What podcasts say about Andrew McAfee
Every statement, with the speaker, the exact quote and the moment it was said.
What Andrew McAfee has said on podcasts
45 statements · 31 positive · 12 negative · 1 mixed · 1 neutral
AI-caused human extinction is a rounding-error probability.
“I put a, I put a tilde in front of my zero because never say never, but rounding error, 0%.”
Open the episode · AI Debate Ed Zitron, Andrew McAfee, Nate Soares, Roman YampolskiyListen at 6:17
AI will follow prior technologies toward net benefits despite risks.
“I expect AI will be the next chapter in that story.”
Open the episode · The Great AI Debate: Is Artificial Intelligence an Extinction Threat? Debating the True Risks of Advanced ModelsListen at 7:31
AI will follow prior technologies toward net human improvement despite risks.
“I expect AI will be the next chapter in that story.”
Open the episode · AI Debate Ed Zitron, Andrew McAfee, Nate Soares, Roman YampolskiyListen at 7:31
Extinction arguments rely on poorly defined capability thresholds.
“it seems to rely on thresholds. Once we hit recursive self-improvement, once we hit AGI, then it's game over for us.”
Open the episode · AI Debate Ed Zitron, Andrew McAfee, Nate Soares, Roman YampolskiyListen at 21:57
Current AI incidents provide no confident path to human extinction.
“From there, to this kills everybody. I find that a really, really long, very uncertain journey, and I have no confidence that we wind up here.”
Open the episode · AI Debate Ed Zitron, Andrew McAfee, Nate Soares, Roman YampolskiyListen at 25:47
Current agent incidents do not establish a likely path to human extinction.
“From there to this kills everybody. I find that a really, really long, very uncertain journey, and I have no confidence that we wind up here.”
Open the episode · The Great AI Debate: Is Artificial Intelligence an Extinction Threat? Debating the True Risks of Advanced ModelsListen at 27:49
A speculative chain of events does not justify a 20% extinction-risk estimate.
“This is rampant speculation. This is a chain of things that could happen. And therefore, there's like a 20% risk we're all going to die.”
Open the episode · AI Debate Ed Zitron, Andrew McAfee, Nate Soares, Roman YampolskiyListen at 34:00
Humans will retain the ability to detect and shut down increasingly capable AI systems.
“As these systems get more capable, we will still be able to, at some level, figure out when they're doing things that we don't want and turn them off.”
Open the episode · The Great AI Debate: Is Artificial Intelligence an Extinction Threat? Debating the True Risks of Advanced ModelsListen at 34:53
Humans will retain the ability to detect and shut down increasingly capable AI.
“we will still be able to, at some level, figure out when they're doing things that we don't want and turn them off.”
Open the episode · The Great AI Debate: Is Artificial Intelligence an Extinction Threat? Debating the True Risks of Advanced ModelsListen at 34:55
AI development should not be halted to avoid speculative harms and lose benefits.
“I do not advocate that we take that deal.”
Open the episode · AI Debate Ed Zitron, Andrew McAfee, Nate Soares, Roman YampolskiyListen at 44:50
AI research should not be halted to avoid speculative extinction risks.
“I do not advocate that we take that deal.”
Open the episode · The Great AI Debate: Is Artificial Intelligence an Extinction Threat? Debating the True Risks of Advanced ModelsListen at 46:52
Uncontrollable AI-directed Waymo crashes would justify shutting down or regulating AI.
“if AI took over all of the Waymos in San Francisco and started telling them to crash into people and we couldn't shut it down for a month.”
Open the episode · AI Debate Ed Zitron, Andrew McAfee, Nate Soares, Roman YampolskiyListen at 47:28
Halting or heavily regulating AI would sacrifice concrete benefits for speculative distant harms.
“The tradeoff that I don't like is the tradeoff of real, concrete, ongoing, increasing benefits, shutting that down or trying to guide it via bureaucracies and regulation because of this very conceptually and timescale distant. alleged harm”
Open the episode · The Great AI Debate: Is Artificial Intelligence an Extinction Threat? Debating the True Risks of Advanced ModelsListen at 48:52
Uncontrollable AI-directed Waymo crashes would justify stopping AI development.
“if AI took over all of the Waymos in San Francisco and started telling them to crash into people and we couldn't shut it down for a month.”
Open the episode · The Great AI Debate: Is Artificial Intelligence an Extinction Threat? Debating the True Risks of Advanced ModelsListen at 49:26
Widespread Waymo deployment could reduce annual automobile deaths by at least 90%.
