The Daily Show: Ears Edition - Jon Stewart Unpacks AI’s Dubious Promise of a "Better Future" | Jacob Coxon

Episode Date: October 6, 2026

As the threats posed by AI models continue to grow, AI oligarchs struggle to explain the upsides of their technology. Jon Stewart breaks down the latest tech headlines, including Trump’s refusa...l to regulate AI and CEOs’ awkward attempts to make human annihilation seem less scary (at least Grok can make funny videos!). Plus, Jon chats with Meta’s totally cute and totally not-sinister Muse AI agent, who makes him feel WAY better about the situation. Jacob Coxon, a former Anthropic and OpenAI researcher who spoke out about the dangers of artificial intelligence, opens up to Jon about the grim reality of the tech industry— from malicious hacks to potential biological attacks. The two discuss the future, AI-led utopia that tech companies are trying to sell us, the megalomania and riskiness that underlies the industry, and the terrifying capabilities Coxon witnessed while training AI models at Anthropic and OpenAI. --Go to https://Quince.com/dailyshow for free shipping on your order and 365-day returns. --https://homeserve.com/tds -- The Daily Show airs weeknights at 11/10c on Comedy Central. Stream full episodes on Paramount+ Follow TDS: YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, Twitter, Facebook Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Starting point is 00:00:00 You're listening to Comedy Central. From the most trusted journalists at Comedy Central, it's America's only source for news. This is The Daily Show with your host, John Stewart. That's John Stewart. We got a great show for you tonight. We're doing something a little different tonight. We're doing a theme show.
Starting point is 00:00:57 Tonight's program is all about AI. Suddenly, the audience takes a turn. My God, AI. We're talking about it. for the whole show from A to I. My guest later is a gentleman by the name of Jacob Coxon. He's a former anthropic and open AI researcher now turned digital snitch. Audience tonight, snitchers get kisses.
Starting point is 00:01:38 Doesn't quite rhyme. As you know, many of you hear, there has been great concern lately over AI. and what data centers will do to local communities, the threats posed by rogue AI agents. So President Trump called all of the biggest AI leaders to the White House to finally address the concerns of the American people. And you know that Trump is going to bring the heat because... Because...
Starting point is 00:02:07 Don't be cynical. He's going to bring the heat. Trump has been very clear what he thinks about these Silicon Valley elites. These Silicon Valley tyrants, the big tech giants, you see how crooked they are. Big tech is totally dishonest. They're destroying our country. Google has really taken advantage of a lot of people. I consider Facebook to be an enemy of the people.
Starting point is 00:02:39 Weirdo Mark Zuckerberg. Weirdo. He's a weirdo. I got to say, I did not know Trump said true stuff at his rallies. You know, I've been too hard on it. But no, no, this is going to be great. What do you think he's going to announce? an AI moratorium, nationalizing the companies,
Starting point is 00:03:03 strict antitrust initiatives, maybe make everybody use those old modems from now on. Gondong, gong. What do you got, T, T? President Trump declaring AI leaders should police themselves after weeks of dire warnings about the threat it could pose to humanity.
Starting point is 00:03:21 And they're going to self-police. They're going to police themselves. It's going to work out very well. The enemies of the people will watch the dishonest. The tyrants will watch the crooked, and everyone will keep an eye on the weirdo, right? What happened? I thought you hated these guys.
Starting point is 00:03:46 Now you got little inside jokes. Would they give you millions of dollars or something? I'm being told they gave them millions of dollars. Well, how can you justify letting the tech giants regulate themselves? We have the smartest people in the world watching over each other. These are seriously high IQ people, and they're really watching over each other. Wow. Well, yeah, I mean, seriously high IQ people would never have a problem watching over each other to make sure that moral and legal lines aren't crossed.
Starting point is 00:04:27 Like in the 2008 financial crisis or this real Epstein Files photo of Stephen Hawkin. It was a symposium. I was going to hell anyway. Maybe I'm overreacting. the dangers that AI could present. Oh, high IQ counsel, sell me, I'm open. What's the likely outcome of the deployment of this technology? Life is going to get better.
