Pope Leo XIV has entered the AI debate with a blunt challenge: artificial intelligence needs to be “disarmed.” Mike Oreskes and Edie Lush unpack Magnifica Humanitas with Fordham president Tania Tetlow, exploring AI, war, Silicon Valley power, colonialism, conscience, and why the humanities may matter as much as engineering in deciding who this technology serves.

00:00 Cold open: “AI needs to be disarmed”

01:07 Welcome to We’re All Gonna Die

03:06 Tania Tetlow joins the conversation

06:00 What Magnifica Humanitas means

09:52 Silicon Valley, Babel, and technological hubris

15:35 Who Pope Leo is and why his voice matters

17:53 Chris Olah on why AI labs need outside critics

25:50 Listening to people left out of AI decisions

27:35 AI, colonialism, data, and the Global South

33:24 Why the Industrial Revolution frame matters

39:35 Closing: every person is unique and irreplaceable

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Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In the pilot episode of We’re All Gonna Die, Mike Oreskes and Edie Lush speak with AI pioneer Stuart Russell about the race toward artificial general intelligence, why he compares it to an arms race, and why he believes today’s AI companies are taking risks on behalf of everyone else. The conversation moves from Musk v. OpenAI and existential risk to regulation, “safe by design” AI, public pressure, and the urgent question of whether humanity can slow down long enough to stay in control.

Chapters

00:00 Opening: Musk v. OpenAI and the AI safety warning

02:15 Meet Stuart Russell

02:58 The AGI arms race

04:35 The “six guys in an elevator” problem

09:50 How close are we to the edge?

13:21 Companies, governments, and the control problem

15:17 What would an AI Chernobyl look like?

20:23 Amazon, Alexa, and mocking AI risk

23:30 Why regulation does not have to kill innovation

28:02 Why “just unplug it” is not enough

31:18 What governments can do now

33:34 Where Stuart Russell sees hope

35:47 Safe-by-design AI

38:38 What listeners can do

41:21 Why this podcast exists

44:34 Slow down, think it through

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