Doom Debates!

The popular debate show, Middle Ground by Jubilee, invited me on to take the "anti-AI" side back in April 2024.
This highlight reel of the episode shows my experience of the discussion.
I'm a lifelong techno-optimist, and it's unnatural for me to represent an anti-tech position. It's just that our AI labs are admitting they're on the path to superintelligence they don't know how to control, which implies we're all about to die and the universe will be robbed of all value forever before our kids grow up. Other than that one little consideration, I'm normally pro-tech!
Timestamps
00:00:00 — Why Liron is Worried about AI
00:02:13 — The Nuclear Analogy
00:02:43 — Human Evolution and Neuralink
00:03:14 — The AI Labs’ Own Warnings
Links
Full episode on YouTube —https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=47fGrqzoFr8
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

Multiple live callers join this month's Q&A as we react to Bernie Sanders and AOC's data center moratorium, the sudden shutdown of SORA 2, and the record breaking "Stop the AI Race" protest.
I explain why Claude Code has me claiming a 700% productivity boost, what that means for takeoff timelines and debate instrumental convergence.
Timestamps
00:00:00 — Cold Open
00:01:08 — Can AI Train on Its Own Data to Reach Superintelligence?
00:03:42 — Are We in the Takeoff? 700% Faster with Claude Code
00:04:27 — EJJ Joins: Is Instrumental Convergence Really That Dangerous?
00:16:44 — The Positive Feedback Loop Problem
00:20:09 — S-Risk, Consciousness, and Objective Morality
00:22:27 — Futarchy and Prediction Markets
00:24:31 — Low P(Doom) Arguments and Bayesian Updates
00:31:05 — Lee Cyrano Joins: Superintelligence Won’t Matter for Decades
01:02:45 — Lesaun Joins: Are There Adults in the Room?
01:17:39 — Connor Leahy: “There Are No Adults in the Room”
01:19:51 — Bernie Sanders Calls for a Data Center Moratorium
01:24:23 — Claude Code Anecdotes and Audience Q&A
01:35:49 — The Stop the AI Race Protest in San Francisco
01:41:38 — Known Unknowns and Risk Assessment
01:45:03 — From Waymo to Existential Risk
01:51:28 — Closing: The Road to One Million Subscribers
Links
Quintin Pope vs Liron Shapira debate on Doom Debates — https://lironshapira.substack.com/p/ai-alignment-is-solved-phd-researcher
CAP theorem, Wikipedia — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CAP_theorem
Google Cloud Spanner, Wikipedia — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanner_(database)
Newcomb’s problem, Wikipedia — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newcomb%27s_paradox
Gödel’s incompleteness theorems, Wikipedia — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%B6del%27s_incompleteness_theorems
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

