If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies

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If we build something vastly smarter than us, with goals we don’t share and without knowing how to control it, we lose. That’s the core claim in the book, and I don’t think it’s all that controversial. The real question is whether that’s where we’re headed.

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Correction: at 14:18 I say “Less than a week after that post, a single hacker used that same AI model to hack the Mexican government.” I should have said “Less than a week after that post, news broke that a single hacker used Claude to hack the Mexican government.” The story broke February 24th, but the hacking itself took place in December ’25 and January ’26, before Opus 4.6 was released. That means the attacker must have carried out this attack using a slightly less advanced version of Claude than Opus 4.6, the one that found 500 zero-day vulnerabilities. Thanks to Carl at @InternetOfBugs for pointing out this error.

𝙒𝙖𝙩𝙘𝙝 𝙥𝙧𝙚𝙫𝙞𝙤𝙪𝙨 𝙫𝙞𝙙𝙚𝙤𝙨

(80,000 Hours)

𝙈𝙤𝙧𝙚 𝙛𝙧𝙤𝙢 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙖𝙪𝙩𝙝𝙤𝙧𝙨

𝘾𝙝𝙖𝙥𝙩𝙚𝙧𝙨
00:00 Introduction
01:30 01. A Powerful Idea
05:16 02. Grown, Not Crafted
07:27 Alien Minds
10:05 03. A New Type of Mind
12:49 04. Learning to Want
15:35 05. Scheming
18:17 06. You Don’t Get What You Train For
21:56 07. Exfiltration
26:04 08. Instrumental Convergence
29:49 09. The Bioweapon
31:52 10. Extinction
34:19 11. A Cursed Problem?
38:08 12. Along For the Ride
41:06 13. What Are You Supposed to Do?
42:51 Credits

𝘾𝙧𝙚𝙙𝙞𝙩𝙨
Host / Aric Floyd
Writers / Aric Floyd, Chana Messinger
Director / Phoebe Brooks
Producers / Chana Messinger, Phoebe Brooks
Production Coordinator / Sage Bergerson
Director of Photography / Nick Dolph
Gaffer / Andy Haney
Sound Recordist / David Jenkins
Spark / Ryan Tam
Editors / Zach Joseph, Phoebe Brooks
Graphics & Animation / Daniel Recinto, Mila Graf
Graphic Design / Nik Mastroddi, Ailbhe Treacy

Based on “If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies” by Eliezer Yudkowsky & Nate Soares.

See our landing page for links to work by our crew.

Special thanks to Dean Ball, Joe Carlsmith, Representative Bill Foster, Dwarkesh Patel, and Nate Soares for their interviews, and Steven Adler and Alex Lawsen for their technical advising.

And thanks to Bella Forristal, Arden Koehler, Clarissa Lam, Petr Lebedev, Gaetan Selle, Drew Spartz, Wrena Sproat, Rob Wiblin, Siliconversations, Ciel Creative Space and Lighthaven Recording Studio.

Musicbed: MB013J3TISEDSZM, MB01XFG5DRCE6GS

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