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Are We Doomed?

The True AI Threat is People

6/23/202636 min

Imagine a friendly assistant that can help you build a bioweapon. Or a chatbot in the nuclear weapons chain, cheerfully hallucinating an attack. AI national security expert Hamza Chaudhry worries this is the biggest threat right now — not “killer robot,” but humans being humans. Because whether AI becomes dangerously smart or confidently dumb, people will find face-palming ways to abuse it. From deranged cultists and rogue states, to stockbrokers and the most evil version of Ben’s little cousin, handing everyone a powerful technology with few guardrails could end badly. Or, is there a path to convince companies to add their own?

Guest: 

Hamza Chaudhry, AI national security expert, Future of Life Institute

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Listen to our episode about rogue AI: We Design the AI That Kills Us All
And our episode about nuclear oopsies: How to Start a Nuclear War

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Clips

Drone Turns On Handlers
AI Misfires Nuclear Alarm
Bioweapon Proof-Of-Concept
An AI Patriot Act Looms
Can AI End Humanity?

Transcript preview

First 90 seconds

  1. Speaker 10:00

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  2. Ben Bradford· Host0:31

    Hello. Thanks for being here.

  3. Hamza Chaudry· Guest0:33

    How's it going?

  4. Ben Bradford· Host0:34

    It's good. I did an interview with Hamza Chaudry, a national security expert on artificial intelligence. You also heard from him in our second episode. The conversation started great.

  5. Hamza Chaudry· Guest0:45

    I'm set. I'm ready.

  6. Ben Bradford· Host0:46

    All right. And then we had a tech issue. I was trying to record him in good quality for you, but we had a problem with our app.

  7. Hamza Chaudry· Guest0:54

    Yeah, so I'm on it, and I think I need a code.

  8. Ben Bradford· Host0:57

    Here, just one second.

  9. Hamza Chaudry· Guest0:58

    Thank you.

  10. Ben Bradford· Host0:58

    Then I struggled getting him mic'd up. Turn it upside down?

  11. Hamza Chaudry· Guest1:01

    Yeah.

  12. Ben Bradford· Host1:02

    It turned into a whole thing.

  13. Hamza Chaudry· Guest1:03

    This is like the most intricate setup I've ever done.

  14. Ben Bradford· Host1:06

    Yeah. I may have given him too many notes. So not, not out here.

  15. Hamza Chaudry· Guest1:09

    Yeah, yeah.

  16. Ben Bradford· Host1:10

    If you just invert the phone. Is... Hold, hold it up, like get that phone right next- Put, put it on the, on your, on your same side. And Hamza was a good sport.

  17. Hamza Chaudry· Guest1:17

    I'm sure it's gonna happen.

  18. Ben Bradford· Host1:18

    Until he grew to suspect I was pranking him.

  19. Hamza Chaudry· Guest1:20

    Is this, like, Nathan for You or something? Am I... Is the whole interview?

  20. Ben Bradford· Host1:23

    An interview for a podcast, but it's bad. I think that already exists. Once we got him set up... Oh,

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