meta_pixel
Tapesearch Logo
Log in
Bankless

168 - How to Solve AI Alignment with Paul Christiano

Bankless

Bankless

Tech News, Technology, News

4.71.2K Ratings

🗓️ 24 April 2023

⏱️ 110 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Paul Christiano runs the Alignment Research Center, a non-profit research organization whose mission is to align future machine learning systems with human interests. Paul previously ran the language model alignment team at OpenAI, the creators of ChatGPT. 

Today, we’re hoping to explore the solution-landscape to the AI Alignment problem, and hoping Paul can guide us on that journey. 

------
✨ DEBRIEF | Unpacking the episode: 
https://www.bankless.com/debrief-paul-christiano 
 
------
✨ COLLECTIBLES | Collect this episode: 
https://collectibles.bankless.com/mint 

------
✨ Always wanted to become a Token Analyst? Bankless Citizens get exclusive access to Token Hub. Join Them.
https://bankless.cc/TokenHubRSS  

------
In today’s episode, Paul answers many questions, but the overarching ones are: 
1) How BIG is the AI Alignment problem? 
2) How HARD is the AI Alighment problem?
3) How SOLVABLE is the AI Alignment problem? 

Does humanity have a chance? Tune in to hear Paul’s thoughts. 

------
BANKLESS SPONSOR TOOLS: 

⚖️ ARBITRUM | SCALING ETHEREUM
https://bankless.cc/Arbitrum 

🐙KRAKEN | MOST-TRUSTED CRYPTO EXCHANGE
https://bankless.cc/kraken 

🦄UNISWAP | ON-CHAIN MARKETPLACE
https://bankless.cc/uniswap 

👻 PHANTOM | FRIENDLY MULTICHAIN WALLET
https://bankless.cc/phantom-waitlist 

🦊METAMASK LEARN | HELPFUL WEB3 RESOURCE
https://bankless.cc/MetaMask 

------
Topics Covered

0:00 Intro
9:20 Percentage Likelihood of Death by AI
11:24 Timing 
19:15 Chimps to Human Jump
21:55 Thoughts on ChatGPT
27:51 LLMs & AGI
32:49 Time to React?
38:29 AI Takeover 
41:51 AI Agency 
49:35 Loopholes 
51:14 Training AIs to Be Honest 
58:00 Psychology 
59:36 How Solvable Is the AI Alignment Problem?
1:03:48 The Technical Solutions (Scalable Oversight) 
1:16:14 Training AIs to be Bad?! 
1:18:22 More Solutions
1:21:36 Stabby AIs 
1:26:03 Public vs. Private (Lab) AIs
1:28:31 Inside Neural Nets
1:32:11 4th Solution 
1:35:00 Manpower & Funding 
1:38:15 Pause AI?
1:43:29 Resources & Education on AI Safety 
1:46:13 Talent  
1:49:00 Paul’s Day Job
1:50:15 Nobel Prize 
1:52:35 Treating AIs with Respect 
1:53:41 Uptopia Scenario 
1:55:50 Closing & Disclaimers 

------
Resources:

Alignment Research Center
https://www.alignment.org/ 

Paul Christiano’s Website
https://paulfchristiano.com/ai/ 

-----
Not financial or tax advice. This channel is strictly educational and is not investment advice or a solicitation to buy or sell any assets or to make any financial decisions. This video is not tax advice. Talk to your accountant. Do your own research.

Disclosure. From time-to-time I may add links in this newsletter to products I use. I may receive commission if you make a purchase through one of these links. Additionally, the Bankless writers hold crypto assets. See our investment disclosures here:
https://www.bankless.com/disclosures 

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

The most likely way we die involves like not AI comes out of the blue and kills everyone

0:04.2

But involves we have deployed a lot of AI everywhere and you can kind of just look and be like oh, yeah

0:08.0

If for some reason God forbid all these AI systems were trying to kill us they would definitely kill us

0:14.7

Welcome to bankless where we explore frontier technologies artificial intelligence on the episode today

0:20.6

This is how to get started how to get better and how to front-run the opportunity

0:24.5

This is Ryan Sean Adams. I'm here with David Hoffman and we're here to help you become more

0:29.5

Bankless guys. We have a special guest in the episode today Paul Cristiano

0:33.1

This is who Ellie Ezer you'd Kowski told us to go talk to someone he respects on the AI debate

0:39.0

So we picked his brain. This is an AI safety alignment researcher

0:43.2

We ask the question how we stop the AI is from killing us

0:46.9

Can we prevent the AI takeover that others are very concerned about there are three actually four takeaways for you today

0:53.2

Number one how big is the AI alignment problem?

0:56.6

We ask Paul this question number two how hard is it to actually solve this problem number three

1:02.5

What are the ways we solve it the technical ways can we coordinate around this to solve it and finally number four

1:09.5

We talk about a possible

1:12.2

Optimistic scenario where we live in harmony with the AI's and they improve our lives and make it quite a bit better

1:18.5

David what was the significance of this episode to you in our series?

1:21.6

Yeah, the new intro I think is great when we cover frontier technologies and also instead of

1:26.6

For this episode helping you could become more bankless

1:28.9

I think this is a truly a front-running the opportunity on this one

1:33.2

We are trying to help not die. Yeah question mark. We're trying to help you not die

1:37.9

And it's all of us yeah you and the rest of the world and I think we're doing this in the best the way that we can

...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Bankless, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Bankless and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.

Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.