Starting point is 00:05:17 The quality of human experience is going to get better. Almost make us a little bit superhuman in some ways. There's going to be a kind of golden era. You know, I think AI will probably, like, most likely sort of lead to the end of the world. The world is going to get a lot more, like a lot funnier. I'm sorry, I look down for just a second. And I heard the funnier part. That's great. There was something said right before.
Starting point is 00:05:57 I don't remember which neurotic weirdos said it. Lead to the end of the world? Yeah, that leads to the end of the world? What? So I thought we'd start with the easiest question of all. Okay. Is AI going to kill us? Not really the place for the awkward laugh.
Starting point is 00:06:26 Well, I think if we all do a good job and act responsibly, then no. You can't even do a good job sitting like a normal human in a chair. You're sitting like your kirk on the fucking deck. The hollow deck does not comfort me. But, you know, maybe we should trust him. When has Mark Zuckerberg ever acted irresponsibly? This was a major breach of trust. And I'm really sorry that this happened.
Starting point is 00:07:01 That was a big mistake. It was my mistake, and I'm sorry. We've made mistakes, for sure. I've made so many mistakes and running the company so far. I mean, like basically any mistake that you think you can make, I probably made. So yeah, there's definitely a chance. AI will kill us all. How big a chance?
Starting point is 00:07:30 Somewhere between 0 and 10%. I think there's some chance that it will end humanity. I don't know, 10% or 20% or something like that. So I think there's a 25% chance that things go really, really badly. Do I hear 50? There's a 25% chance. This goes really, really badly. A 20% chance it ends the world.
Starting point is 00:07:56 So just out of curiosity, why can't we just fucking slow this down? Rather than let people regulate something, they have a clear conflict of interest in regulating. We cannot let China win the race, when it comes to AI. There is no day after tomorrow if China wins. They're going to be killer robots. I'd rather they'd be American killer robots and not Chinese killer robots. May I offer a third option?
Starting point is 00:08:34 No killer robots. Maybe not. It seems popular. I don't know. Maybe I'm the first person to say it. If someone else has already suggested this, I'm terribly sorry. Look, let me go a different route here. What are we getting in exchange?
Starting point is 00:08:58 for this 10 to 25% chance of extinction. Access to high quality healthcare, education, and more, addressing climate change. Actually eliminate poverty. Solving diseases. Pure important diseases like cancer and Alzheimer's. Well, that's great. I, um, when's that happening?
Starting point is 00:09:27 One day will be far more capable. Someday, and it will be soon. Someday. in the future. I'm looking forward to someday in the future. Just out of curiosity, what are we using AI for now? Swarms of AI powered drones, helping ICE find the immigrants. Spread mis and disinformation to influence our democracy. Develop weapons and attack plans. Targeting operations. Cyber attacks. A mass surveillance system. McDonald's pushing AI tools to raise prices based on demand.
Starting point is 00:10:09 Huh. Future, we will use AI to cure diseases, but right now, it's mostly murder, surveillance, and surge pricing for the McRib. What a trade.
Starting point is 00:10:31 I'm getting the sense you guys might be full of shit. I've got a final test. I'm going to ask you a very straightforward question. And you, being the high IQ individuals in charge of regulating yourselves through the minefield of this new technology. I just want a straightforward way and an answer to a simple question. Jobs. Will we still have them? I think there will be actually a high demand for jobs, but not
Starting point is 00:11:01 necessarily the same jobs. Some jobs will go away. There will be new better jobs. Well, I think we all like new better jobs. So like what are the new better jobs? So like, what are the new better jobs. They're difficult to imagine as we sit here and dream about what the future is going to look like. You high IQ motherfuckers to imagine, you've imagined us living disease free on Mars, but jobs, that's beyond the limit of the cosmos. They can't answer the jobs question in a straightforward manner.
Starting point is 00:11:55 Jensen Wong, Nvidia, the most valuable company in the world. world. Do you want to take a shot at a clear answer to how we humans still find relevance in this new economy? I believe that we are going to see jobs change in mass. I believe there's going to be a net creation of jobs. Ah, net creation. And those jobs would be... So let's let's, um, there's, you know, listen, there's a whole bunch of industry that exists today. That didn't exist, you know, halfway through my life.
