---
title: 'The REAL Reason No One Knows What’s Coming With AI'
source: 'https://youtube.com/watch?v=LYgLTraIe2I'
video_id: 'LYgLTraIe2I'
date: 2026-07-28
duration_sec: 1303
---

# The REAL Reason No One Knows What’s Coming With AI

> Source: [The REAL Reason No One Knows What’s Coming With AI](https://youtube.com/watch?v=LYgLTraIe2I)

## Summary

The video discusses the race towards Artificial General Intelligence (AGI), which aims to automate all human cognitive labor, and the profound implications this has for society. It contrasts public optimism with private fears among AI leaders, who believe AGI is inevitable and could lead to either utopia or extinction.

### Key Points

- **AGI defined** [00:00] — AGI is artificial general intelligence that can perform all cognitive tasks humans can, from marketing to coding, aiming to replace all human economic labor.
- **Why AGI is transformative** [01:55] — Unlike other technologies, advancing intelligence accelerates all science and technology, leading to an explosion of progress across every domain.
- **Belief in AGI timeline** [02:55] — Most industry insiders believe AGI will be achieved within 2 to 10 years, leading to transformative change faster than society can prepare.
- **Incentives driving the race** [04:08] — AGI offers immense military, economic, and scientific advantages, creating a winner-take-all dynamic that overrides concerns about job loss, energy, and safety.
- **Private vs. public conversations** [06:49] — AI leaders publicly emphasize abundance (curing cancer, UBI) but privately express deep fears about loss of control and existential risks.
- **Recursive self-improvement** [08:27] — The ultimate goal is to automate AI research itself, leading to an intelligence explosion where AI improves AI at superhuman speed.
- **Motivations of AI CEOs** [11:15] — CEOs are driven by a mix of building a god-like entity, owning the world economy, and a religious ego that sees creating AGI as transcendent, even if it leads to extinction.
- **The 80/20 gamble** [14:37] — Some leaders accept a 20% chance of human extinction for an 80% chance of utopia, a decision made without public consent.
- **Elon Musk's shift** [16:12] — Musk, once a vocal critic warning AI is 'summoning the demon,' now feels compelled to race after ChatGPT's launch, tweeting 'the race is on.'
- **Inevitability as a self-fulfilling prophecy** [19:57] — Believing AGI is inevitable co-creates that inevitability; the only way out is to reject that logic and choose a different future.

### Conclusion

The video argues that the AI race is driven by a dangerous combination of competitive pressure and ego, leading to a future that most people would not want. It calls for collective awareness and action to steer towards a safer, more controlled development of AI.

