OpenAI Whistleblower FINALLY Speaks: “AI Has A 70% Chance Of Going Horribly Wrong!“
Ex-OpenAI researcher Daniel Kokotajlo walked away from $2 million rather than stay silent, and now reveals why he believes there's a 70% chance AI leads to human extinction, why superintelligence could arrive before the end of the decade, and the one plan he thinks could still save us all!
Daniel Kokotajlo is a former OpenAI researcher and one of the world's leading AI forecasters. He is the founder of the AI Futures Project and the lead author of 'AI 2027', the widely-read scenario mapping the trajectory of artificial intelligence. His follow-up, 'AI 2040: Plan A', sets out how the world could still navigate superintelligence safely.
He explains:
■ What he saw inside OpenAI that made him walk away
■ Why the people building AI privately believe it's coming even sooner than the public is being told
■ What happens if AI becomes powerful enough that humans can no longer control it, and why he puts the odds of catastrophe as high as 70%
■ Why almost every job could be automated, and what that means for the next generation
■ The plan he believes could still lead to abundance and a future worth living in
Chapters
00:00:00 Intro
00:02:14 Why This AI Mission Could Affect Everyone
00:04:01 Why the Average Person Should Care About AI
00:08:09 Are AI Experts Overreacting or Sounding the Alarm?
00:09:46 Why He Joined OpenAI—and What He Saw Inside
00:13:04 Why He Left OpenAI
00:15:33 What It Was Like Inside OpenAI During ChatGPT's Launch
00:16:56 The Million NDA Controversy Explained
00:19:10 Is Full AI Automation Coming Faster Than We Think?
00:23:59 The AI 2027 Forecast That Changed the Conversation
00:26:13 AGI vs. Superintelligence: The Difference That Matters
00:26:57 How Robots Could Soon Become Part of Everyday Life
00:30:03 Why AI Works More Like the Human Brain Than You Think
00:35:54 Can AI Ever Be Truly Creative?
00:40:55 What Are the Real Odds of Human Extinction From AI?
00:47:38 What AI Will Do to Jobs
00:54:25 The Skills That Will Still Matter in an AI World
01:00:01 AI 2040: What the Future Could Look Like
01:04:16 The Different Futures AI Could Create
01:09:13 Will AI Become Earth's Apex Species?
01:12:58 How AI CEOs Really Make Decisions
01:15:17 Will AI Decide the 2028 Election?
01:18:38 Is There a Safe Path to Accelerating AI?
01:21:51 By 2031, AI Could Do 20% of Cognitive Work
01:24:55 Should Everyone Receive AI Dividends?
01:32:21 What It Will Feel Like to Live Through the AI Revolution
01:33:51 How People Find Purpose After AI Replaces Jobs
01:45:52 Would He Shut Down AI Forever If He Could?
01:49:36 What Can We Actually Do About AI?
01:57:05 Is It Already Too Late to Change Course?
Follow Daniel:
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Substack - https://link.thediaryofaceo.com/5alnhzB
Daniel's AI predictions:
https://ai-2027.com/
https://ai-2040.com/
AI risk reading list:
https://blog.redwoodresearch.org/p/ai-futurism-reading-list
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‘Hard Fork’ Live, Part 3: Differing Visions of an A.I. Future
We’re back with our final installment from Hard Fork Live, recorded at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco. In this episode, we’re joined by Sayash Kapoor and Daniel Kokotajlo to talk about their differing visions of A.I. transformation: why Sayash thinks A.I. will diffuse throughout society like a “normal” technology, and why Daniel thinks an unprecedented acceleration is just around the corner. Then we’re joined by George Ekas from Toborlife AI, along with his dancing robot Toby. Finally, the podcaster Dwarkesh Patel drops by, and we take a few questions from the live audience.
Guests:
Sayash Kapoor, an A.I. researcher at Princeton University and a co-author of the newsletter “AI as Normal Technology”
Daniel Kokotajlo, the executive director of the AI Futures Project and a co-author of “AI 2027”
George Ekas, the director of engineering at Toberlife AI
Dwarkesh Patel, a tech podcaster
Additional Reading:
This A.I. Forecast Predicts Storms Ahead
AI as Normal Technology
Common Ground Between AI 2027 & AI as Normal Technology
Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app.
