Dr. Claire Berlinski is a journalist, Oxford PhD, and author of The Cosmopolitan Globalist.

She invited me to her weekly symposium to make the case for AI as an existential risk.

Can we convince her sharp, skeptical audience that P(Doom) is high?

Subscribe to The Cosmopolitan Globalist: https://claireberlinski.substack.com/

Follow Claire on X: https://x.com/ClaireBerlinski

“If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies” by Eliezer Yudkowsky & Nate Soares — https://ifanyonebuildsit.com

Timestamps

00:00:00 — Introduction

00:02:10 — Welcome and Setting the Stage

00:06:16 — Outcome Steering: The Magic of Intelligence

00:10:40 — Collective Intelligence and the Path to ASI

00:12:53 — The Five-Point Argument

00:14:56 — The Alignment Problem and Control

00:17:56 — The Genie Problem and Recursive Self-Improvement

00:20:38 — Timeline: Five Years or Fifty?

00:26:14 — Social Revolution and Pausing AI

00:28:54 — Energy Constraints and Resource Limits

00:31:23 — Morality, Empathy, and Superintelligence

00:37:45 — How AI Is Actually Built

00:38:31 — Computational Irreducibility and Co-Evolution

00:44:57 — Foom and the Discontinuity Question

00:46:44 — US-China Rivalry and the Arms Race

00:49:36 — The Co-Evolution Argument

00:55:36 — Alignment as Psychoanalysis

00:57:24 — Anthropic’s “Harmless Slop” Paper

01:00:33 — Policy Solutions: The Pause Button

01:04:47 — Military AI and the Singularity

01:07:10 — Cognitive Obstacles and Doom Fatigue

01:09:07 — Why People Don’t Act

01:13:00 — Reaching Representatives and Building a Platform

01:17:12 — Sam Altman and the Manhattan Project Parallel

01:19:14 — Community Building and Pause AI

01:22:07 — Call to Action and Closing

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 🙏

Fan favorite Dr. Steven Byrnes returns to discuss recent AI progress and the concerning paradigm shift to "ruthless sociopath AI" he sees on the horizon.

Steven Byrnes, UC Berkeley physics PhD and Harvard physics postdoc, is an AI safety researcher at the Astera Institute and one of the most rigorous thinkers working on the technical AI alignment problem.

Timestamps

00:00:00 — Cold Open

00:00:48 — Welcoming Back the Returning Champion

00:02:38 — Research Update: What's New in The Last 6 Months

00:04:31 — The Rise of AI Agents

00:07:49 — What's Your P(Doom)?™

00:13:42 — "Brain-Like AGI": The Next Generation of AI

00:17:01 — Can LLMs Ever Match the Human Brain?

00:31:51 — Will AI Kill Us Before It Takes Our Jobs?

00:36:12 — Country of Geniuses in a Data Center

00:41:34 — Why We Should Expect "Ruthless Sociopathic" ASI

00:54:15 — Post-Training & RLVR — A "Thin Layer" of Real Intelligence

01:02:32 — Consequentialism and the Path to Superintelligence

01:17:02 — Airplanes vs. Rockets: An Analogy for AI

01:24:33 — FOOM and Recursive Self-Improvement

Links

Steven Byrnes’ Website & Research— https://sjbyrnes.com/

Steve’s X—https://x.com/steve47285

Astera Institute—https://astera.org/

“Why We Should Expect Ruthless Sociopath ASI” — https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/ZJZZEuPFKeEdkrRyf/why-we-should-expect-ruthless-sociopath-asi

Intro to Brain-Like-AGI Safety—https://www.alignmentforum.org/s/HzcM2dkCq7fwXBej8

Steve on LessWrong—https://www.lesswrong.com/users/steve2152

AI 2027 — Scenario Timeline — https://ai-2027.com/

Part 1: “The Man Who Might SOLVE AI Alignment”—

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ZRUq3VEAc0

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 🙏

Multiple live callers join this month's Q&A as we cover the imminent demise of programming as a profession, the Anthropic/Pentagon showdown, and debate the finer details of wireheading.

I clarify my recent AI doom belief updates, and then the man behind Roko's Basilisk crashes the stream to argue I haven't updated nearly far enough.

