AI Alignment Liron Shapira 00:00:46All right. I want to move on to talk about your MIRI research. I have a lot of respect for MIRI. A lot of viewers of the show appreciate MIRI’s contributions. I think it has made real major contributions in my opinion—most are on the side of showing how hard the alignment problem is, which is a great contribution. I think it worked to show that. My question for you is: having been at MIRI for seven and a half years, how are we doing on theories of AI alignment?Tsvi Benson-Tilsen 00:01:10I can’t speak with 100% authority because I’m not necessarily up to date on everything and there are lots of researchers and lots of controversy. But from my perspective, we are basically at 0%—at zero percent done figuring it out. Which is somewhat grim. Basically, there’s a bunch of fundamental challenges, and we don’t know how to grapple with these challenges. Furthermore, it’s sort of sociologically difficult to even put our attention towards grappling with those challenges, because they’re weirder problems—more pre-paradigmatic. It’s harder to coordinate multiple people to work on the same thing productively.It’s also harder to get funding for super blue-sky research. And the problems themselves are just slippery.MIRI Alignment Greatest Hits: Reflective Probability Theory, Logical Uncertainty, Reflective Stability Liron 00:01:55Okay, well, you were there for seven years, so how did you try to get us past zero?Tsvi 00:02:00Well, I would sort of vaguely (or coarsely) break up my time working at MIRI into two chunks. The first chunk is research programs that were pre-existing when I started: reflective probability theory and reflective decision theory. Basically, we were trying to understand the mathematical foundations of a mind that is reflecting on itself—thinking about itself and potentially modifying itself, changing itself. We wanted to think about a mind doing that, and then try to get some sort of fulcrum for understanding anything that’s stable about this mind.Something we could say about what this mind is doing and how it makes decisions—like how it decides how to affect the world—and have our description of the mind be stable even as the mind is changing in potentially radical ways.Liron 00:02:46Great. Okay. Let me try to translate some of that for the viewers here. So, MIRI has been the premier organization studying intelligence dynamics, and Eliezer Yudkowsky—especially—people on social media like to dunk on him and say he has no qualifications, he’s not eve

I’m excited to share my recent AI doom interview with Eben Pagan, better known to many by his pen name David DeAngelo!For an entire generation of men, ‘David DeAngelo’ was the authority on dating—and his work transformed my approach to courtship back in the day. Now the roles reverse, as I teach Eben about a very different game, one where the survival of our entire species is at stake.In this interview, we cover the expert consensus on AI extinction, my dead-simple two-question framework for understanding the threat, why there’s no “off switch” for superintelligence, and why we desperately need international coordination before it’s too late.Timestamps0:00 - Episode Preview1:05 - How Liron Got Doom-Pilled2:55 - Why There’s a 50% Chance of Doom by 20504:52 - What AI CEOs Actually Believe8:14 - What “Doom” Actually Means10:02 - The Next Species is Coming12:41 - The Baby Dragon Fallacy14:41 - The 2-Question Framework for AI Extinction18:38 - AI Doesn’t Need to Hate You to Kill You21:05 - “Computronium”: The End Game29:51 - 3 Reasons There’s No Superintelligence “Off Switch”36:22 - Answering ‘What Is Intelligence?”43:24 - We Need Global CoordinationShow NotesEben has become a world-class business trainer and someone who follows the AI discourse closely. I highly recommend subscribing to his podcast for excellent interviews & actionable AI tips: @METAMIND_AI---Doom Debates’ Mission is to raise mainstream awareness of imminent extinction from AGI and build the social infrastructure for high-quality debate.Support the mission by subscribing to my Substack at DoomDebates.com and to youtube.com/@DoomDebates, or to really take things to the next level: Donate 🙏 Get full access to Doom Debates at lironshapira.substack.com/subscribe

