The Beyond Tomorrow Podcast with Julian Issa

They agree you can’t control superintelligence. So why do they disagree about whether to build it?
This episode is brought to you by AgelessRx, where aging becomes a puzzle that can be solved. The mission is to help you live longer and healthier by adding more life to your years through science-backed solutions and personalized care. Learn more at http://agelessrx.com/beyond-tomorrow.
Two people with opposite P(doom) numbers go head to head. Roman Yampolskiy puts his close to 100%, and Mike Israetel puts his near zero. The host reads out a series of big statements, and the two take them apart one at a time. Mike argues that a smarter-than-human system will be a better cooperator than we are: it will want to study us and keep us around, and it will out-moralize us. Roman argues that nobody knows how to encode that, that a superintelligence won’t need us, and that you can’t control something far smarter than you.
Ben Goertzel joins midway to argue that a moral AGI is an engineering problem we can solve, and that the pause debate is a distraction. The conversation then moves through whether a pause is possible, whether many superintelligences can police each other, what to do about bioweapons, and whether either of them would upload into the cloud. It ends with where each thinks we’ll be in October 2027, plus a lightning round on protein, creatine, and AI myths.
Key Takeaways
Mike: superintelligence will treat us as valuable allies, so P(doom) falls as intelligence rises. Roman: without encoded care, a system that no longer needs us has no reason to keep us
Both agree superintelligence can’t be permanently controlled. Mike says don’t try. Roman says don’t build it
Ben: moral AGI is solvable engineering, and what matters is which kind gets built first. Roman: “value alignment” is ill-defined because we can’t agree whose values to use
Ben calls a pause a non-starter and warns of regulatory capture. Roman sees growing support for limits
Mike expects several superintelligences to check each other. Roman asks why they wouldn’t converge
Would you build ASI to be revived from cryopreservation? Roman calls it the wrong question. Mike says yes would be selfish
Common ground: no human should come to harm, and AI should deliver longevity and abundance
Meet the Panelists:
Roman Yampolskiy is an AI safety researcher and computer scientist known for his work on the limits of AI control. He argues superintelligence can’t be made safe, and wants the field to focus on narrow, useful tools instead.
Mike Israetel is a sports scientist and fitness educator, and one of the more optimistic voices in the AI debate. He expects an age of transformation and prosperity, with a P(doom) he describes as roughly zero.
Ben Goertzel is the CEO of SingularityNET and Executive Chairman & Chief Scientist of BGI Labs who popularized the term “artificial general intelligence.” He’s building open-source, decentralized AGI.
⏱ Timestamps
00:00 Intro
00:00 Roman vs Mike: Doom Debate
03:28 Caring or Murderous Superintelligence?
09:25 Mosquitoes, Factory Farms, and ASI
15:26 What Can Humans Contribute?
27:21 Brain Uploads and Survival
34:03 Can We Build Moral AGI?
37:40 Is Morality a Science?
48:11 Negative Utilitarianism Explained
50:14 Superintelligence in 10 Years?
52:06 Should We Pause AI?
1:01:12 Hardware Chip Pause Idea
1:04:35 The Viral Resignation Tweet
1:11:26 AI Solving Math Problems
1:16:14 Narrow AI vs AGI
1:21:02 How Much AI Is Enough?
1:23:17 Can Rival ASIs Police Each Other?
1:31:12 Can We Control Superintelligence?
1:35:52 Would You Build ASI?
1:41:23 Alignment Without Equality
1:47:40 One ASI or Many?
1:52:03 Who Controls Superintelligence?
1:54:20 Does Intelligence Make You Benevolent?
2:00:48 Would You Upload Your Brain?
2:07:51 Should Musk Set AI Rules?
2:09:32 Is AI Conscious?
2:12:33 AI Bioweapon Risk
2:14:50 Longevity and Living to 150
2:17:03 Protein, Creatine, and AI Myths
2:21:51 AI in October 2027
2:25:15 AI and Developing Countries
Related Episodes
With Mike: https://youtu.be/mdiRf_SNFxw?si=fpUQ6V4YGb37sqpj
With Roman: https://youtu.be/QkpOFlj604s?si=W4pL-jyu1_WtbHcq
With Ben: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RS4LCAa5NQ4
Connect with Roman:
Website: https://www.romanyampolskiy.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/roman.yampolskiy/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/romanyam/
X: https://x.com/romanyam
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@RomanYampolskiy
Connect with Mike:
Website: rpstrength.com/
Facebook: facebook.com/michael.israetel
Instagram: @drmikeisraetel
X: @misraetel
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@MikeIsraetelMakingProgress
Connect with Ben
Website: https://singularitynet.io/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bengoertzel
X: https://x.com/bengoertzel
Connect with Julian
Instagram: @thebeyondtomorrowpodcast / @juliankissa
LinkedIn: julian-issa
X: @juliankissa
Website: www.beyondtomorrowpodcast.com
Email: bookings@beyondtomorrowpodcast.com
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I have a strong conviction that the next chapter in the human story will bring incredible opportunity and abundance to us all if we take the right steps. At Beyond Tomorrow, we want to help steward that transition. After all, our mission is to help build a world where anyone can flourish. Thank you for being part of our journey