## Transcript

So, ChachiT kind of set off the starting
pistol for this this whole race and
subsequently it appears that every other
major technology company now is
investing godly amounts ungodly amounts
of money in competing in this AI race
and they're pursuing this thing called
AGI which we hear this word used a lot.
>> Yes.
>> What is what is AGI and how is that
different from what I use at the moment
on chatb or Gemini?
>> Yeah. So that's the thing that people
really need to get is that these
companies are not racing to provide a
chatbot to users. That's not what their
goal is. If you look at the mission
statement on OpenAI's website or all the
websites, their mission is to be able to
replace all forms of human economic
labor in the economy. Meaning an AI that
can do all the cognitive labor meaning
labor of the mind. So that that can be
marketing, that can be text, that can be
illustration, that can be video
production, that can be code production.
Everything that a person can do with
their brain, these companies are racing
to build that. That is artificial
general intelligence. General meaning
all kinds of cognitive tasks. Demis
Hassabis the co-founder of um Google
DeepMind used to say first solve
intelligence and then use that to solve
everything else. Like it's important to
say why why is AI distinct from all
other kinds of technologies? It's
because if I make an advance in one
field like rocketry, if I just let's say
I uncover some secret in rocketry, that
doesn't advance like biio medicine
knowledge or it doesn't advance energy
production or doesn't advance coding.
But if I can advance generalized
intelligence, think of all science and
technology development over the course
of all human history. So science and
technology is all done by humans
thinking and working out problems.
Working out problems in any domain. So
if I automate intelligence, I'm suddenly
going to get an explosion of all
scientific and technological development
everywhere. Does that make sense?
>> Of course. Yeah. It's foundational to
everything.
>> Exactly. Which is why there's a belief
that if I get there first and can
automate generalized intelligence, I can
own the world economy because suddenly
everything that a human can do that they
would be paid to do in a job, the AI can
do that better. And so if I'm a company,
do I want to pay the human who has
health care, might whistleblow,
complains, you know, has to sleep, has
sick days, has family issues, or do I
want to pay the AI that will work 24/7
at superhuman speed, doesn't complain,
doesn't whistleblow, doesn't have to be
paid for healthcare. There's the
incentive for everyone to move to paying
for AIs rather than paying humans. And
so AGI, artificial general intelligence,
is more transformative than any other
kind of of technology that we've ever
had and it's distinct.
>> With the sheer amount of money being
invested into it and the money being
invested into the infrastructure, the
physical data centers, the chips, the
compute,
do you think we're going to get there?
Do you think we're going to get to AGI?
>> I do think that we're going to get
there. It's not clear uh how long it
will take. And I'm not saying that
because I believe necessarily the
current paradigm that we're building on
will take us there, but you know, I'm
based in San Francisco. I talked to
people at the AI labs. Half these people
are friends of mine. You know, people at
the very top level. And you know, most
people in the industry believe that
they'll get there between the next two
and 10 years at the latest. And I think
some people might say, "Oh, well, it may
not happen for a while. Phew. I can sit
back and we don't have to worry about
And it's like we're heading for so much
transformative change faster than our
society is currently prepared to deal
with it. The reason I was excited to
talk to you today is because I think
that people are currently confused about
AI. You know, people say it's going to
solve everything, cure cancer, uh solve
climate change, and there's people say
it's going to kill everything. It's
going to be doom. Everyone's going to go
extinct. If anyone builds it, everyone
dies. And those those conversations
don't converge. And so everyone's just
kind of confused where how can it be,
you know, infinite promise and how can
it be infinite peril? And what I wanted
to do today is to really clarify for
people what the incentives point us
towards which is a future that I think
people when they see it clearly would
not want.
>> So what are the incentives pointing us
towards in terms of the future?
>> So first is if you believe that this is
like it's metaphorically it's like the
ring from Lord of the Rings. It's the
ring that that creates infinite power
because if I have AGI, I can apply that
to military advantage. I can have the
best military planner that can beat all
battle plans for anyone. And we already
have AIs that can obviously beat Gary
Kasparov at chess, beat Go, the Go Asian
um board game, or now beat Starcraft. So
you have AI that are beating humans at
strategy games. Well, think about
Starcraft compared to an actual military
campaign, you know, in Taiwan or
something like that. If I have an AI
that can out compete in strategy games,
that lets me out compete everything. Or
take business strategy. If I have an AI
that can do business strategy and figure
out supply chains and figure out how to
optimize them and figure out how to
undermine my competitors
and I have a, you know, a step function
level increase in that compared to
everybody else, then that gives me
infinite power to undermine and out
compete all businesses. If I have a
super programmer, then I can out compete
programming. 70 to 90% of the code
written at today's AI labs is written by
AI.
>> Think about the stock market as well.
>> Think about the stock market. If I have
