Should AI Have Rights? Sebastian Mallaby on Consciousness, Morality, and Machines

About this episode

In this episode of On The X, Chris sits down with journalist and senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, and the author of The Infinity Machine, Sebastian Mallaby. Having sat with the field’s biggest minds, from Hassabis to Geoffrey Hinton, Mallaby brings a rare mix of journalistic skepticism and genuine optimism to the AI debate. In this conversation, he takes us behind the scenes of his access to one of tech’s most private figures, and shares why, despite the doom-filled headlines, he wakes up every morning excited about what comes next. (00:00) - Why Mallaby wrote about AI (08:07) - Hassabis's origin story: chess prodigy to AGI pioneer (12:37) - The big ideas: information as…