Timestamps

00:00:00 — Cold Open

00:00:56 — Welcome to the Livestream & Taking Questions from Chat

00:12:44 — Anonymous Caller Asks If Rationalists Should Prioritize Attention-Grabbing Protests

00:18:30 — The Good Case Scenario

00:26:00 — Hugh Chungus Joins the Stream

00:30:54 — Producer Ori, Liron's Recent Alignment Updates

00:43:47 — We're In an Era of Centaurs

00:47:40 — Noah Smith's Updates on AGI and Alignment

00:48:44 — Co Co Chats Cybersecurity

00:57:32 — The Attacker's Advantage in Offense/Defense Balance

01:02:55 — Anthropic vs The Pentagon

01:06:20 — "We're Getting Frog Boiled"

01:11:06 — Stoner AI & Debating the Finer Points of Wireheading

01:25:00 — A Caller Backs the Penrose Argument

01:34:01 — Greyson Dials In

01:40:21 — Surprise Guest Joins & Says Alignment Isn't a Problem

02:05:15 — More Q&A with Chat

02:14:26 — Closing Thoughts

Links

* Liron on X — https://x.com/liron

* AI 2027 — https://ai-2027.com/

* “Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die” (film) — https://www.imdb.com/title/tt38301748/

* “The AI Doc” (film) — https://www.focusfeatures.com/the-ai-doc-or-how-i-became-an-apocaloptimist

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 🙏

Professor Moshe Vardi thinks AI will kill us with kindness by automating away our jobs. I think they'll just kill us for real.

Who’s right? Tune into this episode and decide where you get off the Doom Train™.

Some highlights of Professor Vardi’s impressive CV:

* University Professor at Rice — a rare distinction that lets him teach in any department.

* 65,000+ citations, an H-index above 100, and nearly 50 years spent mechanizing reasoning, which makes him one of the most decorated computer scientists alive.

* He ran the ACM’s flagship publication for a decade, and now bridges CS and policy at Rice’s Baker Institute.

* He has been sounding the alarm on AI-driven job automation for over ten years.

* He signed the 2023 AI extinction risk statement, and calls himself “part of the resistance.”

Links

* Moshe Vardi’s Wikipedia — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moshe_Vardi

* Moshe Vardi, Rice University — https://profiles.rice.edu/faculty/moshe-y-vardi

* Baker Institute for Public Policy — https://www.bakerinstitute.org/

* Nick Bostrom, Deep Utopia: Life and Meaning in a Solved World — https://www.amazon.com/Deep-Utopia-Life-Meaning-Solved/dp/1646871642

* Joseph Aoun, Robot-Proof: Higher Education in the Age of Artificial Intelligence — https://www.amazon.com/Robot-Proof-Higher-Education-Artificial-Intelligence/dp/0262535971

Timestamps

00:00:00 — Cold Open

00:00:54 — Introducing Professor Vardi

00:02:01 — Professor Vardi’s Academic Focus: CS, AI, & Public Policy

00:07:18 — What’s Your P(Doom)™?

00:12:28 — We’re Not Doomed, “We’re Screwed”

00:16:44 — AI’s Impact on Meaning & Purpose

00:27:47 — Let’s Ride the Doom Train ™

00:35:43 — The Future of Jobs

00:39:24 — A Country of Geniuses in a Data Center

00:41:04 — Corporations as Superintelligence

00:45:49 — Agency, Consciousness, and the Limits of AI

00:50:07 — The Mad Scientist Scenario

00:54:02 — Could a Data Center of Geniuses Destroy Humanity?

01:03:13 — The WALL-E Meme and Fun Theory

01:04:01 — Why Professor Vardi Signed the AI Extinction Risk Statement

01:06:02 — Wrap-Up + 1 Way Ticket to Doom

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 🙏

Fresh off my debate with Destiny, his Discord community invited me into their voice chat to talk about AI doom. Just like the man himself, his fans are sharp.

Let's find out where they get off The Doom Train™.

My recent debate with Destiny — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rNgffLZTeWw

Timestamps

00:00:00 — Cold Open

00:00:54 — Liron Joins Destiny’s Discord

00:02:21 — The AI Doom Premise

00:03:27 — Defining Intelligence and Is An LLM Really AI?

00:07:12 — Will AI Become Uncontrollable?

00:12:44 — The AI Alignment Problem

00:24:11 — The Difficulty of Pausing AI

00:26:01 — AI vs The Human Brain

00:32:41 — Future AI Capabilities, Steering Toward Goals, & Philosophical Disagreements

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 🙏

Renowned scientists just set The Doomsday Clock closer than ever to midnight.

I agree our collective doom seems imminent, but why do the clocksetters point to climate change—not rogue AI—as an existential threat?

UChicago Professor Daniel Holz, a top physicist who sets the Doomsday Clock, joins me to debate society’s top existential risks.

00:00:00 — Cold Open 

00:00:51 — Introducing Professor Holz

00:02:08 — The Doomsday Clock is at 85 Seconds to Midnight! 

00:04:37 — What's Your P(Doom)?™ 

00:08:09 — Making A Probability of Doomsday, or P(Doom), Equation 

00:12:07 — How We All Die: Nuclear vs Climate vs AI 

00:21:08 — Nuclear Close Calls from The Cold War 

00:28:38 — History of The Doomsday Clock 

00:30:18 — The Threat of Biological Risks Like Mirror Life 

00:33:40 — Professor Holz’s Position on AI Misalignment Risk 

00:44:49 — Does The Doomsday Clock Give Short Shrift to AI Misalignment Risk? 

