Economist Noah Smith is the author of Noahpinion, one of the most popular Substacks in the world.

Far from worrying about human extinction from superintelligent AI, Noah is optimistic AI will create a world where humans still have plentiful, high-paying jobs!

In this debate, I stress-test his rosy outlook. Let’s see if Noah can instill us with more confidence about humanity’s rapidly approaching AI future.

Timestamps

00:00:00 - Episode Preview

00:01:41 - Introducing Noah Smith

00:03:19 - What’s Your P(Doom)™

00:04:40 - Good vs. Bad Transhumanist Outcomes

00:15:17 - Catastrophe vs. Total Extinction

00:17:15 - Mechanisms of Doom

00:27:16 - The AI Persuasion Risk

00:36:20 - Instrumental Convergence vs. Peace

00:53:08 - The “One AI” Breakout Scenario

01:01:18 - The “Stoner AI” Theory

01:08:49 - Importance of Reflective Stability

01:14:50 - Orthogonality & The Waymo Argument

01:21:18 - Comparative Advantage & Jobs

01:27:43 - Wealth Distribution & Robot Lords

01:34:34 - Supply Curves & Resource Constraints

01:43:38 - Policy of Reserving Human Resources

01:48:28 - Closing: The Case for Optimism

Links

Noah’s Substack — https://noahpinion.blog

“Plentiful, high-paying jobs in the age of AI” — https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/plentiful-high-paying-jobs-in-the

“My thoughts on AI safety” — https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/my-thoughts-on-ai-safety

Noah’s Twitter — https://x.com/noahpinion

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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 🙏

In September of 2023, when OpenAI’s GPT-4 was still a fresh innovation and people were just beginning to wrap their heads around large language models, I was invited to debate Beff Jezos, Bayeslord, and other prominent “effective accelerationists” a.k.a. “e/acc” folks on an X Space.

E/acc’s think building artificial superintelligence is unlikely to disempower humanity and doom the future, because that’d be an illegal exception to the rule that accelerating new technology is always the highest-expected-value for humanity.

As you know, I disagree — I think doom is extremely likely and imminent possibility.

This debate took place 9 months before I started Doom Debates, and was one of the experiences that made me realize debating AI doom was my calling. It’s also the only time Beff Jezos has ever not been too chicken to debate me.

Timestamps

00:00:00 — Liron’s New Intro

00:04:15 — Debate Starts Here: Litigating FOOM

00:06:18 — Defining the Recursive Feedback Loop

00:15:05 — The Two-Part Doomer Thesis

00:26:00 — When Does a Tool Become an Agent?

00:44:02 — The Argument for Convergent Architecture

00:46:20 — Mathematical Objections: Ergodicity and Eigenvalues

01:03:46 — Bayeslord Enters: Why Speed Doesn’t Matter

01:12:40 — Beff Jezos Enters: Physical Priors vs. Internet Data

01:13:49 — The 5% Probability of Doom by GPT-5

01:20:09 — Chaos Theory and Prediction Limits

01:27:56 — Algorithms vs. Hardware Constraints

01:35:20 — Galactic Resources vs. Human Extermination

01:54:13 — The Intelligence Bootstrapping Script Scenario

02:02:13 — The 10-Megabyte AI Virus Debate

02:11:54 — The Nuclear Analogy: Noise Canceling vs. Rubble

02:37:39 — Controlling Intelligence: The Roman Empire Analogy

02:44:53 — Real-World Latency and API Rate Limits

03:03:11 — The Difficulty of the Off Button

03:24:47 — Why Liron is “e/acc at Heart”

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 🙏

AGI timelines, offense/defense balance, evolution vs engineering, how to lower P(Doom), Eliezer Yudkowksy, and much more!

Timestamps:

00:00 Trailer

03:10 Is My P(Doom) Lowering?

11:29 First Caller: AI Offense vs Defense Balance

16:50 Superintelligence Skepticism

25:05 Agency and AI Goals

29:06 Communicating AI Risk

36:35 Attack vs Defense Equilibrium

38:22 Can We Solve Outer Alignment?