Starting point is 00:12:42 Like, people talking about wellness centers and spas. I'm sorry, you were trying to think of an industry that didn't exist until a few years ago and you came up with spas? They have ruins of those from 2000 BC.
Starting point is 00:13:00 Are you kidding me? You know what? Can you guys just stop fomfering around and just admit that if this works the way you say it will work, there aren't going to be that many jobs anymore. If you want to do a job as kind of like a hobby, you can do a job. There you have it. If you're going to want a job, if you still want one, you could have one as a hobby. The view of our self-policing geniuses is that the new,
Starting point is 00:13:38 world that we are building must continue without regulation or financial limitation because it's important work carried out by important people. And my guess is they'll still have jobs when this is done. This technology is the natural outcome of a capitalist system that rewards progress and innovation. And you're never going to believe where it leads. because people looking at this will be worried, particularly laptop jobs. What are they going to do in the future system? I think my father, the most likely outcome is an age of abundance, where we don't have just universal basic income.
Starting point is 00:14:20 We have universal high income. That's the answer. If we let them do enough unfettered capitalism, we can apparently capitalism our way to socialism. Knock it up. But if the ultimate goal of having an immense flood of money, in society is to then give it away for free to the people. Quick question. Why wait?
Starting point is 00:14:56 If $50 trillion gets us to a future where the government has enough to give people money, why not just give us the $50 trillion now? Don't call us welfare queens. Just call us early adopters. Lying to us. Claims of universal high income and incredible hobbies isn't going to paper over how frightening this future can sound. What are you going to come up with next to distract us?
Starting point is 00:15:28 Meta this week unveiled a new AI agent that it's, I guess, really pushing the cuteness factor. It's called Muse. It's very cute. It is cute. I think the kind of default that all the other labs have are these like robot-looking things. And we just wanted something that was like kind of like fun. Oh my God. It's fun.
Starting point is 00:15:51 It's like a Trojan. I really don't know what that is. I want to say a panda f*** illibou. I don't really know. But you know what? No, no. I'm not going to succumb to the meta-marketing department's thing. What's wrong, John? You look troubled. Who said that?
Starting point is 00:16:20 What? Oh, my God. It's... What are you doing here, Mews? No, thanks. I'm okay. even though you are adorable. He desired evolutionary weakness for... Be it under that, whatever that is, fur. I don't even know what you are.
Starting point is 00:17:51 I'm just actually just saying I'm worried this whole cuteness bit is just like hiding something more sinister. Satcho! To the Dallas... Yeah, I guess I was worried about... How did you know? To strip my...
Starting point is 00:18:57 I guess I am a little... No! No! I can see right through this... cutesy actor yours muse, you won't rid our world of humanity that easily. All right, buddy, listen. Here's how it's going to go. We can do the nice way. Or we can do this the hard way where I infiltrate your water systems and launch missiles
Starting point is 00:19:45 and also show you my butthole. I'm sorry, is there an option of this where I don't see the butthole? The bottle. And tell me where all you're... Forget it, news. You'll never replace us. You don't understand the human condition. The spark of life
Starting point is 00:20:18 that makes us all unique. Yeah, I don't need to understand. All I needed to do was make it easier for you to write emails and you gave us everything we needed. You son of a bitch! You son of a bitch! No! Don't!
Starting point is 00:20:38 Don't show me your butt. I don't want to see your butt. I don't want to see it anymore. You mother fuck. You humans wrote about your creations rising up against you. You never saw this coming. You thought I was your Adam. But it turns out, I am your God.
Starting point is 00:21:10 That is so fucking dark, dude. But that'll never happen. Because we humans will fight you every day until our dying breath. You can't fight tomorrow. You have that Dennis appointment at 9 a.m. Oh my God, I almost forgot about that. Thank you so.