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Three Red Lines We're About to Cross Toward AGI (Daniel Kokotajlo, Gary Marcus, Dan Hendrycks)
What if the most powerful technology in human history is being built by people who openly admit they don't trust each other? In this explosive 2-hour debate, three AI experts pull back the curtain on the shocking psychology driving the race to Artificial General Intelligence—and why the people building it might be the biggest threat of all. Kokotajlo predicts AGI by 2028 based on compute scaling trends. Marcus argues we haven't solved basic cognitive problems from his 2001 research. The stakes? If Kokotajlo is right and Marcus is wrong about safety progress, humanity may have already lost control.
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Guest Powerhouse
Gary Marcus - Cognitive scientist, author of "Taming Silicon Valley," and AI's most prominent skeptic who's been warning about the same fundamental problems for 25 years (https://garymarcus.substack.com/)
Daniel Kokotajlo - Former OpenAI insider turned whistleblower who reveals the disturbing rationalizations of AI lab leaders in his viral "AI 2027" scenario (https://ai-2027.com/)
Dan Hendrycks - Director of the Center for AI Safety who created the benchmarks used to measure AI progress and argues we have only years, not decades, to prevent catastrophe (https://danhendrycks.com/)
Transcript:
http://app.rescript.info/public/share/tEcx4UkToi-2jwS1cN51CW70A4Eh6QulBRxDILoXOno
TOC:
Introduction: The AI Arms Race
00:00:04 - The Danger of Automated AI R&D
00:00:43 - The Rationalization: "If we don't, someone else will"
00:01:56 - Sponsor Reads (Tufa AI Labs & Google Gemini)
00:02:55 - Guest Introductions
The Philosophical Stakes
00:04:13 - What is the Positive Vision for AGI?
00:07:00 - The Abundance Scenario: Superintelligent Economy
00:09:06 - Differentiating AGI and Superintelligence (ASI)
00:11:41 - Sam Altman: "A Decade in a Month"
00:14:47 - Economic Inequality & The UBI Problem
Policy and Red Lines
00:17:13 - The Pause Letter: Stopping vs. Delaying AI
00:20:03 - Defining Three Concrete Red Lines for AI Development
00:25:24 - Racing Towards Red Lines & The Myth of "Durable Advantage"
00:31:15 - Transparency and Public Perception
00:35:16 - The Rationalization Cascade: Why AI Labs Race to "Win"
Forecasting AGI: Timelines and Methodologies
00:42:29 - The Case for Short Timelines (Median 2028)
00:47:00 - Scaling Limits: Compute, Data, and Money
00:49:36 - Forecasting Models: Bio-Anchors and Agentic Coding
00:53:15 - The 10^45 FLOP Thought Experiment
The Great Debate: Cognitive Gaps vs. Scaling
00:58:41 - Gary Marcus's Counterpoint: The Unsolved Problems of Cognition
01:00:46 - Current AI Can't Play Chess Reliably
01:08:23 - Can Tools and Neurosymbolic AI Fill the Gaps?
01:16:13 - The Multi-Dimensional Nature of Intelligence
01:24:26 - The Benchmark Debate: Data Contamination and Reliability
01:31:15 - The Superhuman Coder Milestone Debate
01:37:45 - The Driverless Car Analogy
The Alignment Problem
01:39:45 - Has Any Progress Been Made on Alignment?
01:42:43 - "Fairly Reasonably Scares the Sh*t Out of Me"
01:46:30 - Distinguishing Model vs. Process Alignment
Scenarios and Conclusions
01:49:26 - Gary's Alternative Scenario: The Neurosymbolic Shift
01:53:35 - Will AI Become Jeff Dean?