54:47 What is Your P(Pocket Nukes)?

1:00:05 The “Shoggoth” Metaphor Is Outdated

1:06:23 Should I Reframe the P(Doom) Question?

1:12:22 How YOU Can Make a Difference

1:24:43 Can AGI Beat Biology?

1:39:22 Agency and Convergent Goals

1:59:56 Viewer Poll: What Content Should I Make?

2:26:15 AI Warning Shots

2:32:12 More Listener Questions: Debate Tactics, Getting a PhD, Specificity

2:53:53 Closing Thoughts

Links:

Support PauseAI — https://pauseai.info/

Support PauseAI US — https://www.pauseai-us.org/

Support LessWrong / Lightcone Infrastructure — LessWrong is fundraising!

Support MIRI — MIRI’s 2025 Fundraiser

About the show:

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 🙏

Devin Elliot is a former pro snowboarder turned software engineer who has logged thousands of hours building AI systems. His P(Doom) is a flat ⚫. He argues that worrying about an AI takeover is as irrational as fearing your car will sprout wings and fly away.

We spar over the hard limits of current models: Devin insists LLMs are hitting a wall, relying entirely on external software “wrappers” to feign intelligence. I push back, arguing that raw models are already demonstrating native reasoning and algorithmic capabilities.

Devin also argues for decentralization by claiming that nuclear proliferation is safer than centralized control.

We end on a massive timeline split: I see superintelligence in a decade, while he believes we’re a thousand years away from being able to “grow” computers that are truly intelligence.

Timestamps

00:00:00 Episode Preview

00:01:03 Intro: Snowboarder to Coder

00:03:30 "I Do Not Have a P(Doom)"

00:06:47 Nuclear Proliferation & Centralized Control

00:10:11 The "Spotify Quality" House Analogy

00:17:15 Ideal Geopolitics: Decentralized Power

00:25:22 Why AI Can't "Fly Away"

00:28:20 The Long Addition Test: Native or Tool?

00:38:26 Is Non-Determinism a Feature or a Bug?

00:52:01 The Impossibility of Mind Uploading

00:57:46 "Growing" Computers from Cells

01:02:52 Timelines: 10 Years vs. 1,000 Years

01:11:40 "Plastic Bag Ghosts" & Builder Intuition

01:13:17 Summary of the Debate

01:15:30 Closing Thoughts

Links

Devin’s Twitter — https://x.com/devinjelliot

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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 🙏

Dr. Michael Timothy Bennett, Ph.D, is an award-winning young researcher who has developed a new formal framework for understanding intelligence. He has a TINY P(Doom) because he claims superintelligence will be resource-constrained and tend toward cooperation.

In this lively debate, I stress-test Michael’s framework and debate whether its theorized constraints will actually hold back superintelligent AI.

Timestamps

* 00:00 Trailer

* 01:41 Introducing Michael Timothy Bennett

* 04:33 What’s Your P(Doom)?™

* 10:51 Michael’s Thesis on Intelligence: “Abstraction Layers”, “Adaptation”, “Resource Efficiency”

* 25:36 Debate: Is Einstein Smarter Than a Rock?

* 39:07 “Embodiment”: Michael’s Unconventional Computation Theory vs Standard Computation

* 48:28 “W-Maxing”: Michael’s Intelligence Framework vs. a Goal-Oriented Framework

* 59:47 Debating AI Doom

* 1:09:49 Debating Instrumental Convergence

* 1:24:00 Where Do You Get Off The Doom Train™ — Identifying The Cruxes of Disagreement

* 1:44:13 Debating AGI Timelines

* 1:49:10 Final Recap

Links

Michael’s website — https://michaeltimothybennett.com

Michael’s Twitter — https://x.com/MiTiBennett

Michael’s latest paper, “How To Build Conscious Machines” — https://osf.io/preprints/thesiscommons/wehmg_v1?view_only

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 🙏

My guest today achieved something EXTREMELY rare and impressive: Coming onto my show with an AI optimist position, then admitting he hadn’t thought of my counterarguments before, and updating his beliefs in realtime! Also, he won the 2013 Nobel Prize in computational biology.