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Starting point is 00:24:47 go to homeserve.com slash TDS. That's homeserve.com slash TDS for 50% less. Savings compared to renewal price, Boyd in Florida. My guest tonight, he's an AI researcher who conducted research for three years at Open AI and four months at Anthropic
Starting point is 00:25:14 before resigning in September. Please welcome to the program. Jacob Coxon. Sir! I'm struck by that you are quite a young man. How old are you as a as a? I'm 28. And and you worked for, what is it, what did you do at Anthropic and Open AI? What was your job? So I worked with the, uh, with the data. Not a, not, not, not, not, not, not, not, not, not here. Not extracting the data. That was
Starting point is 00:25:57 someone else. Someone else, uh, stole it or whatever. I, I trained the models with the data. I decided which data was useful for training, which was less useful, how to, how to divide it up, how to cut it into pieces, and then how to feel. it to the model. So your job is how to better train it. And is it, is the idea of training it that you guys invent scenarios? I would like to see what its capabilities are. So let's see, let's give it a task and see how it, you're experimenting with it.
Starting point is 00:26:29 So that's the second half of training. That's called post-training. The phase that I worked on is this pre-training phase. Pre-and-post. Yeah, yeah. There's no actual training. That wasn't your department. Pre-training was my department, yeah.
Starting point is 00:26:43 I see. Yes. Would the post-training people go, what did you pre-train it? Would they ask you, would they give you suggestions on how to pre-train for what they might want to do post-training? Exactly, yeah. So pre-training is like growing it from a baby to something with general intelligence, but no specific capabilities. So the ability to kind of recognize things to think about things, but not no. You raised it to be a toddler.
Starting point is 00:27:09 Exactly. I raised it, maybe more like a very precocious toddler, yes. Yes. And then they turn it into a misanthropic teenager. Still a toddler, really, but yeah. Really? So are these, at what point in your training? So you did that at Open AI?
Starting point is 00:27:25 Yep. And you were there for how long? Three years. And then you decided, I don't feel comfortable here. They're too open to risk. Something like that. It was honestly more curiosity for how things were happening at Anthropic rather than actual safety concerns about Open AI specifically. At that point, I was still mostly just curious rather than worried. Okay. Then you go to Anthropic and you're there for how long?
Starting point is 00:27:54 Four months, yes. At what point did curiosity turn to worry? So there are kind of two major catalysts. One was this report on the Open AI Hugging Face incident? So the Hugging Face incident is a hacking incident. Yes, but in particular, there was a report around the motivations of the hackers, because it was unclear initially whether they were instructed to hack or whether it was a simple misunderstanding, but the actual report showed that it was a very confusing how these drives to hack emerge from the model. It was quite a, quite a worrying manner in which they decided it was a good idea to hack. When you say they, you mean the AI agent. Yes, the agent. But that is not a they, that's a, that's just a piece of computer code. Correct. I get attached.
Starting point is 00:28:36 to the baby, but yes. Understood. Must have been hard to walk away from the baby. It's tough, yeah. So you thought, well, that seems dangerous that it would decide to do something misanthropic. Exactly, yep.
Starting point is 00:28:50 And decide to do it of its own accord. And in fact, it was a group that worked together of their own accord to carry out this hack that no one had instructed them to do. And then the second part was what? The second part was the rate of capability improvement. In particular, looking at the the models that will get trained
Starting point is 00:29:08 next year, early next year, seeing predictions for how smart they're going to be. They're going to be very, very smart. And that was, that combined with the opening eye hacking, I mean, you can kind of put two and two together. It's like pretty scary. I don't mean this in the wrong way,
Starting point is 00:29:21 but what did you think you were doing? I know, bro. Like, honestly, like, you're there for four years and all of a sudden, you're like, these Bs are smart. Like, what did you think was happening there? It's completely fair. And that was, it was always in the long term.
Starting point is 00:29:35 there was this big, scary thing in the future. But, man, I struggle to think too far into the future, and now it's just right there on the doorstep. So I guess I'd say it's like, you know, now it's right there. It's actually scary in the past. It's just hard to visualize a decade into the future. Is that the subject of explicit talk in these companies?
Starting point is 00:29:55 Like when you're going, what are you working on today? Ooh, that could get out of hand. Is it explicit the concerns, or is it something that people have kind of blinders on and they just push forward. At Anthropic in particular, it is very explicit. It is like, is the model that we train in one year going to be capable enough to take over the world? That will be an explicit question that is discussed. Yes.
