How to Not Lose Control of AI (Robert Wright & Max Tegmark)

Robert Wright's Nonzero

Nonzero

News & Politics, Society & Culture, Philosophy

4.7 • 618 Ratings

🗓️ 27 May 2025

⏱️ 49 minutes

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Summary

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.nonzero.org

0:28 Why Max helped organize the 2023 “Pause AI” letter 7:12 AI as a species not a technology 12:32 The rate of AI progress since 2023 21:44 Loss of control is the biggest risk 32:42 How to get the NatSec community’s attention 36:12 How we could lose control 38:17 He we stay in control 47:30 Heading to Overtime

Robert Wright (Nonzero, The Evolution of God, Why Buddhism Is True) and Max Tegmark (MIT, Future of Life Institute, Life 3.0). Recorded April 30, 2025.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	You're listening to Robert Wright's Non-Zero podcast. You're listening to Robert Wright's Non-Zero Podcast.
0:27.4	Hello, Max.
0:31.1	Hey, Bob.
0:32.9	How you doing?
0:34.7	Good.
0:35.2	It's an honor to be here.
0:37.2	Well, that's nice of you to say. I bet you've never said that to any other podcasters, have you? Never. I'm the first. I feel great. I am on top of the world. Well, let me introduce this. I'm Robert Wright, editor-in-chief of the non-zero newsletter. This is a non-zero podcast. You are at Max Tegmark,
0:54.7	very well-known physicist at MIT and also an AI researcher, an author of books including Life 3.0.
1:03.9	And in recent years, something of an AI safety activist. In fact, you and your institute, the institute you co-founded, the Future of Life
1:13.6	Institute, played a big role in organizing a statement that I think most people are familiar with.
1:20.7	In 2023, it was calling for, I think, a six-month pause, I guess, in the training of large, large language models.
1:31.2	And various notable people signed it.
1:34.7	Steve Wozniak, Elon Musk, you, a number of others.
1:42.1	And, you know, before the conversation's over, I want to get a sense for what you think the
1:45.8	biggest risks are and what you think the state of AI progress is and so on.
1:50.3	But maybe I'll start by asking, like, since that statement came out, how happy are you
1:58.5	or unhappy are you with what's happened in terms of awareness of and concerned about
2:06.8	the things you're concerned about with AI, both at a popular level and I guess of what you
2:12.0	could call an elite level. You know, there are various communities, as you know, with the world.
2:17.2	What's your take on that?
2:19.8	Yeah, I'm very happy with the short-term response and quite unhappy with what's happened
2:25.4	one and two years afterwards.
	...

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