The Week in AI that Changed the World, With Robert Wright | Nonzero × Doom Debates

Well, one thing I'd say is I'm seeing a lot of that online on Twitter.

A lot of people are asking this question.

A lot of people who are finally focusing on the Dune question but are not converted are saying, look, show me a scenario.

And I still do think there is not a super straightforward accessible scenario that anyone sketched out.

I didn't find that in Eliezer's book.

I mean, he did a scenario, but I think it was almost unintelligible to a layperson.

And now I will say the open AI breakout of however long ago, I mean, we keep learning more about it.

So it still almost seems a current story.

I think that has helped people fill in some blanks who just were buying the idea that even in principle, this stuff could get out of control in any meaningful sense.

Right.

I think that's definitely contributing to the vibe shift, you know, the hacking, because when it's hacking, it's like, oh my God, it did something, right? Like it took agency.

It went into an agentic loop and it escaped.

Whereas from my perspective, back in 2023, when I saw ChatGPT, I'm like, oh, okay, it's completing the pattern of what code should look like.

And in my mind, I'm like, yeah, code is executable, right? It's like, if you know what code to write, you can run the code, okay? Like it's not, I didn't see a big distinction where it's like, oh, some, some, angel has to come and breathe the agency into it.

I was like, nope, it's just a matter of knowing what to do.

If you know what to do, you can do it.

But now we're actually seeing it.

And I think there's been another breakthrough also with the math now.

I think that's psychologically adding to people where it's like, oh yeah, we said that only humans could make math breakthroughs.

Now the AI is breaking through.

It's surpassing us.

It's not just imitating us.

I think those might be the two biggest psychological changes.

Yeah, and I would add something to what you said about agency.

And this, I kind of, I got this in my book at the last minute when Claude Cowork was becoming a thing, and I was kind of thinking about, well, what really is happening here that's different from what happened before? And I realized, actually, Claude was the first one to explain this to me, that You know, it isn't just code.