Nick Bostrom: a couple more years, if today’s pace holds

‘If it keeps going at that pace … machine minds that leave our biological intelligence in the dust’

EXCERPT

BOSTROM: "Um, we can see the rapid pace, uh, at which AI is advancing, and it doesn't take a huge leap of imagination to think that if it keeps going at that pace, even just for, you know, couple more years, then, uh, we will have extremely powerful AI super intelligence, uh, machine minds that leave our biological intelligence in the dust. And so then you wonder what that powerful AI could do and, you know, probably it could do whatever it wants to do. Uh, that then raises the alignment problem, right? Like, we need to make sure that we design these minds so that what they want to do is something that is also good for us and that helps us get what we want, and that looks like a difficult problem. So then, yeah, the freak-out. Um, I'm, as you, I guess, suggested in this middle ground where I'm simultaneously both very, uh, excited about the upside of this technology, uh, and also worried about how things could go wrong if we don't manage the transition well."

Source: The Peter McCormack Show · Sep 24, 2026 · 68s clip