Superintelligence is scary, but is building it actually possible? Yes. It definitely is. To learn how you can help to secure a future where AI doesn’t kill everyone visit https://betterpathfor.ai/
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New research says time only exists where space is curved enough to support it, implying that our expanding universe is slowly losing its grip on time itself.
Dr. Roman Yampolskiy joins me to explore one of the most urgent and uncomfortable questions of our time: what happens when we create intelligence that surpasses our own? We unpack the difference between the AI tools we use today and the emergence of artificial general intelligence, and why the transition from narrow systems to self-improving intelligence may mark a point where human control is no longer possible. Roman shares why even the people building these systems do not fully understand how they work, and why that gap in understanding becomes exponentially more dangerous as capabilities increase.
In this conversation, we explore the limits of control, prediction, and safety in a world where intelligence can recursively improve itself beyond human comprehension. Roman lays out why the problem of AI alignment may be fundamentally unsolvable, what timelines experts are realistically considering, and why even a single mistake at that level could have irreversible consequences. This episode invites a deeper reflection on what we are creating, what we assume we can control, and whether humanity is prepared for the intelligence it is bringing into existence.
André’s Book Recs: https://www.knowthyselfpodcast.com/bo… 00:00 Intro 01:25 What Is AGI and Why Should We Be Scared? 05:17 Roman’s Journey: From Optimism to Impossibility 09:07 The High Risk, Zero Reward Equation 13:01 Why Superintelligence Is Uncontrollable, Unexplainable, and Unverifiable 18:00 How Long Do We Have? The AGI Timeline 21:24 How Superintelligence Could Actually Kill Us 23:28 Are We Living in a Simulation? 28:21 Can AI Become Conscious? 31:28 Ad: BiOptimizers 32:41 The Possible Timelines: Terminator, the Matrix, or the Zoo 42:24 I-Risk, X-Risk, and S-Risk: Three Ways It Goes Wrong 46:31 The Human Meaning Crisis: Jobs, Purpose, and What’s Left 49:02 Ad: Based Bodyworks 50:20 What Empowers Us as Individuals Right Now 59:37 The Race to Doom: Who’s Building It and Why They Won’t Stop 1:07:41 Can AI Be Conscious — and Does It Already Have Internal Experiences? 1:12:41 Hacking the Simulation: Quantum, DMT, and Escaping the Code 1:18:30 Simulation Theory, Religion, and the Same Ancient Map 1:29:34 The Deal Roman Would Offer Altman, Dario, and Elon 1:39:44 What Is Humor? A Computer Scientist’s Theory 1:43:03 What Comes After: Singularity, Death, and Knowing Thyself ___________ Episode Resources: https://www.romanyampolskiy.com/https://www.amazon.com/Unexplainable-?tag=lifeboatfound-20… / andreduqum / knowthyself / @knowthyselfpodcasthttps://www.knowthyselfpodcast.com Listen to the show: Spotify: https://spoti.fi/4bZMq9l Apple: https://apple.co/4iATICX
___________ 00:00 Intro 01:25 What Is AGI and Why Should We Be Scared? 05:17 Roman’s Journey: From Optimism to Impossibility 09:07 The High Risk, Zero Reward Equation 13:01 Why Superintelligence Is Uncontrollable, Unexplainable, and Unverifiable 18:00 How Long Do We Have? The AGI Timeline 21:24 How Superintelligence Could Actually Kill Us 23:28 Are We Living in a Simulation? 28:21 Can AI Become Conscious? 31:28 Ad: BiOptimizers 32:41 The Possible Timelines: Terminator, the Matrix, or the Zoo 42:24 I-Risk, X-Risk, and S-Risk: Three Ways It Goes Wrong 46:31 The Human Meaning Crisis: Jobs, Purpose, and What’s Left 49:02 Ad: Based Bodyworks 50:20 What Empowers Us as Individuals Right Now 59:37 The Race to Doom: Who’s Building It and Why They Won’t Stop 1:07:41 Can AI Be Conscious — and Does It Already Have Internal Experiences? 1:12:41 Hacking the Simulation: Quantum, DMT, and Escaping the Code 1:18:30 Simulation Theory, Religion, and the Same Ancient Map 1:29:34 The Deal Roman Would Offer Altman, Dario, and Elon 1:39:44 What Is Humor? A Computer Scientist’s Theory 1:43:03 What Comes After: Singularity, Death, and Knowing Thyself ___________.
