#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 and low feedback.

According to Anthropic’s Holden Karnofsky, this situation has now reversed completely.

There are now large amounts of useful, concrete, shovel-ready projects with clear goals and deliverables. Holden thinks people haven’t appreciated the scale of the shift, and wants everyone to see the large range of ‘well-scoped object-level work’ they could personally help with, in both technical and non-technical areas.

Video, full transcript, and links to learn more: https://80k.info/hk25

In today’s interview, Holden — previously cofounder and CEO of Open Philanthropy (now Coefficient Giving) — lists 39 projects he’s excited to see happening, including:

  • Training deceptive AI models to study deception and how to detect it
  • Developing classifiers to block jailbreaking
  • Implementing security measures to stop ‘backdoors’ or ‘secret loyalties’ from being added to models in training
  • Developing policies on model welfare, AI-human relationships, and what instructions to give models
  • Training AIs to work as alignment researchers

And that’s all just stuff he’s happened to observe directly, which is probably only a small fraction of the options available.

Holden makes a case that, for many people, working at an AI company like Anthropic will be the best way to steer AGI in a positive direction. He notes there are “ways that you can reduce AI risk that you can only do if you’re a competitive frontier AI company.” At the same time, he believes external groups have their own advantages and can be equally impactful.

Critics worry that Anthropic’s efforts to stay at that frontier encourage competitive racing towards AGI — significantly or entirely offsetting any useful research they do. Holden thinks this seriously misunderstands the strategic situation we’re in — and explains his case in detail with host Rob Wiblin.

Chapters:

  • Cold open (00:00:00)
  • Holden is back! (00:02:26)
  • An AI Chernobyl we never notice (00:02:56)
  • Is rogue AI takeover easy or hard? (00:07:32)
  • The AGI race isn't a coordination failure (00:17:48)
  • What Holden now does at Anthropic (00:28:04)
  • The case for working at Anthropic (00:30:08)
  • Is Anthropic doing enough? (00:40:45)
  • Can we trust Anthropic, or any AI company? (00:43:40)
  • How can Anthropic compete while paying the “safety tax”? (00:49:14)
  • What, if anything, could prompt Anthropic to halt development of AGI? (00:56:11)
  • Holden's retrospective on responsible scaling policies (00:59:01)
  • Overrated work (01:14:27)
  • Concrete shovel-ready projects Holden is excited about (01:16:37)
  • Great things to do in technical AI safety (01:20:48)
  • Great things to do on AI welfare and AI relationships (01:28:18)
  • Great things to do in biosecurity and pandemic preparedness (01:35:11)
  • How to choose where to work (01:35:57)
  • Overrated AI risk: Cyberattacks (01:41:56)
  • Overrated AI risk: Persuasion (01:51:37)
  • Why AI R&D is the main thing to worry about (01:55:36)
  • The case that AI-enabled R&D wouldn't speed things up much (02:07:15)
  • AI-enabled human power grabs (02:11:10)
  • Main benefits of getting AGI right (02:23:07)
  • The world is handling AGI about as badly as possible (02:29:07)
  • Learning from targeting companies for public criticism in farm animal welfare (02:31:39)
  • Will Anthropic actually make any difference? (02:40:51)
  • “Misaligned” vs “misaligned and power-seeking” (02:55:12)
  • Success without dignity: how we could win despite being stupid (03:00:58)
  • Holden sees less dignity but has more hope (03:08:30)
  • Should we expect misaligned power-seeking by default? (03:15:58)
  • Will reinforcement learning make everything worse? (03:23:45)
  • Should we push for marginal improvements or big paradigm shifts? (03:28:58)
  • Should safety-focused people cluster or spread out? (03:31:35)
  • Is Anthropic vocal enough about strong regulation? (03:35:56)
  • Is Holden biased because of his financial stake in Anthropic? (03:39:26)
  • Have we learned clever governance structures don't work? (03:43:51)
  • Is Holden scared of AI bioweapons? (03:46:12)
  • Holden thinks AI companions are bad news (03:49:47)
  • Are AI companies too hawkish on China? (03:56:39)
  • The frontier of infosec: confidentiality vs integrity (04:00:51)
  • How often does AI work backfire? (04:03:38)
  • Is AI clearly more impactful to work in? (04:18:26)
  • What's the role of earning to give? (04:24:54)

This episode was recorded on July 25 and 28, 2025.

