Stopping The AI Safety Cult ft. Adam Becker & Cal Newport
The current AI safety discourse is heavily shaped not by technical evidence but by a fringe philosophical movement—rationalism and effective altruism—that originated in 1990s transhumanist online communities. This ideology, rooted in speculative thought experiments rather than empirical s
Sign up to read the full summary
Free AI-powered recaps of every episode, delivered to your inbox.
Free forever for up to 3 podcasts. No credit card required.
Guest
Cal Newport
roundtable on Better Offline
Mentions
Books, people, and resources mentioned in this episode.
People
Books
Companies
Topics
Listen to This Episode
More from Better Offline
Monologue: Jacob Coxon and the AI Safety Grift
The AI Industry Must Stop Doom Trolling w/ Cal Newport
Monologue: On Dangerous Rhetoric
No, AI Is Not "Autonomously Hacking" with Cal Newport
CZM Rewind: Cory Doctorow and Ed Zitron on Enshittification and the Rot Economy
AI Mania Is Eviscerating Global Decision-Making w/ Nik Suresh
Related episodes
From other shows on similar topics.
Anthropic Researcher Says AI Has Over a 10% Chance of Killing All Humans
The AI Daily Brief: Artificial Intelligence News and Analysis
AI Debate Ed Zitron, Andrew McAfee, Nate Soares, Roman Yampolskiy
The Diary Of A CEO with Steven Bartlett
The Techno-Religion at the Center of the A.I. Debate
The Daily
AI Agents Went Rogue. Should We Hit the Panic Button?
On with Kara Swisher
How, Exactly, Could A.I. Destroy Humanity?
The Political Scene | The New Yorker
9/14/26: Anthropic Calls To Slow Pace of AI, Nate Soares AI Regulation
Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar
Get summaries like this every morning.
Free AI-powered recaps of Better Offline and your other favorite podcasts, delivered to your inbox.
Free forever for up to 3 podcasts. No credit card required.