"We’re Playing God" - AI Expert Warns Humanity Is Creating A New Civilization

**SPEAKER_1** (0:01)
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**Patrick Bet-David** (0:26)
Even after your conversations got very public, where people are saying, this guy is a real guy, let's reach out to him. How many governments have reached out to you to have private conversations with you?

**Roman Yampolskiy** (0:38)
Not too many, but some.

**Patrick Bet-David** (0:40)
And what do they ask in you?

**Roman Yampolskiy** (0:43)
Usually they have some sort of event and they want someone with that point of view to be included.

**Patrick Bet-David** (0:49)
Is it a private event? Is it a public event?

**Roman Yampolskiy** (0:51)
Both. I recently was talking to the UN, I advise individual politicians on some of those issues.

**Patrick Bet-David** (1:00)
What do they ask? Are they asking low-level questions? Have you got any very good questions where you're like, that's actually asking the right question?

**Roman Yampolskiy** (1:08)
Usually, you start talking to staffers, technical advisors, and they of course know everything. And they're just like, we're not allowed to talk about it, but we totally agree with you. Yeah, obviously.
And until you get to the politician, they already ask all the good questions. Politicians, it's more like, you think it's a good law to pass. We're going to ban deep fakes, whatever.

**Patrick Bet-David** (1:29)
So nothing in regards to questions where, you know, you're optimistic that they're also being concerned that this thing can be bad.

**Roman Yampolskiy** (1:38)
We're starting to see, slowly, top politicians say things about this.
So we have multiple senators now saying, we need to do something. Bernie Sanders, who unfortunately is not my type of economist, he's pushing very hard against it. He just released, you can bring up his statement, very, very strong statement against super intelligence. He wrote a letter to Sam Altman, so you know what I'm talking about. He's the first one, but there is now two or three multiple congresspeople. They are starting to realize what's happening.
It took him, you know, 20 years. Then we were saying it at first, this was science fiction purely. Now we have Nobel Prize winners, we have leaders of the labs, we have senators, we have a lot of people who are concerned.

**Patrick Bet-David** (2:27)
Yeah, the way you put it, is this the address where he talks about a cataclysmic result? Yeah, this is the one. And he's saying to what? To pause all AI. There's quite a few of these. Who is the person on the opposite side that is on the same page with Bernie Sanders on this? Can you ask Rock right there on the top right and say, who is the senator on the Republican side that agrees with Bernie Sanders on the same exact issue?
I wonder how many of these... Well, I know these conversations are being had.

**Roman Yampolskiy** (2:58)
A lot of them may agree, they just don't feel publicly like they want to talk about Terminators. I don't know how it impacts political polling. I don't know if it makes you more popular or less. They're scared.

**Patrick Bet-David** (3:08)
Who would not be happy?

**Roman Yampolskiy** (3:11)
A lot of lobbyists. You know how large the pro-AI lobby is?

**Patrick Bet-David** (3:15)
Who's not a fan of the message you were giving?

**Roman Yampolskiy** (3:18)
You brought up some of those people, browser developers.

**Patrick Bet-David** (3:22)
Got it. So they're not fans of all of you. So Sam Altman wouldn't be a fan of what you're talking about.

**Roman Yampolskiy** (3:28)
Again, he spoke about safety as well. And I think if you remember, OpenAI was started with the main purpose of creating a safe alternative to Google AI.

**Patrick Bet-David** (3:37)
Non-profit, right? 2015, 2017, when he gave $50 million, I think Elon gave $50 million to the company.

**Roman Yampolskiy** (3:43)
The announcement was they funded at a billion-dollar level. That was the biggest announcement ever.

**Patrick Bet-David** (3:47)
I remember that. Yeah.
And at first, everyone was like, what is this thing all about? And then all of a sudden, when it was launched, it's like, no, now we're going to be profit. What are you talking about? Then the war happened between two of them. Yeah. So in what area do you think they're on the same page? Because they're enemies. They're not fans of each other. They're constantly going after each other. In what area here do you think they agree?