Can We Achieve "Super Abundance" Without AI Doom? | with Sebastian Mallaby

About this episode

Sebastian Mallaby joins Zachary Karabell to discuss the implications of artificial intelligence and the mindset of its creators.

What happens when the person building the world's most powerful technology is just as worried about it as we are? Sebastian Mallaby, the Pulitzer Prize-nominated author of The Infinity Machine, joins host Zachary Karabell to pull back the curtain on Demis Hassabis, the founder of DeepMind who is currently leading the global charge into artificial intelligence. From the "Ender’s Game" mission that drives Hassabis to the chilling logic of why machines might accidentally develop a "survival instinct," this episode explores the mindset of the people shaping our future. Mallaby and Karabell discuss the "infinity" of data required to make these systems work and why the massive hunger for compute power is reshaping the global economy in real-time . Drawing a haunting parallel to Alan Greenspan and the 2008 financial crisis, Mallaby asks a difficult question: Can "the man who knew" the risks actually prevent the catastrophe he sees coming?. Together, they navigate the tension between pure scientific discovery and cutthroat Silicon Valley competition, the potential for a "Nuclear Non-Proliferation" style agreement with China, and the hidden dangers of the "open vs. closed" model…

People in this episode

Host: Zachary Karabell

Guest: Sebastian Mallaby

Topics covered

• artificial intelligence
• technology
• economy
• data
• Silicon Valley
• risk management

Keywords

• artificial intelligence
• DeepMind
• Sebastian Mallaby
• Zachary Karabell
• data
• economy
• risk

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: DeepMind, The Progress Network

Books & works: The Infinity Machine

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