
Getting Into PauseAI w/ Will Petillo
From Into AI Safety by Jacob Haimes
June 23, 2025 · 1h 48m · Episode 21
About this episode
Will Petillo discusses the grassroots movement advocating for a pause on frontier AI model development and the diverse perspectives surrounding it.
Will Petillo, onboarding team lead at PauseAI , joins me to discuss the grassroots movement advocating for a pause on frontier AI model development. We explore PauseAI's strategy, talk about common misconceptions Will hears, and dig into how diverse perspectives still converge on the need to slow down AI development. Will's Links Personal blog on AI His mindmap of the AI x-risk debate Game demos AI focused YouTube channel (00:00) - Intro (03:36) - What is PauseAI (10:10) - Will Petillo's journey into AI safety advocacy (21:13) - Understanding PauseAI (31:35) - Pursuing a pause (40:06) - Balancing advocacy in a complex world (45:54) - Why a pause on frontier models? (54:48) - Diverse perspectives within PauseAI (59:55) - PauseAI misconceptions (01:16:40) - Ongoing AI governance efforts (SB1047) (01:28:52) - The role of incremental progress (01:35:16) - Safety-washing and corporate responsibility (01:37:23) - Lessons from environmentalism (01:41:59) - Will's superlatives Links PauseAI PauseAI-US Related Kairos.fm Episodes Into AI Safety episode with Dr. Igor Krawczuk muckrAIkers episode on SB1047 Exclusionary Tendencies Jacobin article - Elite Universities Gave Us Effective…
People in this episode
Host: Jacob Haimes
Guest: Will Petillo
Topics covered
- AI safety
- PauseAI
- advocacy
- AI development
- governance
- misconceptions
Keywords
- PauseAI
- AI safety
- frontier models
- advocacy
- AI governance
- misconceptions
- AI development
Mentioned in this episode
Organizations: PauseAI, PauseAI-US
Books & works: Jacobin article - Elite Universities Gave Us Effective Altruism, the Dumbest Idea of the Century, SSIR article - The Elitist Philanthropy of So-Called Effective Altruism, Persuasion blogpost - The Problem with Effective Altruism, Dark Markets blogpost - What's So Bad About Rationalism?, FEE blogpost - What’s Wrong With the Rationality Community?, AI in Warfare Master
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