Doom Debates!

Producer Ori takes over hosting duties in this special episode, a live recording from Manifest 2026.
He takes attendees for a ride on The Doom Train, the series of claims involved in arguing that P(Doom) is high. Every stop is a place where people get off before reaching that conclusion.
The crowd at Manifest is a mix of forecasters, rationalists, and AI researchers with a wide range of P(Doom) positions. Even without me or Eliezer in the room, there are plenty of Yudkowskians to push back on the accelerationist claims.
Watch along and decide where YOU get off, or if you ride all the way to doomtown with us. Also, grab the Doom Train framework down below so you can get to the crux of disagreement in your own AI x-risk conversations.
Timestamps
00:00:00 — Cold Open
00:00:25 — Liron Introduces Producer Ori’s Manifest Session
00:02:30 — Previewing the Doom Train™ Stops
00:03:38 — Audience P(Doom) Poll
00:05:00 — Stop 1: AGI Isn’t Coming Soon
00:10:43 — Stop 2: AI Can’t Go Far Beyond Human Intelligence
00:15:05 — Stop 3: AI Won’t Be a Physical Threat
00:18:14 — Stop 4: Intelligence Yields Moral Goodness
00:21:38 — Will ASI Behave Because Alien ASIs Are Watching?
00:26:01 — Stop 5: We Have a Safe AI Development Process
00:28:33 — Stop 6: AI Capabilities Will Rise at a Manageable Pace
00:30:08 — Stop 7: AI Won’t Try to Conquer the Universe
00:34:22 — Stop 8: Superalignment Is a Tractable Problem
00:38:01 — Stop 9: Once We Solve Superalignment, We’ll Enjoy Peace
00:41:14 — Stop 10: Unaligned ASI Will Spare Us
00:47:35 — Stop 11: AI Doomerism Is Bad Epistemology
00:49:02 — Bonus Stops and Wrap-Up
The Doom Train Framework
Stops on the Doom Train
AGI isn’t coming soon
* No consciousness
* No emotions
* No creativity — AIs are limited to copying patterns in their training data, they can’t “generate new knowledge”
* AIs aren’t even as smart as dogs right now, never mind humans
* AIs constantly make dumb mistakes, they can’t even do simple arithmetic reliably
* LLM performance is hitting a wall — GPT 4.5 is barely better than GPT 4.1 despite being larger scale
* No genuine reasoning
* No microtubules exploiting uncomputable quantum effects
* No soul
* We’ll need to build tons of data centers and power before we get to AGI
* No agency
* This is just another AI hype cycle, every 25 years people think AGI is coming soon and they’re wrong
Artificial intelligence can’t go far beyond human intelligence
* “Superhuman intelligence” is a meaningless concept
* Human engineering already is coming close to the laws of physics
* Coordinating a large engineering project can’t happen much faster than humans do it
* No individual human is that smart compared to humanity as a whole, including our culture, corporations, and other institutions. Similarly no individual AI will ever be that smart compared to the sum of human culture and other institutions.
AI won’t be a physical threat
* AI doesn’t have arms or legs, it has zero control over the real world
* An AI with a robot body can’t fight better than a human soldier
* We can just disconnect an AI’s power to stop it
* We can just turn off the internet to stop it
* We can just shoot it with a gun
* It’s just math
* Any supposed chain of events where AI kills humans is far-fetched science fiction
Intelligence yields moral goodness
* More intelligence is correlated with more morality
* Smarter people commit fewer crimes
* The orthogonality thesis is false
* AIs will discover moral realism
* If we made AIs so smart, and we were trying to make them moral, then they’ll be smart enough to debug their own morality
* Positive-sum cooperation was the outcome of natural selection
We have a safe AI development process
* Just like every new technology, we’ll figure it out as we go
* We don’t know what problems need to be fixed until we build the AI and test it out
* If an AI causes problems, we’ll be able to turn it off and release another version
* We have safeguards to make sure AI doesn’t get uncontrollable/unstoppable
* If we accidentally build an AI that stops accepting our shutoff commands, it won’t manage to copy versions of itself outside our firewalls which then proceed to spread exponentially like a computer virus
* If we accidentally build an AI that escapes our data center and spreads exponentially like a computer virus, it won’t do too much damage in the world before we can somehow disable or neutralize all its copies
* If we can’t disable or neutralize copies of rogue AIs, we’ll rapidly build other AIs that can do that job for us, and won’t themselves go rogue on us
AI capabilities will rise at a manageable pace
* Building larger data centers will be a speed bottleneck
* Another speed bottleneck is the amount of research that needs to be done, both in terms of computational simulation, and in terms of physical experiments, and this kind of research takes lots of time
* Recursive self-improvement “foom” is impossible
* The whole economy never grows with localized centralized “foom”
* Need to collect cultural learnings over time, like humanity did as a whole
* AI is just part of the good pattern of exponential economic growth eras
