OpenAI Whistleblower FINALLY Speaks: “AI Has A 70% Chance Of Going Horribly Wrong!“

**Steven Bartlett** (0:00)
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**Daniel Kokotajlo** (0:59)
The scary open secret in the AI industry right now is that it's possible that we'll end up essentially trading a new species that ends up ruling the world with a 70% chance that this goes horribly wrong like human distinction. That's one possibility. There's many more.

**Steven Bartlett** (1:12)
It's quite chilling what you're saying.

**Daniel Kokotajlo** (1:13)
Yeah, it's gets me down sometimes.
I basically told my wife like, let's not have any more kids. It's too uncertain. I don't think they'll ever join the workforce. Everybody should be afraid that the traps are going to be lost. And I know this because I went to OpenAI in 2022 What I did there was forecasting. This is what the next couple of years might look like. And unfortunately, most of the world is kind of asleep at the wheel and doesn't really realize what's going on with AI. So I resigned.

**Steven Bartlett** (1:37)
I read it somewhere that you lost two million dollars for not signing an anti-dispairment clause, meaning you couldn't criticize the company.

**Daniel Kokotajlo** (1:44)
Yes, for reasons I'm happy to get into. But the main thing I've learned is when I go talk to people at Anthropic and OpenAI about forecasting, they're like, it's not going to take that long. You need to shorten them again, get them back to 2027 or 2028 because these powerful CEOs, Dario or Sam or Elon are racing each other to be in control of the most powerful AIs and are literally afraid that if the other guy gets there first, he might become dictator. I mean, Anthropic is on track to be the entire economy by 2030 But none of these people should be trusted with that much power. So this is the most important thing happening in our lifetimes, probably in all of history, in fact, and it's very important that it go well. So I think that there's a lot we can do to steer things in a better direction. There's loads of benefits that we could get from AI if we do it right. If we do solve the problems, then things could be absolutely amazing for everyone.

**Steven Bartlett** (2:26)
Well, this report here in 2021, it was remarkably accurate, and then you just published this one.

**Daniel Kokotajlo** (2:30)
Yeah. So this is our new scenarios.

**Steven Bartlett** (2:32)
So let's go through these slowly and one at a time.

**Daniel Kokotajlo** (2:34)
I would be incredibly happy if all my predictions turn out to be wrong.

**Steven Bartlett** (2:39)
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Daniel Kokotajlo, at the very heart of what you do, what is your mission and why?

**Daniel Kokotajlo** (3:21)
So what would you do if you thought that superintelligence was coming in a few years?

**Steven Bartlett** (3:26)
I guess it depends what the consequences were.