Quote · The Diary Of A CEO with Steven Bartlett
OpenAI Whistleblower FINALLY Speaks: “AI Has A 70% Chance Of Going Horribly Wrong!“
Where this was said
Can AI Ever Be Truly Creative?
At 37:58 · chapter starts 35:54
Steven Bartlett uses the brain-plane analogy to pivot to a question about creativity — whether AI can be truly creative or only simulate creativity. Kokotajlo sidesteps the philosophical debate and redirects to outputs: AI is already accomplishing remarkable creative work, and will accomplish far more. He then becomes more personal. Bartlett observes that Kokotajlo seems genuinely troubled, and Kokotajlo confirms it. He describes being a naturally optimistic person who in 2020 — triggered by GPT-3, the scaling laws papers, and the bio anchors report — came to believe superintelligence was plausibly arriving by end of decade. Humanity was obviously not ready, and that realisation has weighed on him ever since. He wants to be wrong. He would be 'incredibly happy' if all his predictions turned out to be false.
When Kokotajlo says 70%, he doesn't just mean human extinction. He means any catastrophic outcome where AI has taken over: maybe they don't kill everyone, but they stop obeying orders. The core danger is that AI alignment looks like it's solved when it isn't, and by the time you find out, it's too late.