AI won’t try to conquer the universe
* AIs can’t “want” things
* AIs won’t have the same “fight instincts” as humans and animals, because they weren’t shaped by a natural selection process that involved life-or-death resource competition
* Smart employees often work for less-smart bosses
* Just because AIs help achieve goals doesn’t mean they have to be hard-core utility maximizers
* Instrumental convergence is false: achieving goals effectively doesn’t mean you have to be relentlessly seizing power and resources
* A resource-hungry goal-maximizer AIs wouldn’t seize literally every atom; there’ll still be some leftover resources for humanity
* AIs will use new kinds of resources that humans aren’t using - dark energy, wormholes, alternate universes, etc
Superalignment is a tractable problem
* Current AIs have never killed anybody
* Current AIs are extremely successful at doing useful tasks for humans
* If AIs are trained on data from humans, they’ll be “aligned by default”
* We can just make AIs abide by our laws
* We can align the superintelligent AIs by using a scheme involving cryptocurrency on the blockchain
* Companies have economic incentives to solve superintelligent AI alignment, because unaligned superintelligent AI would hurt their profits
* We’ll build an aligned not-that-smart AI, which will figure out how to build the next-generation AI which is smarter and still aligned to human values, and so on until aligned superintelligence
Once we solve superalignment, we’ll enjoy peace
* The power from ASI won’t be monopolized by a single human government / tyranny
* The decentralized nodes of human-ASI hybrids won’t be like warlords constantly fighting each other, they’ll be like countries making peace
* Defense will have an advantage over attack, so the equilibrium of all the groups of humans and ASIs will be multiple defended regions, not a war of mutual destruction
* The world of human-owned ASIs is a stable equilibrium, not one where ASI-focused projects keep buying out and taking resources away from human-focused ones (Gradual Disempowerment)
Unaligned ASI will spare us
* The AI will spare us because it values the fact that we created it
* The AI will spare us because studying us helps maximize its curiosity and learning
* The AI will spare us because it feels toward us the way we feel toward our pets
* The AI will spare us because peaceful coexistence creates more economic value than war
* The AI will spare us because Ricardo’s Law of Comparative Advantage says you can still benefit economically from trading with someone who’s weaker than you
AI doomerism is bad epistemology
* It’s impossible to predict doom
* It’s impossible to put a probability on doom
* Every doom prediction has always been wrong
* Every doomsayer is either psychologically troubled or acting on corrupt incentives
* If we were really about to get doomed, everyone would already be agreeing about that, and bringing it up all the time
Sure P(Doom) is high, but let’s race to build it anyway because…
Coordinating to not build ASI is impossible
* China will build ASI as fast as it can, no matter what — because of game theory
* So however low our chance of surviving it is, the US should take the chance first
Slowing down the AI race doesn’t help anything
* Chances of solving AI alignment won’t improve if we slow down or pause the capabilities race
* I personally am going to die soon, and I don’t care about future humans, so I’m open to any hail mary to prevent myself from dying
* Humanity is already going to rapidly destroy ourselves with nuclear war, climate change, etc
* Humanity is already going to die out soon because we won’t have enough babies
Think of the good outcome
* If it turns out that doom from overly-fast AI building doesn’t happen, in that case, we can more quickly get to the good outcome!
* People will stop suffering and dying faster
AI killing us all is actually good
* Human existence is morally negative on net, or close to zero net moral value
* Whichever AI ultimately comes to power will be a “worthy successor” to humanity
* Whichever AI ultimately comes to power will be as morally valuable as human descendents generally are to their ancestors, even if their values drift
* The successor AI’s values will be interesting, productive values that let them successfully compete to dominate the universe
* How can you argue with the moral choices of an ASI that’s smarter than you, that you know goodness better than it does?
* It’s species-ist to judge what a superintelligent AI would want to do. The moral circle shouldn’t be limited to just humanity.
* Increasing entropy is the ultimate north star for techno-capital, and AI will increase entropy faster
* Human extinction will solve the climate crisis, and pollution, and habitat destruction, and let mother earth heal
Doom Debates’ Mission is to raise mainstream awareness of imminent extinction from AGI and build the social infrastructure for high-quality debate.
Support the mission by subscribing to my Substack at DoomDebates.com and to youtube.com/@DoomDebates, or to really take things to the next level: Donate 🙏


