AI Safety Expert Roman Yampolskiy WARNS About the TWO Likely Endings with AI

What happens when the technology we build becomes smarter than the people who built it?

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AI safety researcher Roman Yampolskiy argues the real danger isn't AI, it's building a superintelligence we can no longer control. His case: solve problems with narrow, powerful tools instead, and still get breakthroughs in medicine, science, and productivity, without that risk.

The conversation covers AGI, recursive self-improvement, the singularity, and the existential and "suffering" risks they raise, plus what mass automation could mean for work and purpose.

From international AI agreements to human longevity, one question runs through it all: can we get the benefits of advanced AI without losing control of it? Yampolskiy's answer: keep building tools, not our replacement.

Roman Yampolskiy is an AI safety researcher and professor who studies the risks and implications of artificial intelligence. His work focuses on the challenge of controlling increasingly capable AI systems and the potential consequences of superintelligence.

Roman’s book, AI: Unexplainable, Unpredictable, Uncontrollable, explores the various reasons why the field is so challenging.

⏱ Timestamps

00:00 Intro

00:43 Can We Build AI By Design to Avoid Catastrophe?

01:49 AI Superintelligence Is a Death Sentence

03:12 What Is AGI, Really?

04:26 OpenAI's Plan to Build an Internal AGI

04:59 Why Superintelligence Won't Care About Us

06:45 We're Going to Die Anyway... So What?

07:06 We Can't Control Something This Advanced

07:55 The Narrow Tools That Avoid AGI

09:34 The US vs China AI Race

10:47 Does China Actually Want to Stop AGI?

11:53 AGI Is a Spectrum, Not a Switch

12:22 Is Roman Selling the Doom Narrative?

14:13 How to Stop AGI From Escaping the Box

16:26 Building AI We Can't Control

18:05 Suffering Risks: The Worst-Case Scenario

20:09 The Two Types of Jobs

22:09 What Happens to the 90% Who Lose Their Jobs?

23:46 Nothing Makes AI Labs Stop

24:26 Building Something You Can't Control

26:06 Do You Believe in God?

29:28 Longevity Escape Velocity Without AGI

30:55 Is Suffering Necessary for the Human Story?

31:33 Are We Living in a Simulation?

32:12 You Can't Control Superintelligence

33:24 Is Our Life a Simulation?

35:05 Curing Aging With Narrow AI Tools

36:10 What Is an NPC?

36:37 Could Humans Cause Doom Before AI Does?

37:21 How to Break Out of a Simulation

39:14 Would You Live Forever in a Simulation?

40:01 Don't Build Superintelligence

41:50 Bostrom's Singleton Theory

43:17 "AI Is Massively Overhyped"

44:56 Would AI Doom Be Worse Than World War 3?

45:41 Who Should You Actually Be Listening To?

47:43 What Would a Perfect Simulation Look Like?

50:52 Solving Longevity Without AI

52:03 Our Limited Understanding of Human Biology

52:40 What Makes Roman Happy?

53:48 Signs Governments Are Waking Up

55:14 "Is AI Just a Con?"

56:53 Can Squirrels Control Humans?

58:27 Decide What to Do With Your Time

59:22 What About Ilya Sutskever?

01:00:13 The Responsible Use of Technology

01:00:46 If Tomorrow is Your Last Day...

Connect with Roman:

Website: https://www.romanyampolskiy.com/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/roman.yampolskiy/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/romanyam/

X: https://x.com/romanyam

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LinkedIn: https://uk.linkedin.com/in/julian-issa

Website: www.beyondtomorrowpodcast.com

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