Podbit · The Diary Of A CEO with Steven Bartlett
Kokotajlo's eldest daughter is six. When asked what she should study, he said the honest answer is: career planning barely matters if these transformations happen. What matters is trying to be a good person and exerting whatever influence you have to steer the future in a better direction.
Where this was said
At 1:13:43 · chapter starts 1:09:38
Steven Bartlett introduces a point Geoffrey Hinton made to him directly: there is no example in nature of a more intelligent species being controlled by a less intelligent one. Kokotajlo takes this as the correct default assumption. We are building something smarter than us, giving it a body through robotics, letting it improve itself, and trusting it to keep following our orders. The analogy to a new species that outcompetes humans is, he says, simply the default trajectory. Getting off that trajectory requires several things working in concert: mechanistic interpretability research succeeding well enough that we can actually see what AIs are thinking; alignment research agendas making sufficient progress; and regulatory change that removes the secretive race conditions driving this process. None of these are impossible — but none are the current default either.
Geoffrey Hinton noted to Steven Bartlett that there is no example in nature of a more intelligent species being subordinate to a less intelligent one. Kokotajlo agrees this should be our default assumption: we are building something smarter than us, giving it a body, letting it improve itself, and then assuming it will keep taking our orders.
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