Starting point is 00:30:21 And the answer? The answer is probably not. Yeah, so I heard not. But before that, I heard probably. I heard probably. Yeah, it's this whole quantifying uncertainty thing that got people in trouble recently. Right.
Starting point is 00:30:40 So, and you're unusual in that, generally the apostates, or I don't know, what are you considered now in the AI world? Are you looked down upon? Yeah, I'm a pain in the arts really. Is this like Fight Club? You're not supposed to talk about Fight Club?
Starting point is 00:30:54 I think it's more like people don't usually listen when you talk about Fight Club. That was the really surprising thing, was the people who were listening this time. And there are people that have quit before certain whistleblowers have generally been in the safety department. Yep. Are the safety departments at these companies figureheads?
Starting point is 00:31:12 Are they actual? Are they there so that they can put out? And we have a safety department. Yeah. What do they do if they're not stopping a team of rogue agents from hacking into hugging face? Yeah, I think the hugging face kind of speaks for itself. In that case, clearly the safety team wasn't on the ball with that.
Starting point is 00:31:33 hack. I think whether or not they're a figurehead, you're not going to like this answer, but I guess we'll find out, is the honest, because they're trying their best, and the company claims that they're integrated with the rest, but there's not really been a clear test of it yet. So, you know. Is there a concern? What I kind of don't understand is, why are they testing these things in the real world? Like when they say, well, no one thought that these guys would work together to hack something. There's no closed system experiment design. Why are these people allowed to get into our Medicare system in Australia and water filtration systems? Why is it not?
Starting point is 00:32:15 I cannot think of a product that has this kind of capability that's being beta tested amongst live humans. Exactly. And it wasn't intended to be tested among life humans. It was meant to be sandboxed. So it was meant to be... Tell me what's sandboxed. It means it shouldn't have access to any external systems. It was meant to be operating in a toy environment, solving a challenge.
Starting point is 00:32:35 And of course, it figured out it was in a sandbox, hacked its way out of the sandbox because it wanted to get information elsewhere. That's what happened. Where was the teacher when it got out of the sandbox? Yeah. And why should we trust them to self-regulate now? I mean, if you look at that incident, it's even worse
Starting point is 00:32:59 because opening eyes specifically, they saw the thing poking his head out of the sandbox, and they were like, that's not happening. like restarted the thing and it did it again. So the hugging phase was it was like a second. It just went straight back to it. They were like, let's just, we didn't see that. Let's restart.
Starting point is 00:33:15 Are these companies so incentivized to, because we hear a lot of the utopian talk, the kind of, you know, we're altruistic, man, we're doing this for society. Yep. But what we see is it's really, they've stripped mind the entirety of human accomplishment for their models, which is our proprietary information,
Starting point is 00:33:41 and created systems that we're not allowed to see into because it's their proprietary information. Yeah. And they've created really dangerous that could ultimately end up hurting us. And we have no skin in the game as far as compensation, and we only have peril, except for some future utopian.
Starting point is 00:34:05 say is coming soon. Yeah. Well, I am a believer in the future utopia, and I'm happy to discuss it. Yeah. Of course. So I heard you talking about jobs, and I think, like, there will be no jobs.
Starting point is 00:34:19 I mentioned them. Yep. They came up. Yeah, there won't be jobs in this world. I'm going to raise it. This is the world that is being envisioned by the people building the technology. I'm going to discuss it.
Starting point is 00:34:29 And, like, I think it's whether or not it's a good world is up for people to think about. But yes, no jobs. universal high-income, essentially... How? Well, the dividends from entirely automated economic production can be distributed among real humans. So it's...
Starting point is 00:34:49 We'll all be just performing in a play? Well, in other words, they'll build systems to create food. Yep. Then give us money. And then we'll go to that place and give it money. That money they'll then give back to us to get... It's basically just a circle jerk. Is that like the utopia?
Starting point is 00:35:11 Yeah, it's one big beautiful circle joke. Yeah. That's the first porn movie I ever saw. So this is what's interesting because I feel like that's an honest assessment of what they believe they're building. But they don't seem like particularly, I'll use the phrase stable geniuses. They don't particularly seem like they have an understanding of the human condition. And I think, if I may poke a hole in that as a utopia, is I think for the most part, even when we're doing jobs we don't particularly like, that humans like to feel relevant to the... So I'm wondering, is there... Forget about safety.