Former Machine Intelligence Research Institute (MIRI) researcher Tsvi Benson-Tilsen is championing an audacious path to prevent AI doom: engineering smarter humans to tackle AI alignment.I consider this one of the few genuinely viable alignment solutions, and Tsvi is at the forefront of the effort. After seven years at MIRI, he co-founded the Berkeley Genomics Project to advance the human germline engineering approach.In this episode, Tsvi lays out how to lower P(doom), arguing we must stop AGI development and stigmatize it like gain-of-function virus research. We cover his AGI timelines, the mechanics of genomic intelligence enhancement, and whether super-babies can arrive fast enough to save us.I’ll be releasing my full interview with Tsvi in 3 parts. Stay tuned for part 2 next week!Timestamps0:00 Episode Preview & Introducing Tsvi Benson-Tilsen1:56 What’s Your P(Doom)™4:18 Tsvi’s AGI Timeline Prediction6:16 What’s Missing from Current AI Systems10:05 The State of AI Alignment Research: 0% Progress11:29 The Case for PauseAI 15:16 Debate on Shaming AGI Developers25:37 Why Human Germline Engineering31:37 Enhancing Intelligence: Chromosome Vs. Sperm Vs. Egg Selection37:58 Pushing the Limits: Head Size, Height, Etc.40:05 What About Human Cloning?43:24 The End-to-End Plan for Germline Engineering45:45 Will Germline Engineering Be Fast Enough?48:28 Outro: How to Support Tsvi’s WorkShow NotesTsvi’s organization, the Berkeley Genomics Project — https://berkeleygenomics.orgIf you’re interested to connect with Tsvi about germline engineering, you can reach out to him at [email protected] Debates’ Mission is to raise mainstream awareness of imminent extinction from AGI and build the social infrastructure for high-quality debate.Support the mission by subscribing to my Substack at DoomDebates.com and to youtube.com/@DoomDebates, or to really take things to the next level: Donate 🙏 Get full access to Doom Debates at lironshapira.substack.com/subscribe

Today I'm sharing my interview on Robert Wright's Nonzero Podcast where we unpack Eliezer Yudkowsky's AI doom arguments from his bestselling book, "If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies." Bob is an exceptionally thoughtful interviewer who asks sharp questions and pushes me to defend the Yudkowskian position, leading to a rich exploration of the AI doom perspective. I highly recommend getting a premium subscription to his podcast: 0:00 Episode Preview 2:43 Being a "Stochastic Parrot" for Eliezer Yudkowsky 5:38 Yudkowsky's Book: "If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies" 9:38 AI Has NEVER Been Aligned 12:46 Liron Explains "Intellidynamics" 15:05 Natural Selection Leads to Maladaptive Behaviors — AI Misalignment Foreshadowing 29:02 We Summon AI Without Knowing How to Tame It 32:03 The "First Try" Problem of AI Alignment 37:00 Headroom Above Human Capability 40:37 The PauseAI Movement: The Silent Majority 47:35 Going into Overtime Get full access to Doom Debates at lironshapira.substack.com/subscribe

Today I’m taking a rare break from AI doom to cover the dumbest kind of doom humanity has ever created for itself: climate change. We’re talking about a problem that costs less than $2 billion per year to solve. For context, that’s what the US spent on COVID relief every 7 hours during the pandemic. Bill Gates could literally solve this himself.My guest Andrew Song runs Make Sunsets, which launches weather balloons filled with sulfur dioxide (SO₂) into the stratosphere to reflect sunlight and cool the planet. It’s the same mechanism volcanoes use—Mount Pinatubo cooled Earth by 0.5°C for a year in 1991. The physics is solid, the cost is trivial, and the coordination problem is nonexistent.So why aren’t we doing it? Because people are squeamish about “playing God” with the atmosphere, even while we’re building superintelligent AI. Because environmentalists would rather scold you into turning off your lights than support a solution that actually works.This conversation changed how I think about climate change. I went from viewing it as this intractable coordination problem to realizing it’s basically already solved—we’re just LARPing that it’s hard! 🙈 If you care about orders of magnitude, this episode will blow your mind. And if you feel guilty about your carbon footprint: you can offset an entire year of typical American energy usage for about 15 cents. Yes, cents.Timestamps* 00:00:00 - Introducing Andrew Song, Cofounder of Make Sunsets* 00:03:08 - Why the company is called “Make Sunsets”* 00:06:16 - What’s Your P(Doom)™ From Climate Change* 00:10:24 - Explaining geoengineering and solar radiation management* 00:16:01 - The SO₂ dial we can turn* 00:22:00 - Where to get SO₂ (gas supply stores, sourcing from oil)* 00:28:44 - Cost calculation: Just $1-2 billion per year* 00:34:15 - “If everyone paid $3 per year”* 00:42:38 - Counterarguments: moral hazard, termination shock* 00:44:21 - Being an energy hog is totally fine* 00:52:16 - What motivated Andrew (his kids, Luke Iseman)* 00:59:09 - “The stupidest problem humanity has created”* 01:11:26 - Offsetting CO₂ from OpenAI’s Stargate* 01:13:38 - Playing God is goodShow NotesMake Sunsets* Website: https://makesunsets.com* Tax-deductible donations (US): https://givebutter.com/makesunsetsPeople Mentioned* Casey Handmer: https://caseyhandmer.wordpress.com/* Emmett Shear: https://twitter.com/eshear* Palmer Luckey: https://twitter.com/PalmerLuckeyResources Referenced* Book: Termination Shock by Neal Stephenson* Book: The Rational Optimist by Matt Ridley* Book: Enlightenment Now by Steven Pinker* Harvard SCoPEx project (the Bill Gates-funded project that got blocked)* Climeworks (direct air capture company): https://climeworks.comData/Monitoring* NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration): https://www.noaa.gov* ESA Sentinel-5P TROPOMI satellite data---Doom Debates’ Mission is to raise mainstream awareness of imminent extinction from AGI and build the social infrastructure for high-quality debate.Support the mission by subscribing to my Substack at DoomDebates.com and to youtube.com/@DoomDebates, or to really take things to the next level: Donate 🙏 Get full access to Doom Debates at lironshapira.substack.com/subscribe