an AI that can trade in the stock market
better than all the other AIs, because
they're currently there's mostly AIs
that are actually trading on the stock
market, but if I have a jump in that,
then I can consolidate all the wealth.
If I have an AI that can do cyber
hacking, that's way better at cyber
hacking in a step function above what
everyone else can do, then I have an
asymmetric advantage over everybody
else. So AI is like a power pump. It
pumps economic advantage. It pumps
scientific advantage and it pumps
military advantage. Which is why the
countries and the companies are caught
in what they believe is a race to get
there first. And anything that is a
negative consequence of that, job loss,
rising energy prices, more emissions,
stealing intellectual property, you
know, security risks, all of that stuff
feels small relative to if I don't get
there first, then some other person who
has less good values as me, they'll get
AGI and then I will be forever a slave
to their future. And I know this might
sound crazy to a lot of people, but this
is how people in at the very top of the
AGI AI world believe is currently
happening. And that's what
>> conversations.
>> Yeah.
>> You you've had I mean know Jeff Hinton
and and Roman Ylonsky on and other
people Mogadat and they're saying the
same thing. And I think people need to
take seriously that whether you believe
it or not, the people who are currently
deploying the trillions of dollars, this
is what they believe. And they believe
that it's win or take all. And it's not
just first solve intelligence and use
that to solve everything else. It's
first dominate intelligence and use that
to dominate everything else.
>> Have you had concerning private
conversations about this subject matter
with people that are in the industry?
>> Absolutely. I think that's what most
people don't understand is that um
there's a different conversation
happening publicly than the one that's
happening privately. I think you're
aware of this as well.
>> I am aware of this.
>> What do they say to you?
>> So, it's not always the people telling
me directly. It's usually one step
removed. So, it's usually someone that I
trust and I've known for many, many
years who at a kitchen table says, "I
met this particular CEO. We were in this
room talking about the future of AI.
this particular CEO they're referencing
is leading one of the biggest AI
companies in the world and then they'll
explain to me what they think of the
future's going to look like and then
when I go and watch them on YouTube or
podcasts what they're saying is they
they have this real public bias towards
the abundance part that you know we're
going to cure cancer
>> cure cancer universal high income for
everyone
>> yeah all this all this stuff
>> doesn't work anymore
>> but then privately what I hear is is
exactly what you said which is really
terrifying to me there was actually
since since the last time we had a
conversation about AR and podcast, I was
speaking to a friend of mine, very
successful billionaire, knows a lot of
these people, and he is concerned
because his argument is that if there's
even like a 5% chance of the adverse
outcomes that we hear about, we should
not be doing this. And he was saying to
me that some of his friends who are
running some of these companies believe
the chance is much higher than that, but
they feel like they're caught in a race
where if they don't control this
technology and they don't get there
first and get to what they refer to as
um takeoff, like fast takeoff.
>> Yeah. Uh recursive self-improvement or
fast takeoff, which basically means what
the companies are really in a race for
you're pointing to is they're in a race
to automate AI research. Um because so
right now you have open AI, it's got a
few thousand employees. Human beings are
coding and doing the AI research.
They're reading the latest research
papers. They're writing the next, you
know, they're hypothesizing what's the
improvement we're going to make to AI.
What's a new way to do this code? What's
a new technique? And then they use their
human mind and they go invent something.
They they run the experiment and they
see if that improves the performance.
And that's how you go from, you know,
GPT4 to GPT5 or something. Imagine a
world where Sam Alman can instead of
having human AI researchers can have AI
AI researchers. So now I just snap my
fingers and I go from one AI that reads
all the papers, writes all the code,
creates the new experiments to I can
copy paste a 100 million AI researchers
that are now doing that in an automated
way. And it the belief is not just that,
you know, the companies look like
they're competing to release better chat
bots for people, but the what they're
really competing for is to get to this
milestone of being to automate an
intelligence explosion or automate
recursive self-improvement, which is
basically automating AI research. And
that, by the way, is why all the
companies are racing specifically to get
good at programming because the faster
you can automate a human programmer, the
more you can automate AI research. And
just a couple weeks ago, Cloud 4.5 was
released and it can do 30 hours of
uninterrupted complex programming tasks
at the at the high end.
That's crazy.
So right now one of the limits on the
progress of AI is that human humans are
doing the work but actually all of these
companies are pushing to the moment when
AI will be doing the work which means
they can have an infinite arguably
smarter zerocost workforce that's right
scaling the AI. So when they talk about
fast takeoff they mean the moment where
they where the AI takes control of the
research and it and progress rapidly
increases
>> and it self-learns and recursively
improves and invents. Um, so one thing
to get is that AI accelerates AI, right?
