Sep 28, 2026 · 1 hr 15 min · 18 segments
Jesse Richardson wants to improve our critical thinking about AI risk through the gamification of our rampant speculation. In this episode he explains AI safety isn't just one thing, there are a bunch…
Jesse RichardsonGuest
David McRaneyHost
Data centers in our politics, end-of-world speculation in our evening news, tech robber barons in our documentaries and TV shows.
[upbeat music] I'm sure that by now you either don't want to hear another podcast about AI or you want to listen to one that actually has something to say that you haven't heard a million times by now.
If you're in that second group, I'm fairly sure that if you are like me, you are rather saturated with hot takes and wild, kinda, sorta kooky conspiracy theory, flat Earth-y, mid-to-late-'90s sci-fi and fantasy takes that have spilled over into public discourse about kinda, sorta kooky conspiracy theory, flat Earth, or mid-to-late-'90s fan fiction subcultures.
This collective sense-making and all its runoff, this is something people do, and it's something people have done for centuries.
This is exactly what happened culturally after the last 50 technological advancements that, in their early stages, right after they went from being the obsession of a select few and began to disrupt the machinations of the current technological infrastructure, the network of human interaction depended upon technological stability, all that kind of stuff.
People outside of the groups of early adopters and early opinion havers in earlier eras began to wonder, "Is this the end of things as they were? The beginning of things to come? Or just another way for rich people to get richer?" [upbeat music] In each of the earlier examples of this, right at the beginning, massive amounts of investment money flowed into the building of the infrastructure required to build what might be a world-changing, many-dimensional business model built on a few recent profitable interlocking innovations.
What will be the leveling off point of all of this? Is this a bubble? Is this the future? Am I falling behind by not paying attention? Is my job at risk? Should I switch careers? Should I walk into the forest and build a cabin by the river? Railroads, the printing press, the telegraph, the telephone, automobiles, airplanes, radio, nuclear bombs, landing on the moon, gene editing and cloning, the smartphone, social media, cryptocurrency, NFTs, drones, humanoid robots that can do cartwheels and beat humans at sprinting and dancing.
Yes, for a good decade, people around the world thought that ballooning would fundamentally alter humanity in an irreversible way.
A few years after the first public flights of hot air balloons in the late 1700s, Europe experienced a balloonomania.
People bought and sold balloon-themed clothes and dishes, dirigible-adorned plates and cups.
The media of that time ballooned with hot takes about how human flight via hot air balloon airships would alter the face of war, of science, of industry, and especially transportation.
I love retrofuturism, which is imagery from past eras depicting what they imagined the future would be like.
And in this time, the ballooning time, you could find illustrations imagining people wearing hot air balloon shoes to get from here to there.
Some thought hot air balloon technology would advance further and further and lead to mass destruction via war and destabilization of society via changes to transportation.
People did everything I just described with balloons, but with ditches filled with water.
That craze kicked in once carrying coal from the mines to the cities was becoming more and more established.
And investors rushed in, and everyone with an audience who read the things they wrote, wrote things about how canals would change the world.
Data centers in our politics, end-of-world speculation in our evening news, tech robber barons in our documentaries and TV shows.
[upbeat music] I'm sure that by now you either don't want to hear another podcast about AI or you want to listen to one that actually has something to say that you haven't heard a million times by now.
If you're in that second group, I'm fairly sure that if you are like me, you are rather saturated with hot takes and wild, kinda, sorta kooky conspiracy theory, flat Earth-y, mid-to-late-'90s sci-fi and fantasy takes that have spilled over into public discourse about kinda, sorta kooky conspiracy theory, flat Earth, or mid-to-late-'90s fan fiction subcultures.
This collective sense-making and all its runoff, this is something people do, and it's something people have done for centuries.
This is exactly what happened culturally after the last 50 technological advancements that, in their early stages, right after they went from being the obsession of a select few and began to disrupt the machinations of the current technological infrastructure, the network of human interaction depended upon technological stability, all that kind of stuff.
People outside of the groups of early adopters and early opinion havers in earlier eras began to wonder, "Is this the end of things as they were? The beginning of things to come? Or just another way for rich people to get richer?" [upbeat music] In each of the earlier examples of this, right at the beginning, massive amounts of investment money flowed into the building of the infrastructure required to build what might be a world-changing, many-dimensional business model built on a few recent profitable interlocking innovations.
What will be the leveling off point of all of this? Is this a bubble? Is this the future? Am I falling behind by not paying attention? Is my job at risk? Should I switch careers? Should I walk into the forest and build a cabin by the river? Railroads, the printing press, the telegraph, the telephone, automobiles, airplanes, radio, nuclear bombs, landing on the moon, gene editing and cloning, the smartphone, social media, cryptocurrency, NFTs, drones, humanoid robots that can do cartwheels and beat humans at sprinting and dancing.
Yes, for a good decade, people around the world thought that ballooning would fundamentally alter humanity in an irreversible way.
A few years after the first public flights of hot air balloons in the late 1700s, Europe experienced a balloonomania.
People bought and sold balloon-themed clothes and dishes, dirigible-adorned plates and cups.
The media of that time ballooned with hot takes about how human flight via hot air balloon airships would alter the face of war, of science, of industry, and especially transportation.
I love retrofuturism, which is imagery from past eras depicting what they imagined the future would be like.
And in this time, the ballooning time, you could find illustrations imagining people wearing hot air balloon shoes to get from here to there.
Some thought hot air balloon technology would advance further and further and lead to mass destruction via war and destabilization of society via changes to transportation.
People did everything I just described with balloons, but with ditches filled with water.
That craze kicked in once carrying coal from the mines to the cities was becoming more and more established.
And investors rushed in, and everyone with an audience who read the things they wrote, wrote things about how canals would change the world.
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