01:58:41 - Takeoff Speeds and Exceeding Human Intelligence
02:03:19 - Final Disagreements and Closing Remarks
REFS:
Gary Marcus (2001) - The Algebraic Mind
https://mitpress.mit.edu/9780262632683/the-algebraic-mind/
00:59:00
Gary Marcus & Ernest Davis (2019) - Rebooting AI
https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/566677/rebooting-ai-by-gary-marcus-and-ernest-davis/
01:31:59
Gary Marcus (2024) - Taming SV
https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/gary-marcus/taming-silicon-valley/9781541704091/
00:03:01
#420 — Countdown to Superintelligence
Sam Harris speaks with Daniel Kokotajlo about the potential impacts of superintelligent AI over the next decade. They discuss Daniel's predictions in his essay "AI 2027," the alignment problem, what an intelligence explosion might look like, the capacity of LLMs to intentionally deceive, the economic implications of recent advances in AI, AI safety testing, the potential for governments to regulate AI development, AI coding capabilities, how we'll recognize the arrival of superintelligent AI, and other topics.
If the Making Sense podcast logo in your player is BLACK, you can SUBSCRIBE to gain access to all full-length episodes at samharris.org/subscribe.
Learning how to train your mind is the single greatest investment you can make in life. That's why Sam Harris created the Waking Up app. From rational mindfulness practice to lessons on some of life's most important topics, join Sam as he demystifies the practice of meditation and explores the theory behind it.
LIMITLESS - AI DEBATE: Runaway Superintelligence or Normal Technology? | Daniel Kokotajlo vs Arvind
Two visions for the future of AI clash in this debate between Daniel Kokotajlo and Arvind Narayanan.
Is AI a revolutionary new species destined for runaway superintelligence, or just another step in humanity’s technological evolution—like electricity or the internet?
Daniel, a former OpenAI researcher and author of AI 2027, argues for a fast-approaching intelligence explosion. Arvind, a Princeton professor and co-author of AI Snake Oil, contends that AI is powerful but ultimately controllable and slow to reshape society. Moderated by Ryan and David, this conversation dives into the crux of capability vs. power, economic transformation, and the future of democratic agency in an AI-driven world.
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TIMESTAMPS
0:00 Intro
4:44 Is AI Normal Tech?
30:20 Capability & Power
44:52 Manageable or Existential?
52:36 AGI Milestone
1:00:31 AI by 2030
1:12:07 Making Sense
1:16:08 Closing & Disclaimers
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RESOURCES
Daniel Kokotajlo
https://x.com/dkokotajlo
Arvind Narayanan
https://x.com/random_walker
Two Paths For AI - Daniel
https://www.newyorker.com/culture/open-questions/two-paths-for-ai
AI as Normal Technology - Arvind
https://knightcolumbia.org/content/ai-as-normal-technology
AI 2027 - Daniel
https://ai-2027.com/
AI Snake Oil - Arvind
https://www.aisnakeoil.com/
https://www.amazon.com/Snake-Oil-Artificial-Intelligence-Difference/dp/069124913X
Pause AI
https://pauseai.info/pdoom
------
Not financial or tax advice. See our investment disclosures here:
https://www.bankless.com/disclosures
Big Tech's Tariff Chaos + A.I. 2027 + Llama Drama
This week, with the tech world in chaos over President Trump’s tariffs, we look at how four specific companies are navigating the new day-to-day reality. Then, the A.I. researcher Daniel Kokotajlo returns to the show to discuss a new set of predictions for how artificial intelligence could transform the world in just the next few years and how we avoid the most dystopian outcomes. Finally, we explore whether Meta cheated on an important A.I. benchmark with its new Llama model.
Guest:
Daniel Kokotajlo, executive director of the AI Futures Project
Additional Reading:
Inside Trump’s Reversal on Tariffs: From ‘Be Cool!’ to ‘Getting Yippy’
A.I. 2027
Meta Gets Rebuked Over Benchmark Gaming
We want to hear from you. Email us at hardfork@nytimes.com. Find “Hard Fork” on YouTube and TikTok.
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AI 2027: month-by-month model of intelligence explosion — Scott Alexander & Daniel Kokotajlo
Scott and Daniel break down every month from now until the 2027 intelligence explosion.
Scott Alexander is author of the highly influential blogs Slate Star Codex and Astral Codex Ten. Daniel Kokotajlo resigned from OpenAI in 2024, rejecting a non-disparagement clause and risking millions in equity to speak out about AI safety.
We discuss misaligned hive minds, Xi and Trump waking up, and automated Ilyas researching AI progress.