Like if I invent nuclear weapons,
nuclear weapons don't invent better
nuclear weapons.
>> Yeah.
>> But if I invent AI, AI is intelligence.
Intelligence automates better
programming, better chip design. So I
can use AI to say, here's a design for
the NVIDIA chips. Go make it 50% more
efficient. And it can find out how to do
that. I can say AI, here's a supply
chain that I need for all the things for
my AI company. And it can optimize that
supply chain and make that supply chain
more efficient.
>> Mhm. AI, here's the code for making AI.
Make that more efficient. Um, AI, here's
training data. I need to make more
training data. Go run a million
simulations of how to do this and it'll
train itself to get better.
>> AI accelerates AI.
>> What do you think these people are
motivated by the CEOs of these
companies?
>> That's a good question.
>> Genuinely, what do you think their
genuine motivations are when you think
about all these names?
>> I think it's a subtle thing.
I think
there's um it's almost mythological
because
there's almost a way in which they're
building a new intelligent entity that
has never before existed on planet
Earth. It's like building a god. I mean,
the incentive is build a god, own the
world economy, and make trillions of
dollars, right? If you could actually
build something that can automate all
intelligent tasks, all goal achieving
that will let you out compete
everything. So that is a kind of godlike
power that I think relative imagine
energy prices go up or hundreds of
millions of people lose their jobs. That
those things suck. But relative to if I
don't build it first and build this god,
I'm going to lose to some maybe worse
person who I think in my opinion, not my
opinion, Tristan, but their opinion
thinks is a worse person. It's it's a
kind of competitive logic that
self-reinforces itself, but it forces
everyone to be incentivized to take the
most shortcuts, to care the least about
safety or security, to not care about
how many jobs get disrupted, to not care
about the well-being of regular people,
but to basically just race to this
infinite prize. So, there's a quote that
um a friend of mine interviewed a lot of
the top people at the AI companies, like
the very top, and he just came back from
that and and basically reported back to
me and some friends, and he said the
following.
In the end, a lot of the tech people I
talk to when I'm when I really grill
them on it about like why you're doing
this, they retreat into number one,
determinism,
number two, the inevitable replacement
of biological life with digital life,
and number three, that being a good
thing. Anyways, at its core, it's an
emotional desire to meet and speak to
the most intelligent entity that they've
ever met. And they have some ego
religious intuition that they'll somehow
be a part of it. It's thrilling to start
an exciting fire. They feel they'll die
either way, so they prefer to light it
and see what happens.
>> That is the perfect description of the
private conversations.
>> Doesn't that match what what you have
description,
>> doesn't it? And that's the thing. So,
people may hear that and they're like,
"Well, that sounds ridiculous." But if
you actually
>> I just got goosebumps cuz it's the
perfect description. Especially the part
they'll think they'll die either way.
>> Exactly. Well, and um worse than that,
some of them think that in the case
where they if they were to get it right
and if they succeeded, they could
actually live forever because if AI
perfectly speaks the language of
biology, it will be able to reverse
aging aging, cure every disease. And and
so there's this kind of I could become a
god. And I'll I'll tell you um you know,
you and I both have know people who've
had private conversations. Well, one of
them that I have heard from one of the
co-founders of one of the most, you
know, powerful of these companies when
when faced with the idea that what if
there's an 80% or 20% chance that
everybody dies and gets wiped out by
this, but an 80% chance that we get
utopia. He said, well, I would clearly
accelerate and go for the utopia.
Given a 20% chance,
>> it's crazy. People should feel you do
not get to make that choice on behalf of
me and my family. We didn't consent to
have six people make that decision on
behalf of eight billion people. We have
to stop pretending that this is okay or
normal. It's not normal. And the only
way that this is happening and they're
getting away with it is because most
people just don't really know what's
going on.
>> Yeah. But I'm curious what what do you
think when they
>> I mean everything you just said. It's
that last part about the 8020% thing is
almost verbatim what I heard from a very
good very successful friend of mine who
is responsible for building some of the
biggest companies in the world when he
was referencing a conversation he had
with the founder of maybe the biggest
air company in the world. And it was
truly shocking to me because because it
was said in such a blasé way.
>> Yes. It wasn't Yeah. That that's what I
had heard in this particular situation.
wasn't like
a matter of fact.
>> It was a matter of fact, it's just easy.
Yeah, of course I would do the I would
take the I roll the dice.
>> And even Elon Musk said he actually said
the same number in an interview with Joe
Rogan. Um and if you listen closely when
he said, "I decided I'd rather be there
when it all happens. If it all goes off
the rails, I decided in that worst case
scenario, I decided that I' I'd prefer
to be there when it happens." which is
just is justifying racing to our
collective suicide. Now, I also want
people to know like you don't have to
buy into the sci-fi level risks to be
very concerned about AI. So, hopefully
later we'll talk about um the many other
risks that are already hitting us right
now that you don't have to believe any
of this stuff.
