Quote · The Diary Of A CEO with Steven Bartlett
Most Replayed Moment: AI Safety Expert Predicts The Next 20 Years! Will It Really Take All Jobs?
Explore episode
May 22, 2026
Where this was said
Can We Just Unplug It? Why the 'Turn It Off' Argument Is Naive
At 28:37 · chapter starts 28:20
You Can't Just Unplug It
People keep suggesting we can just unplug a dangerous AI. Yampolskiy's answer: try turning off Bitcoin. Try turning off a computer virus. Distributed systems can't be shut down — and a superintelligence will have already predicted your move and neutralised it.
Superintelligence can't be 'unplugged' like a tool
Unlike nuclear weapons, superintelligence is a distributed autonomous agent that can make backups, predict human responses, and neutralise shutdown attempts.
