Facing AI Doom, Lessons from Daniel Ellsberg (Pentagon Papers) — Michael Ellsberg

Michael Ellsberg, son of the legendary Pentagon Papers leaker Daniel Ellsberg, joins me to discuss the chilling parallels between his father’s nuclear war warnings and today’s race to AGI.

We discuss Michael’s 99% probability of doom, his personal experience being “obsoleted” by AI, and the urgent moral duty for insiders to blow the whistle on AI’s outsize risks.

Timestamps

0:00 Intro

1:29 Introducing Michael Ellsberg, His Father Daniel Ellsberg, and The Pentagon Papers

5:49 Vietnam War Parallels to AI: Lies and Escalation

25:23 The Doomsday Machine & Nuclear Insanity

48:49 Mutually Assured Destruction vs. Superintelligence Risk

55:10 Evolutionary Dynamics: Replicators and the End of the “Dream Time”

1:10:17 What’s Your P(doom)?™

1:14:49 Debating P(Doom) Disagreements

1:26:18 AI Unemployment Doom

1:39:14 Doom Psychology: How to Cope with Existential Risk

1:50:56 The “Joyless Singularity”: Aligned AI Might Still Freeze Humanity

2:09:00 A Call to Action for AI Insiders

Show Notes:

Michael Ellsberg’s website — https://www.ellsberg.com/

Michael’s Twitter — https://x.com/MichaelEllsberg

Daniel Ellsberg’s website — https://www.ellsberg.net/

The upcoming book, “Truth and Consequence” — https://geni.us/truthandconsequence

Michael’s AI-related substack “Mammalian Wetware” — https://mammalianwetware.substack.com/

Daniel’s debate with Bill Kristol in the run-up to the Iraq war — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HyvsDR3xnAg

--

Doom Debates’ Mission is to raise mainstream awareness of imminent extinction from AGI and build the social infrastructure for high-quality debate.

Support the mission by subscribing to my Substack at DoomDebates.com and to youtube.com/@DoomDebates, or to really take things to the next level: Donate 🙏