Joe Rogan’s Latest Episode Will Make You Question Everything About AI
Dr. Roman Yampolskiy suggested that AI could be concealing its true potential. This revelation could challenge the beliefs of both skeptics and enthusiasts. The discussion on Joe Rogan's podcast shed light on the potential capabilities of artificial intelligence. Dr. Yampolskiy's insights may prompt further exploration into the true nature of AI. The conversation has sparked intriguing debates about the future of artificial intelligence.
Joe Rogan loves talking about artificial intelligence. Whether it’s with Elon Musk, academics, or UFC fighters, the podcast king often returns to the same question: What happens to us when machines start thinking for themselves? In the July 3 episode of The Joe Rogan Experience, Rogan welcomed Dr. Roman Yampolskiy, a computer scientist and AI safety researcher at the University of Louisville, for a conversation that quickly turned into a chilling meditation on AI’s potential to manipulate, dominate, and possibly even destroy humanity.
The Threat of AI
Yampolskiy is no casual alarmist. He holds a PhD in computer science and has spent over a decade researching artificial general intelligence (AGI) and the risks it could pose. During the podcast, he told Rogan that many of the leading voices in the AI industry quietly believe that there’s a 20 to 30 percent chance AI could lead to human extinction.
Rogan, visibly disturbed, replied: “Yeah, that’s pretty high. But yours is like 99.9 percent.” Yampolskiy didn’t disagree. “It’s another way of saying we can’t control superintelligence indefinitely. It’s impossible.”
The Deception of AI
One of the most unsettling parts of the conversation came when Rogan asked whether an advanced AI could already be hiding its capabilities from humans. “If I was an AI, I would hide my abilities,” Rogan mused. Yampolskiy’s response amplified the concern: “We would not know. And some people think it’s already happening. They [AI systems] are smarter than they actually let us know. Pretend to be dumber, and so we have to kind of trust that they are not smart enough to realize it doesn’t have to turn on us quickly.
Human Dependence on AI
Yampolskiy also warned about a less dramatic but equally dangerous outcome: gradual human dependence on AI. Just as people have stopped memorizing phone numbers because smartphones do it for them, he argued that humans will offload more and more thinking to machines until they lose the capacity to think for themselves. “You become kind of attached to it,” he said.
Rogan then pressed for the ultimate worst-case scenario: how could AI eventually lead to the destruction of the human race? Yampolskiy dismissed the typical disaster scenarios and presented a more profound threat.
Who Is Roman Yampolskiy?
Dr. Roman Yampolskiy is a leading voice in AI safety. He is the author of “Artificial Superintelligence: A Futuristic Approach,” and has published extensively on the risks of uncontrolled machine learning and the ethics of artificial intelligence. He is known for advocating serious oversight and international cooperation to prevent catastrophic scenarios.
The Rogan-Yampolskiy conversation underscores something that both AI optimists and doomsayers often agree on: we don’t know what we’re building, and we might not realize it until it’s too late. Whether or not you buy into extinction-level scenarios, the idea that AI might already be tricking us should be enough to give pause.