Dr. Quintin Pope, PhD, is one of the few critics of AI doomerism who is truly fluent in the concepts and arguments. In Oct, 2023 he joined me for a debate in Twitter Spaces where he argued that AI alignment was basically already solved.
His “inside view” on machine-learning forced me to update my position, but could he knock me off the doom train?
Timestamps
00:00:00 — Cold Open
00:00:43 — Introductions
00:01:22 — Quintin's Opening Statement
00:02:32 — Liron's Opening Statement
00:05:10 — Has RLHF Solved the Alignment Problem?
00:07:52 — AI Capabilities Are Constrained by Training Data
00:10:52 — Defining ASI and Could RLHF Align a Superintelligence?
00:13:13 — Quintin Is More Optimistic Than OpenAI
00:14:16 — What Is ASI in Your Mind?
00:15:57 — AI in 5 Years (2028) & AI Coding Agents
00:19:05 — Continuous or Discontinuous Capability Gains?
00:19:39 — DEBATE: General Intelligence Algorithm in Humans
00:30:02 — The Only Coherent Explanation of Humans Going to the Moon
00:34:01 — Are We "Fully Cooked" as a General Optimizer?
00:35:53 — Common Mistake in Forecasting Superintelligence
00:42:22 — 'Neat' vs 'Scruffy': Will Interpretable Structure Emerge Inside Neural Nets?
00:48:57 — Does This Disagreement Actually Matter for P(Doom)?
00:54:33 — Thought Experiment: Could You Have Predicted a Species Would Go to the Moon?
00:57:26 — The Basin of Attraction for Superintelligence
00:59:35 — Does a Superintelligence Even Exist in Algorithm Space?
01:09:59 — Closing Statements
01:12:40 — Audience Q&A
01:19:35 — Wrap Up
Links
Original Twitter Spaces debate (Quintin Pope vs. Liron Shapira) — https://x.com/i/spaces/1YpJkwOzOqEJj/peek
Quintin Pope on Twitter/X — https://twitter.com/QuintinPope5
Quintin Pope, Alignment Forum profile — https://www.alignmentforum.org/users/quintin-pope
InstructGPT, Wikipedia — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/InstructGPT
AIXI, Wikipedia — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AIXI
AlphaZero, Wikipedia — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AlphaZero
MuZero, Wikipedia — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MuZero
DeepMind AlphaZero and MuZero page — https://deepmind.google/research/alphazero-and-muzero/
Midjourney — https://www.midjourney.com/
DALL-E, Wikipedia — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DALL-E
OpenAI Superalignment announcement — https://openai.com/index/introducing-superalignment/
Shard Theory sequence on LessWrong — https://www.lesswrong.com/s/nyEFg3AuJpdAozmoX
“Evolution Provides No Evidence for the Sharp Left Turn” — https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/hvz9qjWyv8cLX9JJR/evolution-provides-no-evidence-for-the-sharp-left-turn
“My Objections to ‘We’re All Gonna Die with Eliezer Yudkowsky’” — https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/wAczufCpMdaamF9fy/my-objections-to-we-re-all-gonna-die-with-eliezer-yudkowsky
“AI is Centralizing by Default; Let’s Not Make It Worse” — https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/zd5inbT4kYKivincm/ai-is-centralizing-by-default-let-s-not-make-it-worse
Singular Learning Theory, Alignment Forum sequence — https://www.alignmentforum.org/s/mqwA5FcL6SrHEQzox
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

My new interview on Robert Wright's Nonzero Podcast where we dive into the agentic AI explosion.
Bob is an exceptionally sharp interviewer who connects the dots between job displacement and AI doom.
I highly recommend becoming a premium subscriber to Bob’s Nonzero Newsletter so you can watch the Overtime segment in every interview he does — https://nonzero.org
Our discussion continues in Overtime for premium subscribers — https://www.nonzero.org/p/early-access-the-allure-and-danger
Links
Nonzero Podcast on YouTube — https://www.youtube.com/@nonzero
Robert Wright, The God Test (book, Amazon) — https://www.amazon.com/God-Test-Artificial-Intelligence-Reckoning/dp/1668061651
Timestamps
00:00:00 — Introduction and Today's Topics
00:03:22 — Vibe Coding and the Agentic Revolution
00:08:57 — The Future of Employment
00:17:57 — Agents and What They Can Do
00:27:59 — The "Can It" and "Will It" Framework for AI Doom
00:30:27 — OpenClaw and Liron's Experience with AI Agents
00:36:45 — The Case for Slowing Down AI Development
00:43:28 — Anthropic, the Pentagon, and AI Politics
00:48:37 — AI Safety Leadership Concerns
00:52:06 — Closing and Overtime Tease
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

Noah Smith is an economist and author of Noahpinion, one of the most popular Substacks in the world.
He returns to Doom Debates to share a massive update to his P(Doom), and things get a little heated.
Timestamps
00:00:00 — Cold Open
00:00:41 — Welcome Back Noah Smith!
00:01:40 — Noah's P(Doom) Update
00:03:57 — The Chatbot-Genie-God Framework
00:05:14 — What's Your P(Doom)™
00:09:59 — Unpacking Noah's Update
00:16:56 — Why Incidents of Rogue AI Lower P(Doom)
00:20:04 — Noah's Mainline Doom Scenario: Much Worse Than COVID-19
00:23:29 — Society Responds After Growing Pains
00:29:25 — Agentic AI Contributed to Noah's Position
00:31:35 — Should Yudkowsky Get Bayesian Credit?
00:33:59 — Are We Communicating the Right Way with Policymakers?
00:40:16 — Finding Common Ground on AI Policy
00:47:07 — Wrap-Up: People Need to Be More Scared
Links
Doom Debate with Noah Smith — Part 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AwmJ-OnK2I4
Noah’s Twitter — https://x.com/noahpinion
Noah’s Substack — https://noahpinion.blog
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