I think this is a false choice we're forced to make quite often in the discourse.

It's like we either get our cancer cures and then we have to take on the risks of unemployment, extinction, X, Y, and Z.

There's another path here where we get our cancer cures and we don't take that on, right?

Like there's a different option on the table that I think often

kind of gets pushed aside.

Hey, everyone, and welcome to your invited attention. This is Tristan Harris. One of the most

common arguments you hear from people racing to super intelligent AI is that it'll be able to cure cancer.

It's incredibly powerful. It will do all these wonderful things like that, you know,

will help us cure cancer. It may help us to eradicate tropical diseases. We are working to

build tools that one day can help us make new discoveries and address some of humanity's

biggest challenges like climate change and curing cancer.

I think one day maybe we can cure all disease with the help of AI.

Not help with cancer, not improve treatment, but cure cancer. Now that's obviously an incredibly

powerful and seductive promise. And everybody listening to this right now likely

knows someone who's died of cancer. It kills almost 10 million people per year. I lost my mother

to cancer in 2018. This is a very personal topic. And that's why this promise is so potent

and why we need to examine it. Because if the technology really can cure cancer,

then anyone who stands in the way of it, anyone who wants to slow it down, even because of the

serious risks, is essentially letting people die. This is the idea of the invisible graveyard

you hear about from the accelerationalist. Think of all the people that we might be able to save

by racing forward.

In fact, the biggest risk is not going fast enough, they argue. But what if it isn't actually

...