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Roman Yampolskiy has spent two decades being right about things people wished he wasn’t — and in this conversation, he’s not here to scare you, but to be precise. He makes the case that AI alignment isn’t merely unsolved but fundamentally under-defined: no agreed-upon values, no way to formalize them even if there were, and no mechanism for enforcing them on something smarter than its creators. His strongest argument isn’t a doom scenario, it’s that you cannot indefinitely control something smarter than you.
FOLLOW:
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4gL14b9…
Substack: https://curtjaimungal.substack.com/su…
Twitter: / toewithcurt.
Discord Invite: / discord.
Crypto: https://nowpayments.io/donation/TOE
PayPal: https://www.paypal.com/donate?hosted_… TIMESTAMPS:
- 00:00:00 — Defining General Intelligence
- 00:05:58 — AI Instrumental Convergence
- 00:11:11 — The Orthogonality Thesis
- 00:16:15 — Escaping the Simulation
- 00:21:45 — Principle of Indifference
- 00:27:51 — Acquired Savant Syndrome
- 00:33:51 — LLM Internal States
- 00:41:02 — AI Safety Impossibility Results
- 00:47:16 — Public Misconceptions
- 00:53:21 — Existential vs. Suffering Risks
- 01:01:20 — AI Alignment Definition Crisis
- 01:09:28 — Computational Irreducibility
- 01:16:20 — Substrate Independence
- 01:22:50 — Philosophical Zombie Critique
- 01:29:57 — The Cassandra Paradox
- 01:37:35 — Religion and Simulation
- 01:46:03 — Digital Physics Evidence
- 01:51:20 — Limits of Control
LINKS MENTIONED:
- Roman’s Papers: https://scholar.google.com/citations?…
- Roman’s Podcast:
/ @romanyampolskiy
- Roman’s Twitter: https://x.com/romanyam
- Roman’s Facebook:
/ roman.yampolskiy
- AI Identity [Paper]: https://philarchive.org/archive/ZIETPO-7
- Basic AI Drives [Paper]: https://selfawaresystems.com/wp-conte…
- Qualia in Agents [Paper]: https://arxiv.org/abs/1712.04020
- Orthogonality Thesis [Paper]: https://nickbostrom.com/superintellig…
- Escape the Simulation [Paper]: https://www.researchgate.net/publicat…
- Could This AI Be Conscious? [Article]: https://unherd.com/2026/05/is-ai-the–…
- Impossibility Results in AI [Paper]: https://arxiv.org/abs/2109.00484
- When AIs Act Emotional:
• When AIs act emotional
- Hacking the Simulation [Paper]: https://philarchive.org/rec/YAMHTS-2
- Autonomous Machine Intelligence [Paper]: https://openreview.net/pdf?id=BZ5a1r–…
- Hinton on Maternal Instincts [Article]: https://fortune.com/2025/08/14/godfat…
- Singleton Hypothesis [Paper]: https://nickbostrom.com/fut/singleton
- New Kind of Science [Book]: https://amazon.com/dp/1579550088?tag=…
- On AI Controllability [Paper]: https://arxiv.org/abs/2008.04071
- Universe as Numerical Simulation [Paper]: https://arxiv.org/abs/1210.1847
- Nir Lahav [TOE]:
• The Physicist Rethinking the Hard Problem
- Joscha Bach [TOE]:
• Joscha Bach: Time, Simulation Hypothesis,…
- Bas Van Fraassen [TOE]:
• Bas van Fraassen: Why Science Doesn’t Reve…
- Simulation Hypothesis [TOE]:
• Why I Don’t Buy the Simulation Hypothesis
- Geoffrey Hinton [TOE]:
• Why The “Godfather of AI” Now Fears His Ow…
- Max Tegmark [TOE]:
• Max Tegmark Says Physics Just Swallowed AI
- Stephen Wolfram [TOE]:
• Stephen Wolfram’s Radical Theory of Everyt…
- David Chalmers [TOE]:
• The Quantum Simulation Hypothesis | David…
More links: https://curtjaimungal.substack.com Guests do not pay to appear. #science.
TIMESTAMPS:
00:00:00 — Defining General Intelligence.
00:05:58 — AI Instrumental Convergence.
00:11:11 — The Orthogonality Thesis.
00:16:15 — Escaping the Simulation.
00:21:45 — Principle of Indifference.
00:27:51 — Acquired Savant Syndrome.
00:33:51 — LLM Internal States.
00:41:02 — AI Safety Impossibility Results.
00:47:16 — Public Misconceptions.
00:53:21 — Existential vs. Suffering Risks.
01:01:20 — AI Alignment Definition Crisis.
01:09:28 — Computational Irreducibility.
01:16:20 — Substrate Independence.
01:22:50 — Philosophical Zombie Critique.
01:29:57 — The Cassandra Paradox.
01:37:35 — Religion and Simulation.
01:46:03 — Digital Physics Evidence.
01:51:20 — Limits of Control.
LINKS MENTIONED:
Roman’s Papers: https://scholar.google.com/citations?…
Roman’s Podcast: / @romanyampolskiy.
Roman’s Twitter: https://x.com/romanyam.
Roman’s Facebook: / roman.yampolskiy.
AI Identity [Paper]: https://philarchive.org/archive/ZIETPO-7
Basic AI Drives [Paper]: https://selfawaresystems.com/wp-conte…
Qualia in Agents [Paper]: https://arxiv.org/abs/1712.04020
Orthogonality Thesis [Paper]: https://nickbostrom.com/superintellig…
Escape the Simulation [Paper]: https://www.researchgate.net/publicat…
Could This AI Be Conscious? [Article]: https://unherd.com/2026/05/is-ai-the–…
Impossibility Results in AI [Paper]: https://arxiv.org/abs/2109.00484
When AIs Act Emotional: • When AIs act emotional.
Hacking the Simulation [Paper]: https://philarchive.org/rec/YAMHTS-2
Autonomous Machine Intelligence [Paper]: https://openreview.net/pdf?id=BZ5a1r–…
Hinton on Maternal Instincts [Article]: https://fortune.com/2025/08/14/godfat…
Singleton Hypothesis [Paper]: https://nickbostrom.com/fut/singleton.
New Kind of Science [Book]: https://amazon.com/dp/1579550088?tag=…
On AI Controllability [Paper]: https://arxiv.org/abs/2008.04071
Universe as Numerical Simulation [Paper]: https://arxiv.org/abs/1210.1847
Nir Lahav [TOE]: • The Physicist Rethinking the Hard Problem.
Joscha Bach [TOE]: • Joscha Bach: Time, Simulation Hypothesis,…
Bas Van Fraassen [TOE]: • Bas van Fraassen: Why Science Doesn’t Reve…
Simulation Hypothesis [TOE]: • Why I Don’t Buy the Simulation Hypothesis.
Geoffrey Hinton [TOE]: • Why The \