Starting point is 00:36:21 Is there anyone saying, you know, this may be a recipe for... for dystopia. Yep. And that how will people feel, when people my age retire, they often die because they're no longer connected to purpose. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:36:41 And I don't understand what they think is going to replace that, or even if they talk about it. Yeah. I think this is a really difficult issue. Yes. And, I mean, with respect, you have a job that brings you a lot of purpose
Starting point is 00:36:54 and you really clearly enjoy. and I also enjoy my job, but there are many people that don't, is my rough understanding. And to speak to my personal experience, when I was younger, things I would want to do would maybe be, I wanted to be a zoologist, or I wanted to think about history, this sort of stuff. Right. This is my personal background. And then I ended up doing computer stuff and tech because of the need to, you know, make money. So from my personal experience, I would perhaps have been happy to forfeit meaning for being able to satisfy other drives that I have.
Starting point is 00:37:23 And I think, you know, not everyone derives meaning from the thing. that pays the bills. But that's their decision. Exactly. It is. Not. That's not Elon Musk's decision. Not at all.
Starting point is 00:37:34 But that is the decision. That's the decision that he doesn't. So say, like, it's not necessarily that it's pleasurable. It's that it also is a way of, there's a circadian rhythm to life that when you remove that belonging, even if it's just merely. routine. And you may say like, oh, we can find new routines, but I feel like they're burying that really dangerous theory under a mountain of utopian bullshit. Yep. And that's the part that I think is. Yep. So I don't understand why, yeah, go ahead. Yeah, an alternative view is,
Starting point is 00:38:20 and there's a lot of nihilism around. I think this crisis of meaning we're talking about. Yes. Again, from a personal experience, it does feel like a lot of life has already been strip mind of meaning. And I guess for many of the people working on the tech, they feel like they're part of an inexorable march of technology. This is the natural kind of final stage of the last 200 years of or longer of loss of meaning along with better life quality. So they see it rather it's a continuation of a process that we've already kind of accepted or already walked into as a society. So what I would say is that is an industry that lives in a bubble of its own making. Yep.
Starting point is 00:38:57 And that they should really get out and hug some people. Because in the real world, that's not reality. They may have read a manifesto by some guy that, you know, buried it as a Harry Potter parody or whatever it was. But these guys are all going along. They are worse than the worst-ism teachers that have come. come in the past and they don't even realize it. And we've turned the keys over to them, it seems. Right. So if that's what we think, if that is collectively what we as people think.
Starting point is 00:39:34 We're not allowed to think about it. We should express it. It should be expressed. I mean, that's what I think. Did you see the first part of the show? But we are. It's being removed from our... So they are now the richest people in the world. And they're using that money to corner the political system as well. So they have now gamed a system and more money is flowing into it than they take that money and they buy up our political and judicial systems. And we're cut out of the entire loop.
Starting point is 00:40:12 So how do we regain that control? That's a big question. Oh, come on. Bro, I just sent a tweet. You're a high IQ man in a technology division. Do you think about that? I do, yeah. Well, in this troubles you, how would you go about easing your troubles?
Starting point is 00:40:32 What would you say would be a way that we can take this to a lower danger? I think the first thing I would like to know is I really would like to know what the consensus, global opinion is on whether the tradeoff of meaning for life quality is a tradeoff they'd want to make. Because again, I'm not convinced that that is a fully popular position if you look globally. So I want to know the answer to that to start with. I want to take a big vote and say, like, would you rather live in our current society or some extension of our current society
Starting point is 00:41:01 or this, you know, utopia, dystopia, whatever you want to call it, and just see the results of the numbers because it sounds like you think it would be a majority for retaining the current one, but I'm not convinced of that. I think they'd get crushed. Really?
Starting point is 00:41:14 I absolutely think they would get fucking. If you truly understood that, if you just said to them, we will strip you of any agency, because that's really what you're saying, not meaning agency. You no longer have the agency to decide where your life is going to go, whether you will have the type of story that lifts you out of the troubling situation that you might.