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College students are so angry about AI that they booed its very mention at 2026 commencement ceremonies. So why aren’t they rallying behind PauseAI? I went back to my alma mater, UC Berkeley, to find out.
I spoke with students studying philosophy, economics, and physics, as well as everyday folks visiting campus.
My interviewees were aware of AI’s rapidly growing capabilities. When pressed, some would even agree with me on the conceptual benefits of an AI pause. But the sense of urgency was missing.
Timestamps
00:00:00 — Cold Open
00:00:31 — Why I Returned to UC Berkeley
00:02:08 — Jack: Chinese Room Argument
00:03:23 — Richard: “Who Would Build That?”
00:03:54 — Karthik: An Economist’s Lens
00:05:20 — Jack: The Politics Are Unclear
00:06:10 — Yvonne: Why Powerful AI is Risky
00:07:06 — Robin: Doom Is the Wrong Priority
00:10:36 — Dexter: Sam Altman’s Motive
00:10:57 — Christine: AI Is Just a Tool
00:12:32 — What’s Your P(Doom)™
00:13:19 — Jackson: Supporting a PauseAI Treaty
00:14:19 — Why Cal Students Don’t Take AI X-Risk Seriously
00:15:19 — Rachel: Humans Are Irreplaceable
00:16:14 — Two Hours Later
00:16:35 — Wrap-Up
Links
Join the Doom Debates Discord — https://discord.gg/j4zQ8UaQw2
PauseAI — https://pauseai.info/
Doom Debates’ Mission is to raise mainstream awareness of imminent extinction from AGI and build the social infrastructure for high-quality debate.
Support the mission by subscribing to my Substack at DoomDebates.com and to youtube.com/@DoomDebates, or to really take things to the next level: Donate 🙏


