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
What It Will Feel Like to Live Through the AI Revolution
At 1:31:11 · chapter starts 1:29:41
Steven Bartlett asks about a striking phrase in the AI 2040 document: 'apocalyptic arrival of truth on Earth.' Kokotajlo explains that once billions of top-expert-level AIs have been running at 100 times human cognitive speed for years, they will inevitably invent technologies that seem impossible today — lie detectors that actually work being one example. The social implications are profound and double-edged. Functional lie detectors could enable a new form of accountability for the powerful — politicians forced to prove allegations are false publicly, for instance. Or they could enable a new form of totalitarianism, with authoritarian governments requiring citizens to submit to loyalty tests. Kokotajlo's principle for evaluating such technologies: good uses are when lie detectors are applied to the powerful, rather than wielded by the powerful against citizens. This section illustrates the broader point that Plan A's controlled, transparent path to superintelligence produces a genuinely disruptive transformation — just one where humans still have some agency over how it's applied.
Once billions of top-expert-level AIs are running at 100x human speed, they will invent technologies we cannot currently imagine — including, probably, lie detectors that actually work. Whether that enables democracy or totalitarianism depends entirely on who controls them: used on the powerful, they could be liberating; used by the powerful against citizens, they enable a new form of tyranny.
