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Back to Leopold Aschenbrenner — 2027 AGI, China/US super-intelligence race, & the return of history, with Leopold Aschenbrenner.

Why Does Capital Still Matter After Superintelligence?

Capital still matters after superintelligence because the decade after artificial general intelligence stays wild, and Leopold Aschenbrenner says there is a lot of money to be made if the bet is done right. Dwarkesh Patel asks why start an investment firm at all when artificial general intelligence is only a few years away. Leopold Aschenbrenner says the screen does not go blank when artificial general intelligence or superintelligence happens.

People underrate the decade after the intelligence explosion. Leopold Aschenbrenner says the explosion is maybe the most wild period, and he says the decade after will be wild too: human institutions next to superintelligence, geopolitics gone crazy, and explosive growth spreading outward. The path runs to the stars and the galaxies. If artificial general intelligence were priced in tomorrow, he says you could maybe make 100x, and probably way more than that because of the sequencing.

Freedom is the other reason. Almost everyone very smart about AI who sees it coming is constrained, often inside the labs, and cannot talk about it. His investment firm is meant as a brain trust on AI, with the best situational awareness in the business, more than the people who manage money in New York. Leopold Aschenbrenner says that same awareness will drive the investing and leave him free to speak in public and advise important actors.

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Transcript

Leopold Aschenbrenner — 2027 AGI, China/US super-intelligence race, & the return of history ·

Dwarkesh Podcast

More from this episode

  1. What Is the Key Question for AI Progress?Leopold Aschenbrenner says the key question for AI progress in the next few years is how hard it is to unlock the test-time compute overhang.
  2. How Does Automating AI Research Create Superintelligence?Leopold Aschenbrenner says automating AI research takes the path from AGI to AI vastly smarter than humans within a year or a couple of years.
  3. When Will the World Notice Superintelligence Is Coming?Leopold Aschenbrenner says the world still has a few more years of midgame before superintelligence feels obvious.
  4. What Did Leopold Aschenbrenner's Great-grandmother Live Through?Leopold Aschenbrenner says his great-grandmother lived through the Nazi era, World War II, and most of her life under the East German communist dictatorship.
  5. How Much Electricity Does a 100 Gigawatt AI Cluster Use?Leopold Aschenbrenner says a 100 gigawatt AI cluster uses over 20 percent of United States electricity production.
  6. Should Only Democracies Develop Artificial General Intelligence?Leopold Aschenbrenner says a narrow coalition of democracies should be the group developing artificial general intelligence.
  7. How Easy Is It to Steal Unreleased AI Code?Leopold Aschenbrenner says stealing important unreleased AI code is extremely easy. DeepMind does not claim that taking the code is hard.
  8. Why Is a Three-month AI Lead Dangerous?Leopold Aschenbrenner says a neck-and-neck race with only a three-month lead is incredibly dangerous, while a 20 or 30 year technological lead is totally…
  9. Why Is AI Arms Control Unstable in a Close Race?Leopold Aschenbrenner says an arms control agreement is very unstable when the race is close, because three months ahead is enough to win.
  10. What Is Leopold Aschenbrenner Waiting to Buy?Dwarkesh Patel says Leopold Aschenbrenner told an influential person he is not going to spend any money on consumption until he is ready to buy galaxies.
  11. Why Not Wait to Nationalize AI?An early nationalization is what would lock stuff down in time, and Leopold Aschenbrenner expects America to move only once events are already obvious, in a…
  12. Why Does AI Alignment Look Like a War?Leopold Aschenbrenner says alignment during an intelligence explosion looks like a war in a fog of war, not years of bureaucracy that end in written standards.
  13. Why Did the Future Fund Collapse?The Future Fund collapsed from one day to the next in November of 22, after it came out that the backer was a giant fraud.
  14. Why Was Leopold Aschenbrenner Fired From OpenAI?Leopold Aschenbrenner says OpenAI told employees he was fired for leaking.
  15. Why Is There So Much Drama at OpenAI?Leopold Aschenbrenner says the drama at OpenAI comes from a real belief that OpenAI is building AGI, then a failure to take the implications seriously or keep…
  16. Why Do Ideas Get Harder to Find?Leopold Aschenbrenner says ideas get harder to find because each next discovery takes a log-scale jump in cumulative research effort.
  17. Can AI Research Explode Before Robots Do Physical Work?Leopold Aschenbrenner says an AI research explosion can start before robots do ordinary physical work.
  18. Why Is a Private AI Race Tough for Alignment?Leopold Aschenbrenner says the private world is extremely tough for alignment, even when labs nominally care.
  19. Is China Impenetrable to Outsiders?Leopold Aschenbrenner says China is impenetrable to him.
  20. Did Aschenbrenner Publish Knowing China Would Read It?Leopold Aschenbrenner published knowing people in the PRC would read the series.
  21. Why Did Mormon Fertility Rates Fall?Mormon fertility rates fell once the community grew big enough to live in close contact with ordinary society, Leopold Aschenbrenner says.

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