In this episode, I talk to Chris Summerfield about the frontier of artificial intelligence, neuroscience, LLMs, AI agents, memory, and superintelligence.
We discuss why models like ChatGPT and Claude can feel so human, why today’s AI still does not learn like the brain, and why continual learning may be one of the most important unsolved problems in AI. Chris explains how human memory works, why sleep matters for learning, and what AI research is teaching us about intelligence itself.
We also discuss the future of work, education, creativity, and whether AI could lead to a more human world — or a much stranger one.
Topics covered: • Artificial intelligence and the human brain. • LLMs, ChatGPT, Claude and AI agents. • AI memory and continual learning. • AI alignment, safety and misalignment. • . Superintelligence and self-improving systems. • Hallucinations, reasoning and intelligence. • . Education, jobs and the future of work. • . Why AI may change how humans understand themselves.
Cells have surface receptors that couple to proteins and other molecules to initiate or inhibit certain behaviors. Typically, the number of these receptors increases as the cell matures, but researchers have now identified that one receptor influences cell behavior much earlier than previously thought and appears to help trigger the cell differentiation process to form neurons.
The Hiroshima University-based team published their work, which they said has implications for better understanding neuronal development and brain plasticity — and how those processes become dysregulated — on March 20 in iScience. They specifically found that G protein-coupled receptor 3 (GPR3) represents a unique molecule in this receptor family, as it behaves like an immediate-early gene that rapidly responds and induces downstream signaling. Other G protein-coupled receptors behave like delayed-response genes that aren’t expressed into much later in the cell maturation process.
Understanding early transcriptional responses — how genes are expressed in response to upstream signals — is critical because these programs determine neuronal development, synaptic formation and plasticity, and their dysregulation is associated with neurological disorders such as autism and cognitive dysfunction.
The US government has issued an export control directive to suspend all access to Fable 5 and Mythos 5 by any foreign national, whether inside or outside the United States.
Researchers have developed a simpler, more cost-effective method to measure a biologically important form of phosphorus in soils, providing new insights into nutrient cycling that could help improve sustainable agricultural management.
Phosphorus is an essential nutrient for plant growth and global food production, yet its natural reserves are finite. Understanding how phosphorus is stored, transformed and made available in soils is critical for maintaining soil fertility while reducing environmental impacts.
In a study published in the Journal of Agricultural and Marine Sciences, an international research team, including scientists from Sultan Qaboos University, James Hutton Institute, the Environment Authority of Oman and others, optimized a laboratory method for measuring DNA-bound phosphorus (DNA-P) in soils. DNA-P is part of the organic phosphorus pool associated with living microorganisms and plays an important role in nutrient cycling.
The bacteria enterotoxigenic E. coli and Shigella together cause hundreds of millions of infections each year and are among the leading causes of diarrheal death, especially in children. Decades of vaccine development efforts have come up short, in part because the usual vaccine targets vary too much from one strain to the next. Now, new research from Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis points to a shared biological feature of these gut pathogens that could lead to a vaccine that protects against both.
Researchers at WashU Medicine, along with collaborators at the University of Missouri and the International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research in Bangladesh, found that enterotoxigenic E. coli (the leading cause of travelers’ diarrhea), Shigella and other diarrhea-causing pathogens rely on three closely related enzymes to get through the gut’s protective mucus layer and cause infection. Based on samples from infected patients and volunteers exposed to the bugs, the team showed that antibodies targeting one shared region of these enzymes can neutralize all three biomolecules and block the bacteria from penetrating the mucus barrier of the intestines.
The results, which appear in PNAS, point to the potential for a single combination vaccine against these major causes of severe diarrhea.
