#242 – Will MacAskill on how we survive the 'intelligence explosion,' AI character, and the case for 'viatopia'

Hundreds of millions already turn to AI on the most personal of topics — therapy, political opinions, and how to treat others. And as AI takes over more of the economy, the character of these systems will shape culture on an even grander scale, ultimately becoming “the personality of most of the world’s workforce.”

So… should they be designed to push us towards the better angels of our nature? Or simply do as we ask? Will MacAskill, philosopher and senior research fellow at Forethought, has been thinking through that and the other thorniest issues that come up in designing an AI personality.

---

Our new book is "a ridiculously in-depth guide to finding a fulfilling career that does good" and is out now! Order from your local bookstore, or online at https://80k.info/career-guide

---

He’s also been exploring how we might coexist peacefully with the ‘superintelligent AI’ companies are racing to build. He concludes that we should train such systems to be very risk averse, pay them for their work, and build institutions that enable humans to make credible contracts with AIs themselves.

Will and host Rob Wiblin also discuss what a good world after superintelligence would actually look like — a subject that has received surprisingly little attention from the people working to make it. Will argues that we shouldn’t aim for a specific utopian vision: we don’t know enough about what the best possible future actually is to aim directly for it, and trying to lock in today’s best guesses forever risks baking in errors we can’t yet see.

Will and Rob explore what we can do to steer towards a good future instead, along with why a coalition of democracies building superintelligence together is safer than any single actor, how absurdly useful ChatGPT is for analytic philosophy, and more.

Learn more, video, and full transcript: https://80k.info/wm26

This episode was recorded on February 6, 2026.

Chapters:

Cold open (00:00:00)
Will MacAskill is back — for a 6th time! (00:00:29)
AIs’ “characters” could be vital to securing a good future (00:00:59)
The panic over sychophancy is justified (00:08:11)
How opinionated should AI be about ethics? (00:13:24)
Commercial pressures won’t fully determine AI character (00:30:54)
Risk-averse AI would rather strike a deal than attempt a coup (00:38:13)
A coalition of democracies building superintelligence is safer than one doing it alone (01:09:26)
How selfish agents could fund the common good (01:22:19)
Why not push for pausing AI development? (01:42:17)
Effective altruism is making a comeback post-SBF (01:52:19)
EA in the age of AGI (02:00:28)
Viatopia: an alternative to utopia (02:09:30)
The least bad alternative to total utilitarianism? (02:39:35)
How AI could kickstart a golden age of philosophy (03:03:35)

Video and audio editing: Dominic Armstrong, Milo McGuire, Luke Monsour, and Simon Monsour
Music: CORBIT
Camera operator: Alex Miles
Production: Elizabeth Cox, Nick Stockton, and Katy Moore

Tämä jakso on lisätty Podme-palveluun avoimen RSS-syötteen kautta eikä se ole Podmen omaa tuotantoa. Siksi jakso saattaa sisältää mainontaa.

Jaksot(346)

Where AGI timelines go wrong | Toby Ord, Oxford University

Both Silicon Valley and the public can’t get enough of ‘AGI timelines.’ But Toby Ord, senior researcher at Oxford’s AI Governance Initiative and author of The Precipice, believes we consistently make ...

6 Elo 2h 46min

What the hell happened with AGI timelines in 2026? – Rob Wiblin

Last October, famed coder Andrej Karpathy called AI agents “slop.” Two months later he completely reversed his view, describing them as “alien tools” that are “rocking the profession.”He was far from ...

4 Elo 49min

#249 – Spencer Greenberg on staying sane while trying to save the world

If you genuinely believe that humanity could be wiped out by AI or a pandemic, what is the appropriate amount of fear to feel?“As much as possible” can seem like the only reasonable answer. If the wor...

28 Heinä 2h 9min

#248 – Jasmine Sun on what the people building AI really believe

Many AI researchers believe mass job displacement is coming — and some even think there’s a chance their technology will kill everyone. But they’re building it anyway. Writer and journalist Jasmine Su...

21 Heinä 1h 6min

#247 – Anton Leicht on how middle powers avoid losing everything in a post-AI world

In a post-AGI world, can a country without access to frontier AI even be considered sovereign anymore?Anton Leicht says once frontier AI becomes a core economic input, the countries that own it will p...

14 Heinä 1h 33min

#246 – Sneha Revanur on how a small team of activists helped pass America's landmark AI safety laws

Six years ago, aged just 15, Sneha Revanur founded the AI advocacy nonprofit Encode AI — back when AI felt like a niche issue. Now the world’s caught up with her, and she’s ready to share everything s...

8 Heinä 52min

We can guess what intergalactic war would look like. And strangely, it matters.

Intergalactic war is probably billions of years away — yet physics can already tell us how it ends. And strangely that conclusion is relevant to decisions people have to make today.In this video, Rob ...

18 Kesä 15min

How AI could create the world’s biggest problems (article by Zershaaneh Qureshi)

Imagine you’re living 15,000 years ago. Your people are hunter-gatherers and you sleep under the stars. If someone told you humans would one day build cities with millions of people, fly through the a...

11 Kesä 1h 29min