OpenAI Whistleblower FINALLY Speaks: “AI Has A 70% Chance Of Going Horribly Wrong!“

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Would He Shut Down AI Forever If He Could?

At 1:37:23 · chapter starts 1:36:52

Steven Bartlett presents a hypothetical: a button that would permanently end all frontier AI training everywhere. Kokotajlo's immediate instinct is to reach for it — then Bartlett adds 'for good,' and he stops. He would slam a temporary pause button immediately, he says, because civilisation is not ready for what these companies are building. But a permanent shutdown is harder. He thinks through the utilitarian calculus: the potential benefits for all future generations could be enormous, but the risks to people alive today are real and immediate. He is also uncertain whether a world without powerful AI is truly stable in the long run — nuclear war, pandemics, and other existential risks make human civilisation fragile regardless of AI. After a long pause, he concludes he would probably not press the button — but acknowledges he could be reasoning himself into the same trap he criticises in AI CEOs: that the benefits for posterity justify the risks to people now. He feels very torn. It is the episode's most human and unresolved moment.