I’ve been puzzled by David Deutsch’s AI claims for years. Today I finally had the chance to hash it out: Brett Hall, one of the foremost educators of David Deutsch’s ideas around epistemology & science, was brave enough to debate me!Brett has been immersed in Deutsch’s philosophy since 1997 and teaches it on his Theory of Knowledge podcast, which has been praised by tech luminary Naval Ravikant. He agrees with Deutsch on 99.99% of issues, especially the dismissal of AI as an existential threat.In this debate, I stress-test the Deutschian worldview, and along the way we unpack our diverging views on epistemology, the orthogonality thesis, and pessimism vs optimism.Timestamps0:00 — Debate preview & introducing Brett Hall4:24 — Brett’s opening statement on techno-optimism13:44 — What’s Your P(Doom)?™15:43 — We debate the merits of Bayesian probabilities20:13 — Would Brett sign the AI risk statement?24:44 — Liron declares his “damn good reason” for AI oversight35:54 — Debate milestone: We identify our crux of disagreement!37:29 — Prediction vs prophecy44:28 — The David Deutsch CAPTCHA challenge1:00:41 — What makes humans special?1:15:16 — Reacting to David Deutsch’s recent statements on AGI1:24:04 — Debating what makes humans special1:40:25 — Brett reacts to Roger Penrose’s AI claims1:48:13 — Debating the orthogonality thesis1:56:34 — The powerful AI data center hypothetical2:03:10 — “It is a dumb tool, easily thwarted”2:12:18 — Clash of worldviews: goal-driven vs problem-solving2:25:05 — Ideological Turing test: We summarize each other’s positions2:30:44 — Are doomers just pessimists?Show NotesBrett’s website — https://www.bretthall.orgBrett’s Twitter — https://x.com/TokTeacherThe Deutsch Files by Brett Hall and Naval Ravikant* https://nav.al/deutsch-files-i* https://nav.al/deutsch-files-ii* https://nav.al/deutsch-files-iii* https://nav.al/deutsch-files-ivBooks:* The Fabric of Reality by David Deutsch* The Beginning of Infinity by David Deutsch* Superintelligence by Nick Bostrom* If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies by Eliezer Yudkowsky---Doom Debates’ Mission is to raise mainstream awareness of imminent extinction from AGI and build the social infrastructure for high-quality debate.Support the mission by subscribing to my Substack at DoomDebates.com and to youtube.com/@DoomDebates, or to really take things to the next level: Donate 🙏 Get full access to Doom Debates at lironshapira.substack.com/subscribe

We took Eliezer Yudkowsky and Nate Soares’s new book, If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies, on the streets to see what regular people think.Do people think that artificial intelligence is a serious existential risk? Are they open to considering the argument before it’s too late? Are they hostile to the idea? Are they totally uninterested?Watch this episode to see the full spectrum of reactions from a representative slice of America!---Doom Debates’ Mission is to raise mainstream awareness of imminent extinction from AGI and build the social infrastructure for high-quality debate.Support the mission by subscribing to my Substack at DoomDebates.com and to youtube.com/@DoomDebates, or to really take things to the next level: Donate 🙏 Get full access to Doom Debates at lironshapira.substack.com/subscribe