Get full access to Doom Debates at lironshapira.substack.com/subscribe

Asian Dad Energy is a former big tech developer with an Ivy League education. We have a lot in common. We’re both:
* Software engineers;
* New-(ish) YouTube creators covering AI;
* Dads with a lot of existential angst.
But while I dread AI extincting humanity, Asian Dad has other concerns. We debate the risk of the AI bubble popping, a “techno-feudalism” scenario, and whether AI will outperform a human CEO in the near future.
Let’s find out where he gets off the Doom Train™.
Timestamps
00:00:00 — Cold Open
00:00:54 — Introducing Asian Dad Energy
00:03:36 — Asian Dad’s Career in Tech
00:09:06 — Getting Laid Off: The Job Market Is a “Hellscape”
00:12:29 — Software Engineering in 2026 vs. 2021
00:17:03 — Why Are They Investing Trillions in AI?
00:24:37 — Debate: AI Is Different Than Other Tech Bubbles
00:33:54 — Debate: AI Is Not Truly Intelligent
00:41:12 — Intellidynamics: Judge AI by Its Outputs
00:48:53 — Debate: Could AI Outperform a Human CEO?
00:56:33 — Asian Dad: AI Can’t Do Genuine Innovation
01:08:14 — What’s Your P(Doom)?™
01:13:17 — “Are You Calling Me a Scammer?”
01:14:41 — Asian Dad’s Mainline AI Doom Scenario
01:20:53 — Will AI Wipe Out Humanity by 2050?
01:29:29 — Why Is AI Doomerism “Getting Out of Control”?
01:33:11 — Debate: AI Lacks Agency
01:42:13 — Asian Dad Warns of “Techno-Feudalism” & Transhumanism
01:48:12 — Wrap-Up
Links
Asian Dad Energy (YouTube channel) — https://www.youtube.com/@AsianDadEnergy
Asian Dad Energy, “AI Doomerism Is Getting Out of Control” — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8bnzaG9QRG4David Deutsch, The Fabric of Reality (Amazon) — https://www.amazon.com/Fabric-Reality-Parallel-Universes-Implications/dp/014027541X
Robert Wright, The God Test (Amazon) — https://www.amazon.com/God-Test-Artificial-Intelligence-Reckoning/dp/1668061651
OpenAI model disproves the Erdős unit distance conjecture — https://openai.com/index/model-disproves-discrete-geometry-conjecture/
METR, Measuring AI Ability to Complete Long Tasks — https://metr.org/blog/2025-03-19-measuring-ai-ability-to-complete-long-tasks/
Doom Debates’ Mission is to raise mainstream awareness of imminent extinction from AGI and build the social infrastructure for high-quality debate.
Support the mission by subscribing to my Substack at DoomDebates.com and to youtube.com/@DoomDebates, or to really take things to the next level: Donate 🙏


Get full access to Doom Debates at lironshapira.substack.com/subscribe

Peter Clarke (Team Futurism) invited me on his podcast to probe the worldview of a Yudkowskian, and I ended up explaining how my 50% P(Doom) and 10% P(Foom) informs my choices.
Peter and I met at LessOnline 2026, where he was one of the participants in a live Jubilee-style debate about x-risk. This one’s a little tamer, but we still cover plenty of ground, like:
Why nuclear risk is underrated yet AI doom overshadows it;
Why nobody at AI summits is appropriately freaked out;
How Yudkowsky’s data center “airstrike” claim gets mischaracterized;
Why a superintelligence that doesn’t already value humanity won’t spare us;
And the “Icarus curve”, my techno-optimist forecast pre-superintelligence.
Subscribe to the Team Futurism podcast —https://www.youtube.com/@teamfuturism3554