I’m thrilled that Prof. Levitt understands the value of raising awareness about imminent extinction risk from superintelligent AI, and the value of debate as a tool to uncover the truth — the dual missions of Doom Debates!

Timestamps

0:00 — Trailer

1:18 — Introducing Michael Levitt

4:20 — The Evolution of Computing and AI

12:42 — Measuring Intelligence: Humans vs. AI

23:11 — The AI Doom Argument: Steering the Future

25:01 — Optimism, Pessimism, and Other Existential Risks

34:15 — What’s Your P(Doom)™

36:16 — Warning Shots and Global Regulation

55:28 — Comparing AI Risk to Pandemics and Nuclear War

1:01:49 — Wrap-Up

1:06:11 — Outro + New AI safety resource

Show Notes

Michael Levitt’s Twitter — https://x.com/MLevitt_NP2013

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Michael Ellsberg, son of the legendary Pentagon Papers leaker Daniel Ellsberg, joins me to discuss the chilling parallels between his father’s nuclear war warnings and today’s race to AGI.

We discuss Michael’s 99% probability of doom, his personal experience being “obsoleted” by AI, and the urgent moral duty for insiders to blow the whistle on AI’s outsize risks.

Timestamps

0:00 Intro

1:29 Introducing Michael Ellsberg, His Father Daniel Ellsberg, and The Pentagon Papers

5:49 Vietnam War Parallels to AI: Lies and Escalation

25:23 The Doomsday Machine & Nuclear Insanity

48:49 Mutually Assured Destruction vs. Superintelligence Risk

55:10 Evolutionary Dynamics: Replicators and the End of the “Dream Time”

1:10:17 What’s Your P(doom)?™

1:14:49 Debating P(Doom) Disagreements

1:26:18 AI Unemployment Doom

1:39:14 Doom Psychology: How to Cope with Existential Risk

1:50:56 The “Joyless Singularity”: Aligned AI Might Still Freeze Humanity

2:09:00 A Call to Action for AI Insiders

Show Notes:

Michael Ellsberg’s website — https://www.ellsberg.com/

Michael’s Twitter — https://x.com/MichaelEllsberg

Daniel Ellsberg’s website — https://www.ellsberg.net/

The upcoming book, “Truth and Consequence” — https://geni.us/truthandconsequence

Michael’s AI-related substack “Mammalian Wetware” — https://mammalianwetware.substack.com/

Daniel’s debate with Bill Kristol in the run-up to the Iraq war — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HyvsDR3xnAg

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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 🙏

Today's Debate: Should we ban the development of artificial superintelligence until scientists agree it is safe and controllable?

Arguing FOR banning superintelligence until there’s a scientific consensus that it’ll be done safely and controllably and with strong public buy-in: Max Tegmark. He is an MIT professor, bestselling author, and co-founder of the Future of Life Institute whose research has focused on artificial intelligence for the past 8 years.

Arguing AGAINST banning superintelligent AI development: Dean Ball. He is a Senior Fellow at the Foundation for American Innovation who served as a Senior Policy Advisor at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy under President Trump, where he helped craft America’s AI Action Plan.

Two of the leading voices on AI policy engaged in high-quality, high-stakes debate for the benefit of the public!

This is why I got into the podcast game — because I believe debate is an essential tool for humanity to reckon with the creation of superhuman thinking machines.

