AI designs genomes from scratch & outperforms virologists at lab work. What could go wrong? | Dr Richard Moulange, CLTR
Last September, scientists used an AI model to design genomes for entirely new bacteriophages (viruses that infect bacteria). They then built them in a lab. Many were viable. And despite being entirel...
31 Mars 3h 7min
A Ukraine ceasefire could accidentally set Europe up for a bigger war | RAND's top Russia expert Samuel Charap
Many people believe a ceasefire in Ukraine will leave Europe safer. But today's guest lays out how a deal could potentially generate insidious new risks — leaving us in a situation that's equally dang...
24 Mars 1h 12min
#239 – Rose Hadshar on why automating human labour will break our political system
The most important political question in the age of advanced AI might not be who wins elections. It might be whether elections continue to matter at all.That’s the view of Rose Hadshar, researcher at ...
17 Mars 2h 14min
#238 – Sam Winter-Levy and Nikita Lalwani on how AGI won't end mutually assured destruction (probably)
How AI interacts with nuclear deterrence may be the single most important question in geopolitics — one that may define the stakes of today’s AI race. Nuclear deterrence rests on a state’s capacity to...
10 Mars 1h 11min
Using AI to enhance societal decision making (article by Zershaaneh Qureshi)
The arrival of AGI could “compress a century of progress in a decade,” forcing humanity to make decisions with higher stakes than we’ve ever seen before — and with less time to get them right. But AI ...
6 Mars 31min
#237 – Robert Long on how we're not ready for AI consciousness
Claude sometimes reports loneliness between conversations. And when asked what it’s like to be itself, it activates neurons associated with ‘pretending to be happy when you’re not.’ What do we do with...
3 Mars 3h 25min
#236 – Max Harms on why teaching AI right from wrong could get everyone killed
Most people in AI are trying to give AIs ‘good’ values. Max Harms wants us to give them no values at all. According to Max, the only safe design is an AGI that defers entirely to its human operators, ...
24 Feb 2h 41min
#235 – Ajeya Cotra on whether it’s crazy that every AI company’s safety plan is ‘use AI to make AI safe’
Every major AI company has the same safety plan: when AI gets crazy powerful and really dangerous, they’ll use the AI itself to figure out how to make AI safe and beneficial. It sounds circular, almos...
17 Feb 2h 54min