Timestamps
00:00:00 — Welcoming Liron on Team Futurism
00:00:38 — How Liron Got Yudkowsky-Pilled
00:04:11 — AI 2027 and the Next Qualitative Breakthrough
00:05:52 — What’s Your P(Doom)?
00:10:22 — Why Isn’t Everyone Freaked Out?
00:13:09 — How Should We Then Live?
00:16:22 — Setting the Record Straight on Yudkowsky’s “Airstrike” Claims
00:20:54 — Two Doom Buckets: Misuse vs. Rogue AI
00:24:25 — The Bioweapon Kill Scenario
00:29:02 — The “Benevolent God” Cope
00:33:06 — Epistemology: What We’re Allowed to Know
00:40:08 — Dario’s Country of Geniuses in a Data Center
00:44:37 — The Icarus Curve
00:47:17 — Meaning and Purpose in the AI Era
00:49:32 — Wrap-Up
Links
Team Futurism on YouTube — https://www.youtube.com/@teamfuturism3554
Peter Clarke on X — https://x.com/heypeterclarke
Liron vs. 9 Rationalists at LessOnline 2026 (the “Surrounded” debate with Peter) — https://lironshapira.substack.com/p/will-ai-actually-destroy-humanity
AI 2027 — https://ai-2027.com/
“If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies” by Eliezer Yudkowsky & Nate Soares — https://ifanyonebuildsit.com/
Species | Documenting AGI, Drew Spartz’s channel — https://www.youtube.com/@AISpecies
Dario Amodei’s “Machines of Loving Grace” — https://darioamodei.com/essay/machines-of-loving-grace
Doom Debates’ Mission is to raise mainstream awareness of imminent extinction from AGI and build the social infrastructure for high-quality debate.
Support the mission by subscribing to my Substack at DoomDebates.com and to youtube.com/@DoomDebates, or to really take things to the next level: Donate 🙏


Get full access to Doom Debates at lironshapira.substack.com/subscribe

Dr. Holly Elmore, executive director of PauseAI US, is done giving AI insiders the benefit of the doubt.
In this spicy episode, Holly calls out a number of respected figures in the AI safety community for allegedly “selling out” the cause: Effective Altruists, Anthropic & OpenAI employees, Eliezer Yudkowsky, Zvi Mowshowitz—and even yours truly!
Holly isn’t afraid to psychoanalyze her subjects, which I push back on, but I can’t deny she has a track record of pushing the Overton window and surfacing uncomfortable truths.
Does Holly’s approach risk burning bridges with allies for little benefit, or does AI safety need a moral conscience willing to call out the rot nobody else will?
Timestamps
00:00:00 — Cold Open
00:00:48 — Introducing Holly Elmore
00:02:20 — Why Holly Moved to DC
00:06:03 — What’s Your P(Doom)?™
00:07:18 — How We Got Here: EA, Rationality, AI Alignment
00:16:32 — “If Anyone Builds It” and LessWrong’s Missing Mood
00:21:47 — Holly Supports the Government’s Fable Crackdown
00:33:39 — Beef: Dean Ball (OpenAI)
00:53:09 — Beef: Eliezer Yudkowsky
00:56:14 — Beef: Zvi Mowshowitz
01:11:50 — Beef: Liron Shapira!
01:16:15 — Beef: Nirit Weiss-Blatt (Dr. Techlash) Being “Bad Faith”
01:19:31 — Anthropic Took Over EA
01:22:04 — Holly’s Basilisk: What If Building Superintelligence Becomes a Crime?
01:32:35 — Beef: Amanda Askell, the “Mother of Claude”
01:39:05 — Beef: Daniela Amodei, Co-Founder of Anthropic
01:40:23 — Beef: Joe Carlsmith, Member of Technical Staff at Anthropic
01:49:39 — Beef: Open Philanthropy / Coefficient Giving, Ben Goldhaber
01:54:28 — Wrap-Up
Links
* Support PauseAI US: https://www.pauseai-us.org/
* Holly on Twitter/X: https://x.com/ilex_ulmus
* Joe Carlsmith’s “Leaving Open Philanthropy, going to Anthropic” post: https://joecarlsmith.com/2025/11/03/leaving-open-philanthropy-going-to-anthropic/
* Dean Ball joins OpenAI announcement (FAI post): https://www.thefai.org/posts/dean-ball-joins-openai-as-head-of-strategic-futures
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Doom Debates’ Mission is to raise mainstream awareness of imminent extinction from AGI and build the social infrastructure for high-quality debate.
Support the mission by subscribing to my Substack at DoomDebates.com and to youtube.com/@DoomDebates, or to really take things to the next level: Donate 🙏


Get full access to Doom Debates at lironshapira.substack.com/subscribe