LessWrong (30+ Karma)

“Notes on fatalities from AI takeover” by ryan_greenblatt


Listen Later

Suppose misaligned AIs take over. What fraction of people will die? I'll discuss my thoughts on this question and my basic framework for thinking about it. These are some pretty low-effort notes, the topic is very speculative, and I don't get into all the specifics, so be warned.

I don't think moderate disagreements here are very action-guiding or cruxy on typical worldviews: it probably shouldn't alter your actions much if you end up thinking 25% of people die in expectation from misaligned AI takeover rather than 90% or end up thinking that misaligned AI takeover causing literal human extinction is 10% likely rather than 90% likely (or vice versa). (And the possibility that we're in a simulation poses a huge complication that I won't elaborate on here.) Note that even if misaligned AI takeover doesn't cause human extinction, it would still result in humans being disempowered and would [...]

---

Outline:

(04:39) Industrial expansion and small motivations to avoid human fatalities

(12:18) How likely is it that AIs will actively have motivations to kill (most/many) humans

(13:38) Death due to takeover itself

(15:04) Combining these numbers

The original text contained 12 footnotes which were omitted from this narration.

---

First published:

September 23rd, 2025

Source:

https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/4fqwBmmqi2ZGn9o7j/notes-on-fatalities-from-ai-takeover

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

...more
View all episodesView all episodes
Download on the App Store

LessWrong (30+ Karma)By LessWrong


More shows like LessWrong (30+ Karma)

View all
Making Sense with Sam Harris by Sam Harris

Making Sense with Sam Harris

26,371 Listeners

Conversations with Tyler by Mercatus Center at George Mason University

Conversations with Tyler

2,426 Listeners

The Peter Attia Drive by Peter Attia, MD

The Peter Attia Drive

8,190 Listeners

Sean Carroll's Mindscape: Science, Society, Philosophy, Culture, Arts, and Ideas by Sean Carroll | Wondery

Sean Carroll's Mindscape: Science, Society, Philosophy, Culture, Arts, and Ideas

4,149 Listeners

ManifoldOne by Steve Hsu

ManifoldOne

92 Listeners

Your Undivided Attention by The Center for Humane Technology, Tristan Harris, Daniel Barcay and Aza Raskin

Your Undivided Attention

1,560 Listeners

All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg by All-In Podcast, LLC

All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg

9,823 Listeners

Machine Learning Street Talk (MLST) by Machine Learning Street Talk (MLST)

Machine Learning Street Talk (MLST)

89 Listeners

Dwarkesh Podcast by Dwarkesh Patel

Dwarkesh Podcast

489 Listeners

Hard Fork by The New York Times

Hard Fork

5,477 Listeners

The Ezra Klein Show by New York Times Opinion

The Ezra Klein Show

16,106 Listeners

Moonshots with Peter Diamandis by PHD Ventures

Moonshots with Peter Diamandis

531 Listeners

No Priors: Artificial Intelligence | Technology | Startups by Conviction

No Priors: Artificial Intelligence | Technology | Startups

133 Listeners

Latent Space: The AI Engineer Podcast by swyx + Alessio

Latent Space: The AI Engineer Podcast

97 Listeners

BG2Pod with Brad Gerstner and Bill Gurley by BG2Pod

BG2Pod with Brad Gerstner and Bill Gurley

509 Listeners