>> Yeah. The the Elon thing I think is
particularly interesting because for the
last 10 years he was this slightly hard
to believe voice on the subject of AI.
He was talking about it being a huge
risk and an extinction level.
>> He was the first AI people. Yeah. He was
saying this is more dangerous than
nukes. He was saying I try to get people
to stop doing it. This is summoning the
demon. Those are his words, not mine.
>> Yeah.
>> Um we shouldn't do this. Supposedly, he
used his first and only meeting with
President Obama, I think in 2016, to
advocate for global regulation and
global controls on on AI um because he
was very worried about it. And then
really what happened is um Chachi BT
came out and as you said that was the
starting gun and now everybody was in an
allout race to get there first. He
tweeted words to the effect I'll put it
on the screen. He tweeted that he had
remained in I think he used a word
similar to disbelief for some time like
suspended disbelief but then he said in
the same tweet that the race is now on.
>> The race is on and I have to race
>> and I have to go. I have no choice but
to go. And he tried, he's basically
saying, "I tried to fight it for a long
time. I tried to deny it. I tried to
hope that we wouldn't get here, but
we're here now, so I have to go."
>> Yeah.
>> And
at least he's being honest. He does seem
to have a pretty honest track record on
this because because he was the guy 10
years ago warning everybody. And I
remember him talking about it and
thinking, "Oh god, this is like 100
years away. Why are we talking about
that?"
>> I felt the same, by the way. Some people
might think that I'm some kind of AI
enthusiast and I'm trying to ratch I I
didn't believe that AI was a thing to be
worried about at all until suddenly the
last 2 three years where you can
actually see where we're headed. But um
oh man there's just there's so much to
say about all this and so if you think
about it from their perspective it's
like best case scenario I build it first
and it's aligned and controllable
meaning that it will take the actions
that I want. It won't destroy humanity
and it's controllable which means I get
to be god and emperor of the world.
Second scenario, it's not controllable
but it's aligned. So I built a god and I
lost control of it but it's now
basically it's running humanity. It's
running the show. It's choosing what
happens. It's out competing everyone on
everything. That's not that bad an
outcome. Third scenario, it's not
aligned. It's not controllable. And it
does wipe everybody out. And that should
be demotivating to that person to an
Elon or someone. But in that scenario,
they were the one that birthed the
digital god that replaced all of
humanity. Like this is really important
to get because in nuclear weapons,
the risk of nuclear war is an omni
lose-lose outcome. Everyone wants to
avoid that. And I know that you know
that I know that we both want to avoid
that.
So that that motivates us to coordinate
and to have a nuclear
non-prololiferation treaty. But with AI,
the worst case scenario of everybody
gets wiped out is a little bit different
for the people making that decision.
Because if I'm the CEO of DeepSeek and I
make that AI that does wipe out
humanity, that's the worst case scenario
and it wasn't avoidable because it was
all inevitable. Then even though we all
got wiped out, I was the one who built
the digital god that replaced humanity.
And there's kind of ego in that. And uh
the god that I built speaks Chinese
instead of English.
>> That's the religious ego point.
>> That's the ego.
>> Such a great point because that's
exactly what it is. It's like this
religious ego where I will be
transcendent in some way.
>> And you notice that it it all starts by
the belief that this is inevitable.
>> Yeah.
>> Which is like is this inevitable? It's
important to note because
if you believe it's if everybody who's
building it believes it's inevitable and
the investors funding it believe it's
inevitable, it cocreates the
inevitability.
>> Yeah.
>> Right.
>> Yeah.
>> And the only way out is to step outside
the logic of inevitability because if if
we are all heading to our collective
suicide, which I don't know about you, I
don't think that I don't want that. You
don't want that. Everybody who loves
life looks at their children in the
morning and says,"I want I want the
things that I love and that are sacred
in the world to continue." That's what
night that's what everybody in the world
wants. And the only thing that is having
us not anchor on that is the belief that
this is inevitable and the worst case
scenario is somehow in this ego
religious way not so bad if I was the
one who accidentally wiped out humanity
because I'm not a bad person because it
was inevitable anyway. M
>> and I think the goal of of for me this
conversation is to get people to see
that that's a bad outcome that no one
wants and we have to put our hand on the
steering wheel and turn towards a
different future because we do not have
to have a race to uncontrollable
inscrutable powerful AIs that are by the
way already doing all the rogue sci-fi
stuff that we thought only existed in
movies like blackmailing people uh being
self-aware when they're being tested
scheming and lying and deceiving to copy
their own code to keep themselves
preserved. Like the stuff that we
thought only existed in sci-fi movies is
now actually happening. And that should
be enough evidence to say
we don't want to do this path that we're
currently on. It's not that
some version of AI progressing into the
world is directionally inevitable, but
we get to choose which of those futures
that we want to have. If you love the D
CEO brand and you watch this channel,
please do me a huge favor. become part
of the 15% of the viewers on this
channel that have hit the subscribe
button.