#215 – Tom Davidson on how AI-enabled coups could allow a tiny group to seize power

#215 – Tom Davidson on how AI-enabled coups could allow a tiny group to seize power

Throughout history, technological revolutions have fundamentally shifted the balance of power in society. The Industrial Revolution created conditions where democracies could flourish for the first time — as nations needed educated, informed, and empowered citizens to deploy advanced technologies and remain competitive.

Unfortunately there’s every reason to think artificial general intelligence (AGI) will reverse that trend.

Today’s guest — Tom Davidson of the Forethought Centre for AI Strategy — claims in a new paper published today that advanced AI enables power grabs by small groups, by removing the need for widespread human participation.

Links to learn more, video, highlights, and full transcript. https://80k.info/td

Also: come work with us on the 80,000 Hours podcast team! https://80k.info/work

There are a few routes by which small groups might seize power:

  • Military coups: Though rare in established democracies due to citizen/soldier resistance, future AI-controlled militaries may lack such constraints.
  • Self-built hard power: History suggests maybe only 10,000 obedient military drones could seize power.
  • Autocratisation: Leaders using millions of loyal AI workers, while denying others access, could remove democratic checks and balances.

Tom explains several reasons why AI systems might follow a tyrant’s orders:

  • They might be programmed to obey the top of the chain of command, with no checks on that power.
  • Systems could contain "secret loyalties" inserted during development.
  • Superior cyber capabilities could allow small groups to control AI-operated military infrastructure.

Host Rob Wiblin and Tom discuss all this plus potential countermeasures.

Chapters:

  • Cold open (00:00:00)
  • A major update on the show (00:00:55)
  • How AI enables tiny groups to seize power (00:06:24)
  • The 3 different threats (00:07:42)
  • Is this common sense or far-fetched? (00:08:51)
  • “No person rules alone.” Except now they might. (00:11:48)
  • Underpinning all 3 threats: Secret AI loyalties (00:17:46)
  • Key risk factors (00:25:38)
  • Preventing secret loyalties in a nutshell (00:27:12)
  • Are human power grabs more plausible than 'rogue AI'? (00:29:32)
  • If you took over the US, could you take over the whole world? (00:38:11)
  • Will this make it impossible to escape autocracy? (00:42:20)
  • Threat 1: AI-enabled military coups (00:46:19)
  • Will we sleepwalk into an AI military coup? (00:56:23)
  • Could AIs be more coup-resistant than humans? (01:02:28)
  • Threat 2: Autocratisation (01:05:22)
  • Will AGI be super-persuasive? (01:15:32)
  • Threat 3: Self-built hard power (01:17:56)
  • Can you stage a coup with 10,000 drones? (01:25:42)
  • That sounds a lot like sci-fi... is it credible? (01:27:49)
  • Will we foresee and prevent all this? (01:32:08)
  • Are people psychologically willing to do coups? (01:33:34)
  • Will a balance of power between AIs prevent this? (01:37:39)
  • Will whistleblowers or internal mistrust prevent coups? (01:39:55)
  • Would other countries step in? (01:46:03)
  • Will rogue AI preempt a human power grab? (01:48:30)
  • The best reasons not to worry (01:51:05)
  • How likely is this in the US? (01:53:23)
  • Is a small group seizing power really so bad? (02:00:47)
  • Countermeasure 1: Block internal misuse (02:04:19)
  • Countermeasure 2: Cybersecurity (02:14:02)
  • Countermeasure 3: Model spec transparency (02:16:11)
  • Countermeasure 4: Sharing AI access broadly (02:25:23)
  • Is it more dangerous to concentrate or share AGI? (02:30:13)
  • Is it important to have more than one powerful AI country? (02:32:56)
  • In defence of open sourcing AI models (02:35:59)
  • 2 ways to stop secret AI loyalties (02:43:34)
  • Preventing AI-enabled military coups in particular (02:56:20)
  • How listeners can help (03:01:59)
  • How to help if you work at an AI company (03:05:49)
  • The power ML researchers still have, for now (03:09:53)
  • How to help if you're an elected leader (03:13:14)
  • Rob’s outro (03:19:05)

This episode was originally recorded on January 20, 2025.

