#431 – Roman Yampolskiy: Dangers of Superintelligent AI

**Lex Fridman** (0:00)
The following is a conversation with Roman Yampolskiy, an AI safety and security researcher and author of a new book titled AI Unexplainable, Unpredictable, Uncontrollable. He argues that there's almost 100% chance that AGI will eventually destroy human civilization. As an aside, let me say that I will have many, often technical conversations on the topic of AI, often with engineers building the state-of-the-art AI systems. I would say those folks put the infamous P-Doom or the probability of AGI killing all humans at around 1 to 20%. But it's also important to talk to folks who put that value at 70, 80, 90, and in the case of Roman at 99.99 and many more nines percent. I'm personally excited for the future and believe it will be a good one. In part, because of the amazing technological innovation we humans create. But we must absolutely not do so with blinders on, ignoring the possible risks, including existential risks of those technologies. That's what this conversation is about. And now a quick few second mention of each sponsor. Check them out in the description. It's the best way to support this podcast. We got Yahoo Finance for Investors. Master Class for Learning. NetSuite for Business. LMNT for Hydration. And Eight Sleep for Sweet Sweet Naps. Choose wisely, my friends. Also, if you want to get in touch with me, or for whatever reason, work with our amazing team, let's say, just go to lexfreedman.com/contact. And now on to the full ad reads. As always, no ads in the middle. I try to make these interesting, but if you must skip them, friends, please still check out our sponsors. I enjoy their stuff, maybe you will too. This episode is brought to you by Yahoo Finance, a site that provides financial management, reports, information, and news for investors. It's my main go-to place for financial stuff. I also added my portfolio to it. I guess it used to be TD Ameritrade, and that got transported, transformed, moved to Charles Schwab. I guess that was an acquisition of some sort. I have not been paying attention. All I know is I hate change, and try and figure out the new interface of Schwab when I log in once a year, or however long I log in is just annoying. Anyway, one of the ways to avoid that annoyance is tracking information about my portfolio.
You can drag over your portfolio and in the same place find out all the news analysis information all that kind of stuff. Anyway, for comprehensive financial news and analysis, go to yahoofinance.com, that's yahoofinance.com. I don't know why I whispered that. This episode is also brought to you by Masterclass, where you can watch over 180 classes from the best people in the world in their respective disciplines. We got Aaron Franklin on barbecue and brisket, something I watched recently, and I love brisket. I love barbecue. It's one of my favorite things about Austin. It's funny when the obvious cliche thing is also the thing that brings you joy, so it almost doesn't feel genuine to say, but I really love barbecue. My favorite place to go is probably Terry Black's. I've had Franklin's a couple of times. It's also amazing. I've actually don't remember myself having bad barbecue, or even mediocre barbecue in Austin, so it's hard to pick favors because it really boils down to the experience you have when you're sitting there. One of my favorite places to sit is Terry Black's. They have this, I don't know, it feels like a tavern. I feel like a cowboy. Like I just robbed a bank in some town in the middle of nowhere in West Texas, and I'm just sitting down for some good barbecue, and the sheriffs walk in and there's a gunfight and all that, as usual. Anyway, get unlimited access to every Masterclass and get an additional 15% off an annual membership at masterclass.com/lexpod. That's masterclass.com/lexpod.
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But they all have to be shredded. It's really, really important to look good with your... No. It's really, really important to always be ready for war in physical and mental shape. No, not really, but I guess if that's your thing, happiness is the thing you should be chasing. And there's a lot of ways to achieve that. For me, being in shape is one of the things that make me happy. Because I can move about the world and have a lightness to my physical being if I'm in good shape. Anyway, I say all that because getting a strong team together and having them operate is an efficient, powerful machine, is really important for the success of the team, for the happiness of the team and the individuals in that team. NetSuite is a great system that runs the machine inside the machine for a knee-sized business. 37,000 companies have upgraded to NetSuite by Oracle. Take advantage of NetSuite's flexible financing plan at netsuite.com/lex, that's netsuite.com/lex. This episode is also brought to you by Element. Electrolyte, drink, mix of sodium, potassium and magnesium that I've been consuming multiple times a day. Watermelon salt is my favorite. Whenever you see me drink from a cup on the podcast, almost always it's going to be water with some element in it. I use an empty Powerade bottle, 28 fluid ounces, fill it with water, put one packet of watermelon salt element in it. Mix it up, put it in the fridge. And then when it's time to drink, I take it out of the fridge and I drink it. And I drink a lot of those a day and it feels good. It's delicious. Whenever I do crazy physical fasting, all that kind of stuff, element is always by my side. And more and more, you're gonna see probably the sparkling water thing or whatever that element is making. So it's in a can and it's freaking delicious. There's four flavors. The lemon one is the only one I don't like. The other three, I really love. And I forget their names, but they're freaking delicious. And you're gonna see it more and more on my desk, except for the fact that I run out very quickly because I consume them very quickly. Get a simple pack for free with any purchase. Try it at drinklmnt.com/lex. This episode is also brought to you by Eight Sleep and it's Pod 4 Ultra. This thing is amazing. The ultra part of that adds a base that goes between the mattress and the bed frame and can elevate to like a reading position, so it modifies the positioning of the bed. On top of all the cooling and the heating and all that kind of stuff that it can do and do it better in the Pod 4, I think it has 2X the cooling power of Pod 3, so they're improving on the main thing that they do, but also there's the ultra part that can adjust the bed. It can cool down each side of the bed to 20 degrees Fahrenheit below room temperature. One of my favorite things is to escape the world on a cool bed with a warm blanket and just disappear for 20 minutes or for 8 hours into a dream world where everything is possible or everything is allowed. It's a chance to explore the Jungian shadow, the good, the bad, and the ugly, but it's usually good and it's usually awesome. And I actually don't dream that much, but when I do, it's awesome. The whole point, though, is that I wake up refreshed. Taking your sleep seriously is really, really important. When you get a chance to sleep, do it in style and do it on a bed that's awesome. Go to eightsleep.com/lex and use code Lex to get $350 off the pod for Ultra. This is the Lex Friedman Podcast. To support it, please check out our sponsors in the description. Now, dear friends, here's Roman Yampolskiy.