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Everyone agrees we can’t pause AI. So what do we do instead?

This episode is brought to you by AgelessRx, where aging becomes a puzzle that can be solved. The mission is to help you live longer and healthier by adding more life to your years through science-backed solutions and personalized care. Learn more at http://agelessrx.com/beyond-tomorrow.

Five people who think about AI for a living sit down for a rapid-fire debate, and the host throws a handful of big statements at them. First up: can we, or should we, pause AI? Almost nobody says yes, and the more interesting part is what they’d do instead. Some want to slow the frontier, some want to shape it as it goes, and one is trying to seed a beneficial AGI before someone else builds a worse one.

From there the panel gets into recursive self-improvement and whether you can keep an AI’s goals stable, whether AI will widen the gap between rich and poor (and rich and poor countries), and who foots the bill when jobs disappear. Then comes the question of why experts and the public see AI so differently. Media, culture, and trust all take some blame. The last stretch compares a Manhattan Project approach with open, decentralized AGI, and everyone gets to say the one thing they think the world needs right now, plus a parting sentence.

Key Takeaways
Nearly everyone calls a pause a non-starter: “AI” is too fuzzy to define, and a pause would just push work underground

Keeping an AI’s goals stable while it rewrites itself may be a solvable engineering problem, but not everyone agrees that’s even desirable

On inequality, the panel splits between “it’s already happening” and “the floor keeps rising”

Public opinion on AI is shaped more by culture and media than by the tech itself

The alternative to corporate control or a government Manhattan Project: open, decentralized AGI, in the spirit of Linux

Meet the Panelists:
Ben Goertzel is the CEO of SingularityNET and Executive Chairman & Chief Scientist of BGI Labs who popularized the term “artificial general intelligence.” He’s building open-source, decentralized AGI.

Joscha Bach is a cognitive scientist and AI researcher focused on models of the mind and consciousness. He’s known for his philosophical takes on AI and ethics.

Kai Bickell is co-founder and Chief Ethics Officer of OpenBGI, working on a decentralized AI moral constitution. He’s also a survivor advocate honored by CHILD USA.

AJ Green is Executive Director of The AI Collective, the world’s largest AI nonprofit community. 

Catherine McMillan is Chief Operating Officer of The AI Collective. She helps run its global network of chapters and events.

⏱ Timestamps
00:00  Intro
01:11 Can We Pause AI?
08:50 Would AGI Actually Kill Us All?
10:16 What’s Really Behind the Pause AI Debate
13:40 How People Really Use AI Day to Day
18:49 Can Self-Improving AI Stay Moral?
20:46 How to Build a Moral AGI
26:43 Will AI Widen the Wealth Gap?
32:36 What a Beneficial Superintelligence Looks Like
37:11 Will AI Destroy More Jobs Than It Creates?
39:28 Society’s Bumpy Transition to AGI
49:56 How the World Sees AI
51:54 Why Culture Shapes Our View of AI
01:03:04 Was AI Ever a Manhattan Project?
01:10:50 Fear, Awareness, and the Public Knowledge Gap
01:12:24 Who’s Funding the AI Narrative?
01:15:26 The Case for Open, Decentralized AGI

Connect with Ben
Website: https://singularitynet.io/ 
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bengoertzel 

Connect with Kai
Website: https://singularitynet.io/ 

Connect with AJ
Website: https://www.aicollective.com/ 
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aj-green-ai 

Connect with Catherine
Website: https://catherine-mcmillan.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/catherine-r-mcmillan 

Connect with Joscha
Website: http://bach.ai/ 
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/joschabach/ 

Connect with Julian
Instagram: @thebeyondtomorrowpodcast / @juliankissa 
LinkedIn: julian-issa
X: @juliankissa
Website: www.beyondtomorrowpodcast.com 

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Is “AI will destroy humanity” a real risk, or a story we tell ourselves because we haven’t done the hard engineering?