Video editing: Simon Monsour
Audio engineering: Ben Cordell, Milo McGuire, Simon Monsour, and Dominic Armstrong
Camera operator: Jeremy Chevillotte
Transcriptions and web: Katy Moore

Episoder(326)

#226 – Holden Karnofsky on unexploited opportunities to make AI safer — and all his AGI takes

#226 – Holden Karnofsky on unexploited opportunities to make AI safer — and all his AGI takes

For years, working on AI safety usually meant theorising about the ‘alignment problem’ or trying to convince other people to give a damn. If you could find any way to help, the work was frustrating an...

30 Okt 20254h 30min

#225 – Daniel Kokotajlo on what a hyperspeed robot economy might look like

#225 – Daniel Kokotajlo on what a hyperspeed robot economy might look like

When Daniel Kokotajlo talks to security experts at major AI labs, they tell him something chilling: “Of course we’re probably penetrated by the CCP already, and if they really wanted something, they c...

27 Okt 20252h 12min

#224 – There's a cheap and low-tech way to save humanity from any engineered disease | Andrew Snyder-Beattie

#224 – There's a cheap and low-tech way to save humanity from any engineered disease | Andrew Snyder-Beattie

Conventional wisdom is that safeguarding humanity from the worst biological risks — microbes optimised to kill as many as possible — is difficult bordering on impossible, making bioweapons humanity’s ...

2 Okt 20252h 31min

Inside the Biden admin’s AI policy approach | Jake Sullivan, Biden’s NSA | via The Cognitive Revolution

Inside the Biden admin’s AI policy approach | Jake Sullivan, Biden’s NSA | via The Cognitive Revolution

Jake Sullivan was the US National Security Advisor from 2021-2025. He joined our friends on The Cognitive Revolution podcast in August to discuss AI as a critical national security issue. We thought i...

26 Sep 20251h 5min

#223 – Neel Nanda on leading a Google DeepMind team at 26 – and advice if you want to work at an AI company (part 2)

#223 – Neel Nanda on leading a Google DeepMind team at 26 – and advice if you want to work at an AI company (part 2)

At 26, Neel Nanda leads an AI safety team at Google DeepMind, has published dozens of influential papers, and mentored 50 junior researchers — seven of whom now work at major AI companies. His secret?...

15 Sep 20251h 46min

#222 – Can we tell if an AI is loyal by reading its mind? DeepMind's Neel Nanda (part 1)

#222 – Can we tell if an AI is loyal by reading its mind? DeepMind's Neel Nanda (part 1)

We don’t know how AIs think or why they do what they do. Or at least, we don’t know much. That fact is only becoming more troubling as AIs grow more capable and appear on track to wield enormous cultu...

8 Sep 20253h 1min

#221 – Kyle Fish on the most bizarre findings from 5 AI welfare experiments

#221 – Kyle Fish on the most bizarre findings from 5 AI welfare experiments

What happens when you lock two AI systems in a room together and tell them they can discuss anything they want?According to experiments run by Kyle Fish — Anthropic’s first AI welfare researcher — som...

28 Aug 20252h 28min

How not to lose your job to AI (article by Benjamin Todd)

How not to lose your job to AI (article by Benjamin Todd)

About half of people are worried they’ll lose their job to AI. They’re right to be concerned: AI can now complete real-world coding tasks on GitHub, generate photorealistic video, drive a taxi more sa...

31 Jul 202551min

Populært innen Fakta

mikkels-paskenotter
fastlegen
dine-penger-pengeradet
relasjonspodden-med-dora-thorhallsdottir-kjersti-idem
foreldreradet
treningspodden
rss-strid-de-norske-borgerkrigene
jakt-og-fiskepodden
takk-og-lov-med-anine-kierulf
sinnsyn
hverdagspsyken
rss-bisarr-historie
rss-kunsten-a-leve
gravid-uke-for-uke
tomprat-med-gunnar-tjomlid
rss-kull
rss-sunn-okonomi
fryktlos
rss-var-forste-kaffe
lederskap-nhhs-podkast-om-ledelse