“They’re so smart they destroy themselves?”

BHBrett Hall@ToKTeacher9:47 PM · Sep 30, 2026

They’re so smart they destroy themselves? I guess it’s the exact opposite!

PB

Prof. Brian Keating@Briankeating

Why is the universe so quiet? One grim answer: civilizations smart enough to destroy themselves typically do. @robertwrighter thinks AI is our turn at that test. Passing it takes something no lab can ship. You may be living through the filter.

YouTubeRobert Wright: AI Alignment Is a Moral Problem, Not a Technical OneIf nobody knows what's on the other side of the AI singularity, why are the optimists so sure it's great? Robert Wright's answer: they're running on faith. Transcript, bonus content, and my Monday M.A.G.I.C. Message: https://briankeating.com/ai Robert Wright talked about neural networks with Geoffrey Hinton in 1983, two years before Sam Altman was born. He's the author of The Moral Animal, Nonzero, and The God Test. We cover: why the Tower of Babel is really an AI story, why no nation can slow AI down alone, how a model learns what a word means when nobody ever tells it, why I think AGI is impossible, why Wright thinks a swarm of talking models could out-think any single one, and the grimmest reading of the Fermi paradox, which even Lee Smolin's cosmology can't talk him out of. We face the kind of test a God would give. 00:00 The test a god would give 00:54 Babel: the first AI cautionary tale 04:06 Every salvation story has a test 05:46 Are we building idols? 08:06 Why AI optimists need faith 14:10 Hinton in 1983: no doomer yet 19:38 Why no country can hit pause 25:01 Meaning nobody taught the machine 32:08 Can Claude have a happy thought? 37:44 Judging The God Test by its cover 40:06 My case that AGI is impossible 47:04 Did the aliens fail the test? 51:10 What passing the test looks like ──────────── “We face the kind of test that God would give.” — Robert Wright CHAPTERS 00:00 The man who interviewed Hinton in 1983 05:04 The God test and its two meanings 08:36 Religious faith in technological progress 14:10 Hinton then versus Hinton now 19:38 Why slowing AI down requires international cooperation 26:02 How LLMs reverse-engineer the meaning of words 32:08 Brian's Einstein test: can Claude have a happy thought? 40:06 AGI is impossible. Here is why Brian thinks that. 47:04 The Fermi paradox as a moral filter 51:10 What passing the God test actually looks like Get the transcript, fascinating bonus content, and my Monday M.A.G.I.C. Message: https://briankeating.com/yt Have a .edu email and live in the USA? You automatically win a meteorite: https://BrianKeating.com/edu Enter the debate: briankeating.com/ai Subscribe: https://www.youtube.com/DrBrianKeating?sub_confirmation=1 Support Into the Impossible on Patreon, get my weekly M.A.G.I.C. Message, unfiltered bonus content, and live monthly Office Hours with me: https://www.patreon.com/drbriankeating Join this channel for perks, monthly Office Hours, and your name in the Member Roster at the end of every episode: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCmXH_moPhfkqCk6S3b9RWuw/join Featured Guest: The God Test (book): https://thegodtest.net Robert Wright on Twitter/X: https://x.com/RWrighter My books: Losing the Nobel Prize (memoir): http://amzn.to/2sa5UpA Think Like a Nobel Prize Winner: https://a.co/d/03ezQFu Focus Like a Nobel Prize Winner: https://a.co/d/hi50U9U Galileo’s Dialogue (first-ever audiobook): https://a.co/d/iZPi9Un Twitter/X: https://x.com/BrianKeating Substack: https://briankeating.substack.com Blog: https://briankeating.com/blog Audio-only: https://briankeating.com/podcast #RobertWright #AIalignment #superintelligence #FermiParadox #briankeating #intotheimpossible #AI