#255 – Will AI take power — or will humans use it to take power first? With Katja Grace and Tom Davidson

On this episode

About this episode

In our first-ever debate, we asked two leading AI risk researchers which catastrophe we should fear most: misaligned AI seizing control from humans, or a small group of humans using AI to seize power. We got very different answers. But when the conversation turned to what to actually do, they agreed on a surprising amount. Katja Grace — one of the founders of AI Impacts , known for some of the world’s largest surveys of machine learning researchers , and one of TIME ‘s 100 most influential people in AI in 2024 — argues AI takeover is both likelier and worse. Tom Davidson — senior research fellow at Forethought and author of leading work on AI-enabled coups — thinks human power grabs are a…