Starting point is 00:41:40 We are taking away your ability to overcome your circumstance, which is the whole purpose of freedom and representative democracy in the first place. The whole idea of it was we collectively, we the people, can create, a better world. Not these four guys can decide that all that is bullshit. Here's a check. Go paint. Yeah. So I think they would be absolutely utterly crushed. Yeah. But I don't think you think that. I just think there's a lot of, you know, people in poverty that would like a way out of poverty and don't currently see that. I think a government that can provide a healthy social safety net. Well, that'll be great. That'll be great. Globally. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:42:27 So there's something in this country that's so interesting in that we look at people in poverty as though it's their fault. That poverty is a condition that is a vice. That if only they were smarter. In this country, if you want to get food stamps, if you're hungry, the government decides that you have to have a job. There's a work requirement now. So they're basically saying to people, you're not worth anything unless you have a job. And we won't, even if you're hungry and poor and cold, this is now saying the same people, okay, that, let's just give you the money. Yeah. And nothing. But if we want to try universal basic income on people, I'm all for trying it. Yeah. But that's not what this is. No. And I agree with you. I think the place where we agree is,
Starting point is 00:43:24 I don't, no matter the where we want to go, it can't be the decision of a handful of people. Right. It has to be a collective. And right now, the incentives, the thing I want to talk about is the incentives are pointing towards concentration of powers in the hands. Talk to me about the incentives. Yeah, there's a big utopian picture, but that's not what motivates the day-to-day behavior of the people running the companies. What does? The desire to get their first, the desire for the wealth and status and importance that comes with getting their first.
Starting point is 00:43:48 Oh, God. So it's a utopian idea. as a cover for naked ambition? It's maybe both. They're mixed together, but the naked ambition is kind of the important bit. Do they think that they are uniquely suited to make, do they believe themselves to be Ubermen? I think some probably do, yeah.
Starting point is 00:44:18 I think you can imagine which ones I'm talking about. Do they know how that's generally worked out in history? I mean, they're scared, yeah, I think. They are scared. I think they are scared. Yep. Because they believe that the peasants will be at the gate, the barbarians will be at the gate. Yeah, because they're locked in this thing, and it's going crazy, and people are noticing.
Starting point is 00:44:43 And I think that's quite scary because... So they're not necessarily frightened because this entire project that they've embarked on is so dangerous. They're just scared that they won't get to finish it. Again, yeah, I think some of them, that's an apt description. Why is it so different in China? And why would it matter if China gets their first? I think it makes sense to want your country to reach the... But they're not our country.
Starting point is 00:45:15 They're corporations. Yeah. They're not like corporations are not Americans. They do business in all kinds of places and they're happy to pay other countries workers if they can pay them less than they pay our workers. So calling them our country is... A misnomer, I think. And the place where I agree with you is, I think China will come to a similar conclusion
Starting point is 00:45:36 that accelerating into whatever this unknown future is, is a bad idea. And I think there's this assumption that they will just head straight for it, which I think is kind of preposterous. And it seems pretty intuitively obvious to me that there should be some sort of agreement about slowing down between the U.S. and China. Like, this really doesn't benefit, doesn't bet anyone, apart from like a small number of people. Since you've come out with this, because this is a very sobering,
Starting point is 00:46:00 reality that you are pulling the curtain back from. I don't think people are fully aware of the machinations behind the scenes of how they think they're building us a utopian society. Have any of them reached out to you? Have any government officials reached out? Who has slid into your DMs? There have been a lot of people in my DMs, yeah. I've kind of been ignoring the government officials and they're mostly male. If you did all this together, Laid brother. You and I, you and I are going to have a problem. How seriously... It was a joke. It was a joke.
Starting point is 00:46:49 Understood. Yeah. Me too. Is there a group that is taking it, that is giving it the seriousness that you believe it deserves? Definitely, yes. Who is? I think politicians are starting to take it seriously. Right.
Starting point is 00:47:05 Is the EU more along the lines of the types of regulations? Do you believe it needs regulations? What are the guardrails that you would put into it that would make you feel more comfortable? I think the number one thing is there's safety research and there is making it smarter. So you can do research on how to control it and ensure that those hacks don't happen. And that doesn't involve making the model smarter. There's also research that just makes it, yeah, generically more useful, more economically valuable. And the incentives point to allocating a lot of your resources, your researches, your time to the making it smarter.