Welcome to the Doom Debates + Wes Roth + Dylan Curious crossover episode!Wes & Dylan’s host a popular YouTube AI news show that’s better than mainstream media. They interview thought leaders like Prof. Nick Bostrom, Dr. Mike Israetel — and now, yours truly!This episode is Part 2, where Wes & Dylan come on Doom Debates to break down the latest AI news.In Part 1, I went on Wes & Dylan’s channel to talk about my AI doom worries:The only reasonable move is to subscribe to both channels and watch both parts!Timestamps00:00 — Cold open00:45 — Introducing Wes & Dylan & hearing their AI YouTuber origin stories05:38 — What’s Your P(Doom)? ™10:30 — Living with high P(doom)12:10 — AI News Roundup: If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies Reactions17:02 — AI Redlines at the UN & risk of AGI authoritarianism26:56 — Robot ‘violence test’29:20 — Anthropic gets honest about job loss impact32:43 — AGI hunger strikes, the rationale for Anthropic protests41:24 — Liron explains his proposal for a safer future, treaty & enforcement debate49:23 — US Government officials ignore scientists and use “catastrophists” pejorative55:59 — Experts’ p(doom) predictions59:41 — Wes gives his take on AI safety warnings1:02:04 — Wrap-up, Subscribe to Wes Roth and Dylan CuriousShow NotesWes & Dylans’s channel — https://www.youtube.com/wesrothIf Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies by Eliezer Yudkowsky and Nate Soares — https://ifanyonebuildsit.com---Doom Debates’ Mission is to raise mainstream awareness of imminent extinction from AGI and build the social infrastructure for high-quality debate.Support the mission by subscribing to my Substack at DoomDebates.com and to youtube.com/@DoomDebates, or to really take things to the next level: Donate 🙏 Get full access to Doom Debates at lironshapira.substack.com/subscribe

I’m excited to announce the launch of Doom Hut, the official Doom Debates merch store!This isn’t just another merch drop. It’s a way to spread an urgent message that humanity faces an imminent risk from superintelligent AI, and we need to build common knowledge about it now.What We’re OfferingThe Doom Hut is the premiere source of “high P(doom) fashion.” We’ve got t-shirts in men’s and women’s styles, tall tees, tote bags, and hats that keep both the sun and the doom out of your eyes.Our signature items are P(doom) pins. Whether your probability of doom is less than 10%, greater than 25%, or anywhere in between, you can represent your assessment with pride.Our shirts feature “Doom Debates” on the front and “What’s your P(doom)?” on the back. It’s a conversation starter that invites questions rather than putting people on the defensive.Why This MattersThis is crunch time. There’s no more time to beat around the bush or pretend everything’s okay.When you wear this merch, you’re not just making a fashion statement. You’re signaling that P(doom) is uncomfortably high and that we need to stop building dangerous AI before we know how to control it.People will wonder what “Doom Debates” means. They’ll see that you’re bold enough to acknowledge the world faces real threats. Maybe they’ll follow your example. Maybe they’ll start asking questions and learning more.Supporting the MissionThe merch store isn’t really about making money for us (we make about $2 per item sold). The show’s production and marketing costs are funded by donations from viewers like you. Visit doomdebates.com/donate to learn more.Donations to Doom Debates are fully tax-deductible through our fiscal sponsor, Manifund.org. You can also support us by becoming a premium subscriber to DoomDebates.com, which helps boost our Substack rankings and visibility.Join the CommunityJoin our Discord community here! It’s a vibrant space where people debate, share memes, discuss new episodes, and talk about where they “get off the doom train.”Moving Forward TogetherThe outpouring of support since we started accepting donations has been incredible. You get what we’re trying to do here—raising awareness and helping the average person understand that AI risk is an imminent threat to them and their loved ones.This is real. This is urgent. And together, we’re moving the Overton window. Thanks for your support. Get full access to Doom Debates at lironshapira.substack.com/subscribe