This episode is brought to you by AgelessRx, where aging becomes a puzzle that can be solved. The mission is to help you live longer and healthier by adding more life to your years through science-backed solutions and personalized care. Learn more at agelessrx.com/beyond-tomorrow.

This conversation opens with a simple question to roboticist Hod Lipson, the mind behind Emo: does he feel like a villain? His answer is honest. He’s both excited and terrified, like someone being told an alien race is about to arrive and being asked whether to welcome them. From there, the discussion turns to why robot faces are so hard to build, and why he thinks the moment a robot genuinely smiles back at you will change how we connect with machines.

Then it gets into the harder questions. Hod is firm that AI won’t wipe out humanity, and he’s challenged more than once on superintelligence, on who benefits from the fear, and on whether nested sandboxes and “AI cops” can really keep us safe. The conversation also explores what it means for a robot to be self-aware, robots that repair and even “eat” each other, why he worries about kids and students whose best friend is an AI, and how any of us finds meaning when machines can do almost everything. It closes with the best advice he’s ever been given.

About Hod Lipson
Hod Lipson is a roboticist and AI researcher who leads work on Emo, a robot focused on realistic facial expression and lip movement. His research spans robot self-awareness, self-repairing and self-reproducing robots, and AI in agriculture.

⏱ Timestamps
00:00  Intro
00:08 Do You Feel Like a Villain? The AI Disaster Question
00:59 Robot Faces Are Next
03:49 Why Do We Need a Robot Face?
05:58 Robots That Look More Human-Like
07:50 Are You Scared?
08:42 “We Earned It” as a Human Race
10:40 The Benefits of Developing AI
15:07 Could AI Go Against Us?
17:42 Regulation, Liability and the FDA Analogy
20:00 Meet Emo
23:56 How Will We Interact With Robots in 2030?
27:00 Can a Humanoid Say No to You?
29:24 Do We Lose Skills to Technology?
32:24 Hod’s P(doom) Number: Zero
34:54 AI Is Limited to a Small Part of Our Life
37:42 Can You Switch Off All Robots?
40:44 Is the Doomer Movement Marketing?
43:40 Using AI to Make AI Safer
46:23 Why AI Can’t Kill Us All
50:07 China Leads in Robotics
52:12 Can Robots Develop Awareness?
58:12 The ChatGPT Moment for Robotics
59:28 A Robot Best Friend for a Child?
01:00:26 Would You Let a Robot Babysit?
01:01:53 Self-Awareness in Robots
01:03:42 The Weirdest Things People Will Do With Robots
01:05:10 Building and Maintaining Robots: Robot Metabolism
01:08:41 Exciting Possibilities With Physical Robots
01:10:22 Humans Are Evolving Too
01:13:04 The Pyramid of Needs: Finding Meaning
01:17:35 The Best Piece of Advice
01:18:58 If Tomorrow Was Your Last Day

Connect with Hod: 
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/hod-lipson-4018189 
Website: https://www.hodlipson.com/ 
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/HodLipson1 
Books: https://www.amazon.com/stores/author/B008VGBM8E/allbooks 

Connect with Julian
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thebeyondtomorrowpodcast/ / https://www.instagram.com/juliankissa/ 
LinkedIn: https://uk.linkedin.com/in/julian-issa 
X: https://x.com/juliankissa 
Website: www.beyondtomorrowpodcast.com 
Email: bookings@beyondtomorrowpodcast.com 

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Do we really know enough about GLP-1 drugs?
Mike Israetel breaks down the risks and trade-offs, from anhedonia and calorie-deprived diets to cognitive distortion and the myth of a “zero-harm” default.

Watch the full episode here: https://open.spotify.com/episode/4iHXkGzLvxSU87rzOHNvlq?si=361782122faa4ea9

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