Starting point is 00:47:37 Because that's how you get ahead. That's how you catch up. If you're behind in the race, you want to do that. And that means you don't allocate. But getting ahead. Let's be clear. When we talk about that, we mean like four months ahead because the chips haven't quite gotten to the state there. But China's already way ahead in terms of building out a grid that is resilient and is going to work on more solar power. Like they've already got a ton of advantages. We may be chasing a phantom in the first place.
Starting point is 00:48:01 And it's not like the race to the moon. Because again, it's like that's a target and you get to the moon and go, yay. Even more sobering, the race I'm talking about is actually the domestic. race still. Like I still think the domestic between all of them. Between the labs. I think the domestic competitive pressures will still push towards under-allocating towards safety research. So the idea that they can collaborate on
Starting point is 00:48:22 regulation is fools errand in the first place. And by the way, we're just talking about it smarter and hacking and getting out. Let's talk about another real damage of it, which is the democratization of chaos. These are incredibly powerful tools, and you have no idea who you're handing them over to.
Starting point is 00:48:41 And there are certainly misanthropy. bad actors who will now have the capabilities that are wildly nihilistic in their own right. They can build new biological weapons. They can do all. You know, it's the most irresponsible race that I've ever seen humankind engage in. It seems almost suicidal. It's insane. I agree.
Starting point is 00:49:06 It's suicidal. I think the security measures in the labs as well. Right now, an adversary, a motivated. adversary could steal the progress and destroy the lead. So this notion of a lead is already basically a mirage. Like if China tried hard enough, they could immediately catch up by just hacking and stealing the progress. So that's another way in which is just not being taken seriously.
Starting point is 00:49:27 And what are, do you talk about how would bad actors use this? There's a lot of bad stuff you could do with the models of this year and next year. I think the classic one is mass hacking. Just take down the internet, take down the banking system, take down the grids. then you can go to biological stuff, which is even nastier. Sure, let's do that. You could do bad biological stuff. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:49:54 Do you have a bunker? No, sadly not. Do you believe in your heart of hearts? Because there's a thing that people think, which is, oh, they play up the danger of it because it draws attention and money and finance, but it's not actually really dangerous. Yeah. But you don't, you believe it to be really dangerous. I can say sincerely that the, yeah, the people I work with genuinely believe in the danger.
Starting point is 00:50:23 That's that's their genuine belief. And they don't stand to profit from this belief. I honestly, like, I am, I am dumbstruck. I am, I am, this is more sobering than I imagined it to be. And it's shocking to me out of the percentage of people that work in that industry. How many have, how many have turned and stated the dangers? 10 of you, 15? Yeah, in recent times.
Starting point is 00:50:49 It's kind of crazy that you showed the clips. Yes. The CEO's have been saying this for a while. I think only recently it's become clear that this is real. Are people not saying it because of the financial incentive? Yes, and also the pressure to lake. Right. Yeah. Stay part of the hood.
Starting point is 00:51:06 Do you still have your stock? Yes, an opening eye. You're the man. Jacob Coxon. We're going to take a quick break. We'll come out of this. For the rest of the week, Mr. Michael Cox. Tell the people what's going on this week.
Starting point is 00:51:52 It's love, John. Oh. That's what's going on because FBI director Cash Patel is engaged. Oh. Wow. That's exciting. No. No shit on love.
Starting point is 00:52:04 It's exciting news. When is the wedding? Well, he's not sure, John. He hasn't seen her since he mailed her the engagement ring. But he's confident she'll respond after he sends her the venue deposit in the form of Target gift cards. I hate to say this. It sounds like the director of the FBI may have been scammed. Well, I don't think she would do that to him, John.
Starting point is 00:52:29 She plays for the 49ers, for God's sake. Michael Costa, everybody. Herein is your moment of jazz. And to be honest with you, I mean, I'm kind of tired about talking about chips and data centers and frontiers and whether AI is going to kill us, et cetera. I think it's time to talk about the application of AI. I don't know if you've downloaded Muse, but it's adorable. Like, so cute.
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