Eliezer Yudkowsky can warn humankind that If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies and get on the New York Times bestseller list, but he won’t get upvoted to the top of LessWrong.According to the leaders of LessWrong, that’s intentional. The rationalist community thinks aggregating community support for important claims is “political fighting”.Unfortunately, the idea that some other community will strongly rally behind Eliezer Yudkowsky’s message while LessWrong “stays out of the fray” and purposely prevents mutual knowledge of support from being displayed, is unrealistic.Our refusal to aggregate the rationalist community beliefs into signals and actions is why we live in a world where rationalists with double-digit P(Doom)s join AI-race companies instead of AI-pause movements.We let our community become a circular firing squad. What did we expect?Timestamps00:00:00 — Cold Open00:00:32 — Introducing Holly Elmore, Exec. Director of PauseAI US00:03:12 — “If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies”00:10:07 — What’s Your P(Doom)™00:12:55 — Liron’s Review of IABIED00:15:29 — Encouraging Early Joiners to a Movement00:26:30 — MIRI’s Communication Issues00:33:52 — Government Officials’ Reviews of IABIED00:40:33 — Emmett Shear’s Review of IABIED00:42:47 — Michael Nielsen’s Review of IABIED00:45:35 — New York Times Review of IABIED00:49:56 — Will MacAskill’s Review of IABIED01:11:49 — Clara Collier’s Review of IABIED01:22:17 — Vox Article Review01:28:08 — The Circular Firing Squad01:37:02 — Why Our Kind Can’t Cooperate01:49:56 — LessWrong’s Lukewarm Show of Support02:02:06 — The “Missing Mood” of Support02:16:13 — Liron’s “Statement of Support for IABIED”02:18:49 — LessWrong Community’s Reactions to the Statement02:29:47 — Liron & Holly’s Hopes for the Community02:39:01 — Call to ActionSHOW NOTESPauseAI US — https://pauseai-us.orgPauseAI US Upcoming Events — https://pauseai-us.org/eventsInternational PauseAI — https://pauseai.infoHolly’s Twitter — https://x.com/ilex_ulmusReferenced Essays & Posts* Liron’s Eliezer Yudkowsky interview post on LessWrong — https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/kiNbFKcKoNQKdgTp8/interview-with-eliezer-yudkowsky-on-rationality-and* Liron’s “Statement of Support for If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies” — https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/aPi4HYA9ZtHKo6h8N/statement-of-support-for-if-anyone-builds-it-everyone-dies* “Why Our Kind Can’t Cooperate” by Eliezer Yudkowsky (2009) — https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/7FzD7pNm9X68Gp5ZC/why-our-kind-can-t-cooperate* “Something to Protect” by Eliezer Yudkowsky — https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/SGR4GxFK7KmW7ckCB/something-to-protect* Center for AI Safety Statement on AI Risk — https://safe.ai/work/statement-on-ai-riskOTHER RESOURCES MENTIONED* Stephen Pinker’s new book on mutual knowledge, When Everyone Knows That Everyone Knows... — https://stevenpinker.com/publications/when-everyone-knows-everyone-knows-common-knowledge-and-mysteries-money-power-and* Scott Alexander’s “Ethnic Tension and Meaningless Arguments” — https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/11/04/ethnic-tension-and-meaningless-arguments/PREVIOUS EPISODES REFERENCEDHolly’s previous Doom Debates appearance debating the California SB 1047 bill — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xUP3GywD0yMLiron’s interview with Eliezer Yudkowsky about the IABI launch — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wQtpSQmMNP0---Doom Debates’ Mission is to raise mainstream awareness of imminent extinction from AGI and build the social infrastructure for high-quality debate.Support the mission by subscribing to my Substack at DoomDebates.com and to youtube.com/@DoomDebates, or to really take things to the next level: Donate 🙏 Get full access to Doom Debates at lironshapira.substack.com/subscribe

Ex-Twitch Founder and OpenAI Interim CEO Emmett Shear is one of the rare established tech leaders to lend his name and credibility to Eliezer Yudkowsky’s warnings about AI existential risk.Even though he disagrees on some points, he chose to endorse the new book If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies:“Soares and Yudkowsky lay out, in plain and easy-to-follow terms, why our current path toward ever-more-powerful AIs is extremely dangerous.”In this interview from the IABED launch party, we dive into Emmett’s endorsement, why the current path is so dangerous, and what he hopes to achieve by taking a different approach at his new startup, Softmax.Watch the full IABED livestream here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lRITRf-jH1gWatch my reaction to Emmett’s talk about Softmax to see why I’m not convinced his preferred alignment track is likely to work: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CBN1E1fvh2g Get full access to Doom Debates at lironshapira.substack.com/subscribe