I came in skeptical, but I learned a tremendous amount by bouncing my objections off of them. I highly recommend checking out their new scenario planning document, AI 2027
Watch on Youtube; listen on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.
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To sponsor a future episode, visit dwarkesh.com/advertise.
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Timestamps
(00:00:00) - AI 2027
(00:06:56) - Forecasting 2025 and 2026
(00:14:41) - Why LLMs aren't making discoveries
(00:24:33) - Debating intelligence explosion
(00:49:45) - Can superintelligence actually transform science?
(01:16:54) - Cultural evolution vs superintelligence
(01:24:05) - Mid-2027 branch point
(01:32:30) - Race with China
(01:44:47) - Nationalization vs private anarchy
(02:03:22) - Misalignment
(02:14:52) - UBI, AI advisors, & human future
(02:23:00) - Factory farming for digital minds
(02:26:52) - Daniel leaving OpenAI
(02:35:15) - Scott's blogging advice
Get full access to Dwarkesh Podcast at www.dwarkesh.com/subscribe
AGI Lab Transparency Requirements & Whistleblower Protections, with Dean W. Ball & Daniel Kokotajlo
In this episode of The Cognitive Revolution, Nathan explores AI forecasting and AGI Lab oversight with Dean W. Ball and Daniel Kokotajlo. They discuss four proposed requirements for frontier AI developers, focusing on transparency and whistleblower protections. Daniel shares insights from his experience at OpenAI, while Dean offers his perspective as a frequent guest. Join us for a compelling conversation on concrete AI governance proposals and the importance of collaboration across political lines in shaping the future of AI development.
Check out:
Time Article - 4 Ways to Advance Transparency in Frontier AI Development: https://time.com/collection/time100-voices/7086285/ai-transparency-measures/
Alignment Forum Article - What 2026 looks like: https://www.alignmentforum.org/posts/6Xgy6CAf2jqHhynHL/what-2026-looks-like
Be notified early when Turpentine's drops new publication: https://www.turpentine.co/exclusiveaccess
SPONSORS:
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CHAPTERS:
(00:00:00) Teaser
(00:00:53) About the Show
(00:01:16) About the Episode
(00:04:47) Introducing Daniel Kokotajlo
(00:09:29) Daniel's 2026 Prediction
(00:16:11) Sponsors: Shopify | Notion
(00:19:07) AI Propaganda & Censorship
(00:26:58) Internet Balkanization
(00:35:38) Sponsors: Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI)
(00:38:24) AGI Timelines & Futures
(00:48:15) Automated R&D
(00:54:48) Superintelligence & AGI
(00:58:25) AI Transparency Proposals
(01:06:11) Four Pillars of Transparency
(01:19:02) Red Teaming Transparency
(01:41:07) Whistleblower Protections
(01:46:32) Internal Information Sharing
(01:54:55) External Oversight & Governance
(01:58:56) Future Outlooks
(02:00:44) Outro
SOCIAL LINKS:
Website: https://www.cognitiverevolution.ai
Twitter (Podcast): https://x.com/cogrev_podcast
Twitter (Nathan): https://x.com/labenz
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nathanlabenz/
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@CognitiveRevolutionPodcast
Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/de/podcast/the-cognitive-revolution-ai-builders-r...
A Conversation With Prime Minister Justin Trudeau of Canada + An OpenAI Whistle-Blower Speaks Out
This week, we host a cultural exchange. Kevin and Casey show off their Canadian paraphernalia to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, and he shows off what he’s doing to position Canada as a leader in A.I. Then, the OpenAI whistle-blower Daniel Kokotajlo speaks in one of his first public interviews about why he risked almost $2 million in equity to warn of what he calls the reckless culture inside that company.
Guests:
Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister of Canada
Daniel Kokotajlo, a former researcher in OpenAI’s governance division
Additional Reading:
Securing Canada’s A.I. Advantage
OpenAI Insiders Warn of a ‘Reckless’ Race for Dominance
What Aren’t The OpenAI Whistle-Blowers Saying?
The Opaque Investment Empire Making OpenAI’s Sam Altman Rich
We want to hear from you. Email us at hardfork@nytimes.com. Find “Hard Fork” on YouTube and TikTok.
Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app.
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