Eliezer Yudkowsky Tried to “Coup the World”?! — Garrison Lovely, Author of OBSOLETE

Garrison Lovely is an award-winning journalist and author of the highly anticipated book, Obsolete: The AI Industry’s Trillion-Dollar Race to Replace Us and How to Stop It. I give it the Doom Debates stamp of approval! While we’re mostly on the same page about the AI arms race, Garrison and I clash over Eliezer Yudkowsky’s role. He blames Eliezer for kicking off the superintelligence race and refers to his Coherent Extrapolated Volition (CEV) vision as a “coup on humanity.” But I say it was actually Yud’s attempt to keep humanity in charge. Can Garrison change my mind? Watch on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VZ94J4DBRkw Timestamps 00:00:00 — Cold Open 00:01:05 — Introducing Garrison Lovely 00:04:23 — “Freeze AI” vs. “Pause AI” 00:06:17 — Garrison’s Background at McKinsey 00:10:31 — Should ICE Be Abolished? 00:17:07 — How Garrison Got on the AI Beat 00:22:16 — What’s Your P(Doom)?™ 00:23:29 — Focusing on Extinction Is a Distraction 00:25:46 — Is Stopping AI an Easy Coordination Problem? 00:29:02 — Society’s Immune Response to AI 00:33:54 — Garrison’s P(Extinction) by 2050 00:37:09 — Did Eliezer Yudkowsky Start the AI Race? 00:45:56 — Freeze AGI Until the Public Opts In 00:50:32 — Is Coherent Extrapolated Volition a Coup? 01:02:17 — Democracy, Informed Consent, and the Singularity 01:11:39 — Should Eliezer Have Raised the Alarm Sooner? 01:16:45 — “Classic” AI Safety Burned Its Credibility 01:19:18 — Garrison’s Proposal to Stop the Race 01:21:35 — Will China Agree to a Freeze? 01:25:14 — Let’s Stop the “Obsoleting Project” 01:26:00 — Wrap-Up Links GARRISON LOVELY “Obsolete: The AI Industry’s Trillion-Dollar Race to Replace Us—and How to Stop It” — Garrison’s book Obsolete — Garrison’s Substack Garrison Lovely on X Organize Against the Machine — Garrison’s new podcast with labor organizer Cassie Pritchard “Can Humanity Survive AI?” — Garrison’s Jacobin cover story “McKinsey & Company: Capital’s Willing Executioners” — Garrison’s Current Affairs essay REFERENCED IN THE EPISODE Open Borders: The Science and Ethics of Immigration — Bryan Caplan “The AI Revolution: Our Immortality or Extinction” — Wait But Why Superintelligence: Paths, Dangers, Strategies — Nick Bostrom “AI 2040: Plan A” — AI Futures Project “An easy coordination problem?” — Katja Grace The Hugging Face incident and the road ahead — OpenAI “Pause AI for Humanity’s Sake” — Peggy Noonan “Pause AI Development NOW” — Bernie Sanders If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies — Eliezer Yudkowsky & Nate Soares “Staring into the Singularity” — Yudkowsky’s 1996 manifesto (archived) “Coherent Extrapolated Volition” — Eliezer Yudkowsky, 2004 (PDF) “Coherent Extrapolated Volition: A Meta-Level Approach to Machine Ethics” — Nick Tarleton, 2010 (PDF) Solomonoff induction — Wikipedia “Personal statement on joining the OpenAI board” — Paul Christiano (4% over the next year) “Darwin among the Machines” — Samuel Butler, 1863 PauseAI PAST DOOM DEBATES EPISODES MENTIONED Are We A Circular Firing Squad? — with Holly Elmore, Executive Director of PauseAI US Debate with Robert Wright: Will Humanity Pass the “God Test”? Robin Hanson vs. Liron Shapira: Is Near-Term Extinction From AGI Plausible? --- Doom Debates’ Mission is to raise mainstream awareness of imminent extinction from AGI and build the social infrastructure for high-quality debate. Support the mission by subscribing to my Substack at DoomDebates.com and to youtube.com/@DoomDebates, or to really take things to the next level: Donate 🙏 Get full access to Doom Debates at lironshapira.substack.com/subscribe