Debunking AI’s “Existential Risk” with Arvind Narayanan and Sayash Kapoor
Factually! with Adam Conover
Headgum
4.6 • 2.3K Ratings
🗓️ 18 March 2026
⏱️ 85 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Will AI obliterate all of humanity? Will it destroy all of our jobs? There are so many questions swirling around the existential threat that AI poses, and even more completely hypothetical answers. This week, Adam brings back past guests Arvind Narayanan, professor of Computer Science at Princeton, and Princeton PhD student Sayash Kapoor to give expert perspective on our current moment. Their newest essay, AI as Normal Technology, is a rational and evidence-based exploration of AI that offers an alternative vision to the idea of AI as a potential superintelligence.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This is a headgum podcast. |
| 0:05.0 | I don't know the truth. |
| 0:08.3 | I don't know the way. |
| 0:10.9 | I don't know what to think. |
| 0:13.6 | I don't know what to say. |
| 0:16.6 | Yeah, but that's all right. |
| 0:19.4 | That's okay. |
| 0:21.6 | I don't know anything. |
| 0:25.8 | Hey there, welcome to Faxley. |
| 0:27.7 | I'm Adam Kanover. |
| 0:28.6 | Thank you so much for joining me on the show again. |
| 0:31.2 | This week we're talking about AI, but specifically, we're talking about the biggest claims that are made about AI. |
| 0:37.9 | And those claims have gotten pretty fucking big. |
| 0:41.0 | We hear every day that AI is about to destroy the entire software industry, |
| 0:45.3 | or that, in fact, it's going to take every single job in the world |
| 0:49.4 | and will all be reduced to huddling on the breadline, |
| 0:52.4 | hoping the AI gods hand us out a little UBI |
| 0:55.7 | scrap so that we can eat. After that, we're told, AI is going to become super intelligent and |
| 1:02.1 | decide to destroy all human life and turn us all into paper clips or whatever. And, you know, |
| 1:08.7 | so I think we have to ask, what are we supposed to do with these kinds of |
| 1:13.3 | predictions? |
| 1:14.0 | I mean, these are thought experiments at root. |
... |
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