Timestamps

0:00 - Episode Preview

1:41 - Introducing The Debate

3:38 - Max Tegmark’s Opening Statement

5:20 - Dean Ball’s Opening Statement

9:01 - Designing an “FDA for AI” and Safety Standards

21:10 - Liability, Tail Risk, and Biosecurity

29:11 - Incremental Regulation, Timelines, and AI Capabilities

54:01 - Max’s Nightmare Scenario

57:36 - The Risks of Recursive Self‑Improvement

1:08:24 - What’s Your P(Doom)?™

1:13:42 - National Security, China, and the AI Race

1:32:35 - Closing Statements

1:44:00 - Post‑Debate Recap and Call to Action

Show Notes

Statement on Superintelligence released by Max’s organization, the Future of Life Institute — https://superintelligence-statement.org/

Dean’s reaction to the Statement on Superintelligence — https://x.com/deanwball/status/1980975802570174831

America’s AI Action Plan — https://www.whitehouse.gov/articles/2025/07/white-house-unveils-americas-ai-action-plan/

“A Definition of AGI” by Dan Hendrycks, Max Tegmark, et. al. —https://www.agidefinition.ai/

Max Tegmark’s Twitter — https://x.com/tegmark

Dean Ball’s Twitter — https://x.com/deanwball

Max Harms and Jeremy Gillen are current and former MIRI researchers who both see superintelligent AI as an imminent extinction threat.

But they disagree on whether it’s worthwhile to try to aim for obedient, “corrigible” AI as a singular target for current alignment efforts.

Max thinks corrigibility is the most plausible path to build ASI without losing control and dying, while Jeremy is skeptical that this research path will yield better superintelligent AI behavior on a sufficiently early try.

By listening to this debate, you’ll find out if AI corrigibility is a relatively promising effort that might prevent imminent human extinction, or an over-optimistic pipe dream.

Timestamps

0:00 — Episode Preview

1:18 — Debate Kickoff

3:22 — What is Corrigibility?

9:57 — Why Corrigibility Matters

11:41 — What’s Your P(Doom)™

16:10 — Max’s Case for Corrigibility

19:28 — Jeremy’s Case Against Corrigibility

21:57 — Max’s Mainline AI Scenario

28:51 — 4 Strategies: Alignment, Control, Corrigibility, Don’t Build It

37:00 — Corrigibility vs HHH (”Helpful, Harmless, Honest”)

44:43 — Asimov’s 3 Laws of Robotics

52:05 — Is Corrigibility a Coherent Concept?

1:03:32 — Corrigibility vs Shutdown-ability

1:09:59 — CAST: Corrigibility as Singular Target, Near Misses, Iterations

1:20:18 — Debating if Max is Over-Optimistic

1:34:06 — Debating if Corrigibility is the Best Target

1:38:57 — Would Max Work for Anthropic?

1:41:26 — Max’s Modest Hopes

1:58:00 — Max’s New Book: Red Heart

2:16:08 — Outro

Show Notes

Max’s book Red Heart — https://www.amazon.com/Red-Heart-Max-Harms/dp/108822119X

Learn more about CAST: Corrigibility as Singular Target — https://www.lesswrong.com/s/KfCjeconYRdFbMxsy/p/NQK8KHSrZRF5erTba

Max’s Twitter — https://x.com/raelifin

Jeremy’s Twitter — https://x.com/jeremygillen1

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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 🙏

Holly Elmore leads protests against frontier AI labs, and that work has strained some of her closest relationships in the AI-safety community.She says AI safety insiders care more about their reputation in tech circles than actually lowering AI x-risk. This is our full conversation from my “If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies” unofficial launch party livestream on Sept 16, 2025.

Timestamps

0:00 Intro

1:06 Holly’s Background and The Current Activities of PauseAI US

4:41 The Circular Firing Squad Problem of AI Safety

7:23 Why the AI Safety Community Resists Public Advocacy

11:37 Breaking with Former Allies at AI Labs

13:00 LessWrong’s reaction to Eliezer’s public turn

Show Notes

PauseAI US — https://pauseai-us.org

International PauseAI — https://pauseai.info

Holly’s Twitter — https://x.com/ilex_ulmus

Holly’s Substack: https://substack.com/@hollyelmore

Holly’s post covering how AI isn’t another “technology”: https://hollyelmore.substack.com/p/the-technology-bucket-error

Related Episodes

Holly and I dive into the rationalist community’s failure to rally behind a cause: https://lironshapira.substack.com/p/lesswrong-circular-firing-squad

The full IABED livestream: https://lironshapira.substack.com/p/if-anyone-builds-it-everyone-dies-party