00:59:09 — Why Professor Holz Founded UChicago’s Existential Risk Laboratory (XLab) 

01:06:22 — The State of Academic Research on AI Safety & Existential Risks 

01:12:32 — The Case for Pausing AI Development 

01:17:11 — Debate: Is Climate Change an Existential Threat? 

01:28:48 — Call to Action: How to Reduce Our Collective Threat

Links

Professor Daniel Holz’s Wikipedia — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Holz

XLab (Existential Risk Laboratory) — https://xrisk.uchicago.edu/

2026 Doomsday Clock Statement — https://thebulletin.org/doomsday-clock/2026-statement/

The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists (Nonprofit that produces the clock)— https://thebulletin.org/

UChicago Magazine features Prof. Holz’s class — “Are We Doomed?”: https://mag.uchicago.edu/science-medicine/are-we-doomed

The Doomsday Machine by Daniel Ellsberg — https://www.amazon.com/Doomsday-Machine-Confessions-Nuclear-Planner/dp/1608196704

If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies by Eliezer Yudkowsky & Nate Soares — https://www.amazon.com/Anyone-Builds-Everyone-Dies-Superhuman/dp/0316595640

Learn more about pausing frontier AI development from PauseAI — https://pauseai.info

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 🙏

Liron was invited to give a presentation to some of the most promising creators in AI safety communications.

Get a behind-the-scenes look at Doom Debates and how the channel has grown so quickly.

Learn more about the Frame Fellowship: https://framefellowship.com/

Timestamps

00:00:00 — Liron tees up the presentation

00:02:28 — Liron’s Frame Fellowhip Presentation

00:06:03 — Introducing Doom Debates

00:07:44 — Meeting the Frame Fellows

00:19:38 — Why I Started Doom Debates

00:30:20 — Handling Hate and Criticism

00:31:56 — The Talent Stack

00:39:34 — Finding Your Unique Niche

00:40:58 — Q&A

00:42:04 — On Funding the Show

00:48:05 — Audience Demographics & Gender Strategy

00:51:17 — How to communicate AI Risk Effectively

00:56:22 — Social Media Strategy

00:58:10 — Closing Remarks

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 🙏

Destiny has racked up millions of views for his sharp takes on political and cultural news. Now, I finally get to ask him about a topic he’s been agnostic on: Will AI end humanity?

Come ride with us on the Doom Train™ 🚂

Timestamps

00:00:00 — Teaser

00:01:16 — Welcoming Destiny

00:02:54 — What’s Your P(Doom)?™

00:04:46 — 2017 vs 2026: Destiny’s views on AI

00:11:04 — AI could vastly surpass human intelligence

00:16:02 — Can AI doom us?

00:18:42 — Intelligence doesn’t guarantee morality

00:22:18 — The vibes-based case against doom

00:29:58 — The human brain is inefficient

00:35:17 — Does every intelligence in the universe self-destruct via AI?

00:37:28 — Destiny turns the tables: Where does Liron get off The Doom Train™

00:46:07 — Will a warning shot cause society to develop AI safely?

00:54:10 — Roko’s Basilisk, the AI box problem

00:59:37 — Will Destiny update his P(Doom)?™

01:04:19 — Closing thoughts

Links

Destiny's YouTube — https://www.youtube.com/@destiny

Destiny's X account — https://x.com/TheOmniLiberal

Marc Andreessen saying AI isn’t dangerous because “it is math” — https://a16z.com/ai-will-save-the-world/

Will Smith eating spaghetti AI video — https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/ai-will-smith-eating-spaghetti

Roko’s Basilisk on LessWrong — https://www.lesswrong.com/tag/rokos-basilisk

Eliezer Yudkowsky’s AI Box Experiment — https://www.yudkowsky.net/singularity/aibox

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 🙏

On the eve of superintelligence, real AI safety is a nonexistent field. I break down why in my latest essay, The Facade of AI Safety Will Crumble.

This is a podcast reading of a recent Substack post: https://lironshapira.substack.com/p/the-facade-of-ai-safety-will-crumble

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 🙏

Elon Musk just made a stunning admission about the insane future he’s steering us toward.

In a new interview with Dwarkesh Patel and John Collison on the Cheeky Pint podcast, Elon said that humanity can’t expect to be “in charge” of AI for long, because humans will soon only have 1% of the combined total human+AI intelligence.

Then, he claimed to have a plan to build AI overlords that will naturally support humanity's flourishing.

In this mini episode, I react to Elon's remarks and expose why his plan for humanity's survival in the age of AI is dangerously flimsy.

My original tweet: https://x.com/liron/status/2020906862397489492

Clip source: Elon Musk – "In 36 months, the cheapest place to put AI will be space”

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 🙏