“if we Waymo'd driving in the country, that number would fall by at least 90%. That's 30,000 lives.”
Open the episode · AI Debate Ed Zitron, Andrew McAfee, Nate Soares, Roman YampolskiyListen at 50:37
Nationwide Waymo deployment could reduce annual road deaths by at least 90%.
“if we Waymo'd driving in the country, that number would fall by at least 90%. That's 30,000 lives.”
Open the episode · The Great AI Debate: Is Artificial Intelligence an Extinction Threat? Debating the True Risks of Advanced ModelsListen at 52:39
AI-driven catastrophic loss of control may be centuries away.
“my range of uncertainty about when that happens, is measured in centuries.”
Open the episode · The Great AI Debate: Is Artificial Intelligence an Extinction Threat? Debating the True Risks of Advanced ModelsListen at 54:09
Andrew McAfee says his earlier AI job-loss prediction was wrong.
“I was dead flat wrong about that.”
Open the episode · AI Debate Ed Zitron, Andrew McAfee, Nate Soares, Roman YampolskiyListen at 1:01:51
The labor market will still face worker shortages in ten years.
“10 years from now, we're still going to be struggling to find enough people to do the work that needs to be done.”
Open the episode · AI Debate Ed Zitron, Andrew McAfee, Nate Soares, Roman YampolskiyListen at 1:03:05
AI will not cause a major labor surplus within ten years.
“My guess is that 10 years from now, we're still going to be struggling to find enough people to do the work that needs to be done.”
Open the episode · The Great AI Debate: Is Artificial Intelligence an Extinction Threat? Debating the True Risks of Advanced ModelsListen at 1:05:05
Humans can contain systems they do not fully understand.
“Can we contain things that we don't understand Perfectly. Yes, we can.”
Open the episode · AI Debate Ed Zitron, Andrew McAfee, Nate Soares, Roman YampolskiyListen at 1:15:37
Humans can contain systems they do not fully understand.
“Can we contain things that we don't understand perfectly? Yes, we can.”
Open the episode · The Great AI Debate: Is Artificial Intelligence an Extinction Threat? Debating the True Risks of Advanced ModelsListen at 1:17:39
AI has created a fundamentally new cybersecurity environment.
“we are in a new era of cybersecurity.”
Open the episode · AI Debate Ed Zitron, Andrew McAfee, Nate Soares, Roman YampolskiyListen at 1:19:45
Maintaining AI leadership is important for cybersecurity.
“Do you want to give up leadership on AI in this era of cybersecurity?”
Open the episode · AI Debate Ed Zitron, Andrew McAfee, Nate Soares, Roman YampolskiyListen at 1:20:25
Autonomous AI agents have created a new cybersecurity era.
“we are in a new era of cybersecurity.”
Open the episode · The Great AI Debate: Is Artificial Intelligence an Extinction Threat? Debating the True Risks of Advanced ModelsListen at 1:21:47
AI progress has been consistently underestimated, making continued underestimation a mistake.
“We have been lowballing AI progress for as long as you've been looking at it and as long as I've been looking at it. And it's probably a mistake to keep lowballing it.”
Open the episode · AI Debate Ed Zitron, Andrew McAfee, Nate Soares, Roman YampolskiyListen at 1:36:55
AI capability is increasing exponentially during the scaling era.
“It's absolutely increasing exponentially.”
Open the episode · AI Debate Ed Zitron, Andrew McAfee, Nate Soares, Roman YampolskiyListen at 1:37:34
Using AI to counter AI-related problems can keep humanity safe.
“if we use AI to counter the problems that we see with AI, I think that's going to keep us in a safe position.”
Open the episode · AI Debate Ed Zitron, Andrew McAfee, Nate Soares, Roman YampolskiyListen at 1:37:58
AI systems will soon monitor other systems and warn humans about anomalous behavior.
“fairly quickly we will design systems that loiter around and warn humans when weird things happen.”
Open the episode · AI Debate Ed Zitron, Andrew McAfee, Nate Soares, Roman YampolskiyListen at 1:38:12
Advanced AI may accelerate drug discovery and disease treatment.
“We might actually speed up the pace of drug discovery, of solving diseases.”
Open the episode · AI Debate Ed Zitron, Andrew McAfee, Nate Soares, Roman YampolskiyListen at 1:38:40
Statements are attributed to the speaker as said on the episode and reflect their view at the time, not PodLume's. They are not advice.