Welcome to the After-On Podcast. I'm Rob Reed, and I'm Tom Merritt. And this is a special

episode designed around the book, After-On. Each of these special episodes focuses on one

aspect of the science, tech, and social issues explored in the novel. Now, you don't have

to read After-On in order to learn from or enjoy these podcasts. That's because we

wait until the very end to discuss the book in detail and to really tie it to this week's

topic. That last section will make perfect sense if you're reading the novel, but if you're

not reading it, just tune out at that point. You can always come back if you decide to

read it later. And we'll warn you before we get to that part. But first, we have a lot

of things to talk about which should be interesting to everybody. Specifically, super intelligence

and the risks we face from it, discussing this with us today, is filmmaker and author

James Barrett. Now, Rob, how did you come to choose James as a guest?

Well, a few years back, James wrote a book called Our Final Invention that heavily influenced

my own thinking on super AI risk. And also that of Elon Musk, who basically helped tweet

the book to prominence. Now, James' book, Plus Elon's Helpful Endorsement, really helped

put the whole subject of super intelligence risk on the public agenda, didn't it?

Absolutely. And it was actually three things that happened in rapid succession. James'

book came out first, and a few months later, Nicholas Ostrum released a more academic

book on the same subject. Then Elon tweeted about both of them, and almost overnight, everyone

in tech seemed to be talking about super AI risk. And they never really stopped. It's

almost like Elon gave the industry permission to worry about something that had secretly

been on a lot of minds for a while. Well, it certainly remains a big issue. So let's

get right into your conversation with James.

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