Video editing: Simon Monsour, Luke Monsour, Dominic Armstrong, and Milo McGuire
Audio engineering: Milo McGuire, Simon Monsour, and Dominic Armstrong
Music: CORBIT
Coordination, transcriptions, and web: Katy Moore

Avsnitt(332)

Have we helped you have a bigger social impact? Our annual survey, plus other ways we can help you.

Have we helped you have a bigger social impact? Our annual survey, plus other ways we can help you.

1. Fill out our annual impact survey here. 2. Find a great vacancy on our job board. 3. Learn about our key ideas, and get links to our top articles. 4. Join our newsletter for an email about what's n...

16 Sep 20193min

#63 – Vitalik Buterin on better ways to fund public goods, blockchain's failures, & effective giving

#63 – Vitalik Buterin on better ways to fund public goods, blockchain's failures, & effective giving

Historically, progress in the field of cryptography has had major consequences. It has changed the course of major wars, made it possible to do business on the internet, and enabled private communicat...

3 Sep 20193h 18min

#62 – Paul Christiano on messaging the future, increasing compute, & how CO2 impacts your brain

#62 – Paul Christiano on messaging the future, increasing compute, & how CO2 impacts your brain

Imagine that – one day – humanity dies out. At some point, many millions of years later, intelligent life might well evolve again. Is there any message we could leave that would reliably help them out...

5 Aug 20192h 11min

#61 - Helen Toner on emerging technology, national security, and China

#61 - Helen Toner on emerging technology, national security, and China

From 1870 to 1950, the introduction of electricity transformed life in the US and UK, as people gained access to lighting, radio and a wide range of household appliances for the first time. Electricit...

17 Juli 20191h 54min

#60 - Phil Tetlock on why accurate forecasting matters for everything, and how you can do it better

#60 - Phil Tetlock on why accurate forecasting matters for everything, and how you can do it better

Have you ever been infuriated by a doctor's unwillingness to give you an honest, probabilistic estimate about what to expect? Or a lawyer who won't tell you the chances you'll win your case? Their beh...

28 Juni 20192h 11min

#59 – Cass Sunstein on how change happens, and why it's so often abrupt & unpredictable

#59 – Cass Sunstein on how change happens, and why it's so often abrupt & unpredictable

It can often feel hopeless to be an activist seeking social change on an obscure issue where most people seem opposed or at best indifferent to you. But according to a new book by Professor Cass Sunst...

17 Juni 20191h 43min

#58 – Pushmeet Kohli of DeepMind on designing robust & reliable AI systems and how to succeed in AI

#58 – Pushmeet Kohli of DeepMind on designing robust & reliable AI systems and how to succeed in AI

When you're building a bridge, responsibility for making sure it won't fall over isn't handed over to a few 'bridge not falling down engineers'. Making sure a bridge is safe to use and remains standin...

3 Juni 20191h 30min

Rob Wiblin on human nature, new technology, and living a happy, healthy & ethical life

Rob Wiblin on human nature, new technology, and living a happy, healthy & ethical life

This is a cross-post of some interviews Rob did recently on two other podcasts — Mission Daily (from 2m) and The Good Life (from 1h13m). Some of the content will be familiar to regular listeners — bu...

13 Maj 20192h 18min

Populärt inom Utbildning

rss-bara-en-till-om-missbruk-medberoende-2
historiepodden-se
det-skaver
nu-blir-det-historia
allt-du-velat-veta
johannes-hansen-podcast
harrisons-dramatiska-historia
not-fanny-anymore
roda-vita-rosen
rss-viktmedicinpodden
sektledare
rss-foraldramotet-bring-lagercrantz
alska-oss
i-vantan-pa-katastrofen
sa-in-i-sjalen
rss-max-tant-med-max-villman
rss-om-vi-ska-vara-arliga
rss-sjalsligt-avkladd
rss-basta-livet
sex-pa-riktigt-med-marika-smith