ATTENTION DOOM DEBATES LISTENERS:We interrupt our usual programming to request that you consider supporting the show.Do you want your family, children & friends to continue living life through these next 10-20 years and beyond? Want to experience the good future where we benefit from research advances that make us healthier, happier, wiser, and longer-lived? Want our descendants to continue flourishing for trillions of millennia?I sure as hell do. I’m thrilled and inspired by the grand future within our reach… Sadly, I’m VERY worried that artificial intelligence may soon cause human extinction, leaving the future permanently devoid of the incredible potential value it once had.I want to safeguard humanity’s chance at participating in the expansive future. I want to swerve away from a premature “GAME OVER” ending. That’s why I started Doom Debates.The MissionDoom Debates’s mission is twofold:* Raise awareness of AI existential risk* Raise the quality of discourse that people can engage with and trustThe mission is achieved when the average person realizes AI is life-threatening.Until the average person on Earth sees unaligned, uncontrollable superintelligent AI as life-threatening — that is, an imminent threat to their life and to everything they hold dear — it won’t be feasible for leaders to drive major decisive action to protect us from extinction from superintelligent AI. That’s why raising mainstream awareness of AI x-risk is Doom Debates’s point of highest leverage.Encouragingly, surveys already show that mainstream opinion is already on our side about the level and severity of AI x-risk. What’s missing is urgency. Moving the average person’s opinion from “worried, but in an abstract long-term way” to “alarmed, in an urgent way” creates grassroots demand for drastically better AI policy, and drastically better-informed policymakers.We needed this shift to happen yesterday; it feels late to have to drive it now. But we have no choice.By providing high-quality interviews and debates with mainstream appeal, we’ll make millions of people realize as soon as possible: “Hey, P(doom) is too damn high RIGHT NOW. And we need to do something about it URGENTLY!”One Weird Trick You Can Do To HelpIf you care about the show’s mission, the #1 way you can help right now is by donating some of your hard-earned cash money 🙏.Spending on production & marketing accelerates the show’s growth, which achieves our mission faster (hopefully before it’s too late). Read on for more details.Where Does The Money Go?I don’t make money from Doom Debates. My “real job” is running an online relationship coaching service, and my passion project is making this show. Any income from Doom Debates, i.e. viewer donations and ad revenue, is fully reinvested into production and marketing.* Producer OriThanks to a generous viewer donation, I’ve hired a full-time producer: Ori Nagel.Ori is a rockstar who I’ve known for many years, and he collaborated with me behind the scenes throughout the show’s first year (he’s also in the first episode) before officially joining Doom Debates as our Producer. I hired him away from the media & outreach team at ControlAI, where he 10x’d their growth on social media channels.You may have noticed the show has already started getting better at editing & thumbnails, putting out more episodes and clips, and landing more prominent guests. We’re getting more done across the board because 1 hour of Ori’s time working on everything except hosting the show = same output as 1 hour of my time.But it’s not all smooth sailing — now that Doom Debates is Ori’s full-time job, he apparently needs to “get paid every month” 🤷‍♂️, so I’m appealing to you to help Ori stay on the job. Help us keep delivering faster progress toward the mission.* Paid MarketingThe key to the show’s growth isn’t marketing; it’s the content. To date, we’ve had robust organic growth with minimal marketing spend. Audience size has been doubling every 3 months, and we’re seeing a snowball effect where bigger audiences attract higher-quality guests and vice versa. We’re also happy to see that the show has unusually high engagement and long-term viewer retention.That said, investing in marketing lets us pull forward the same viewership we’d eventually get from organic growth. We’ll soon invest in YouTube ads to go beyond the pace of organic growth. We also keep spending opportunistically on marketing initiatives like sponsoring the Manifest conference and giving away T-shirts.Donation TiersSUBSTACK SUPPORTERSYou can donate as little as $10/month by subscribing to the DoomDebates.com Substack, which shows your support and raises our profile on their leaderboard. I’ll send you a free Doom Debates T-shirt and P(Doom) pin so you can represent the show. Early supporters say the T-shirt is great at starting AI x-risk conversations in a non-confrontational way. 😊MISSION PARTNERSIf you’re serious about lowering P(Doom) and you have the money to spare, $1k+ is the l