AXRP - the AI X-risk Research Podcast

Feb 28 2025 52 ep. 91 mins 296

AXRP - the AI X-risk Research Podcast artwork

AXRP (pronounced axe-urp) is the AI X-risk Research Podcast where I, Daniel Filan, have conversations with researchers about their papers. We discuss the paper, and hopefully get a sense of why it's been written and how it might reduce the risk of AI causing an existential catastrophe: that is, permanently and drastically curtailing humanity's future potential. You can visit the website and read transcripts at axrp.net.

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38.8 - David Duvenaud on Sabotage Evaluations and the Post-AGI Future

Feb 28 2025 20 mins

In this episode, I chat with David Duvenaud about two topics he's been thinking about: firstly, a paper he wrote about evaluating whether or not frontier models can sabotage human decision-making or monitoring of the same models; and secondly, the difficult situation humans find themselves in in a post-AGI future, even if AI is aligned with human intentions. Patreon: https://www.

38.7 - Anthony Aguirre on the Future of Life Institute

Feb 08 2025 22 mins

The Future of Life Institute is one of the oldest and most prominant organizations in the AI existential safety space, working on such topics as the AI pause open letter and how the EU AI Act can be improved. Metaculus is one of the premier forecasting sites on the internet. Behind both of them lie one man: Anthony Aguirre, who I talk with in this episode. Patreon: https://www.patr

38.6 - Joel Lehman on Positive Visions of AI

Jan 24 2025 15 mins

Typically this podcast talks about how to avert destruction from AI. But what would it take to ensure AI promotes human flourishing as well as it can? Is alignment to individuals enough, and if not, where do we go form here? In this episode, I talk with Joel Lehman about these questions. Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/axrpodcast Ko-fi: https://ko-fi.com/axrpodcast Transcript: ht

38.5 - Adrià Garriga-Alonso on Detecting AI Scheming

Jan 19 2025 27 mins

Suppose we're worried about AIs engaging in long-term plans that they don't tell us about. If we were to peek inside their brains, what should we look for to check whether this was happening? In this episode Adrià Garriga-Alonso talks about his work trying to answer this question. Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/axrpodcast Ko-fi: https://ko-fi.com/axrpodcast Transcript: https://

38.4 - Shakeel Hashim on AI Journalism

Jan 04 2025 24 mins

AI researchers often complain about the poor coverage of their work in the news media. But why is this happening, and how can it be fixed? In this episode, I speak with Shakeel Hashim about the resource constraints facing AI journalism, the disconnect between journalists' and AI researchers' views on transformative AI, and efforts to improve the state of AI journalism, such as Tarb

38.3 - Erik Jenner on Learned Look-Ahead

Dec 11 2024 23 mins

Lots of people in the AI safety space worry about models being able to make deliberate, multi-step plans. But can we already see this in existing neural nets? In this episode, I talk with Erik Jenner about his work looking at internal look-ahead within chess-playing neural networks. Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/axrpodcast Ko-fi: https://ko-fi.com/axrpodcast The transcript: htt

39 - Evan Hubinger on Model Organisms of Misalignment

Nov 30 2024 105 mins

The 'model organisms of misalignment' line of research creates AI models that exhibit various types of misalignment, and studies them to try to understand how the misalignment occurs and whether it can be somehow removed. In this episode, Evan Hubinger talks about two papers he's worked on at Anthropic under this agenda: "Sleeper Agents" and "Sycophancy to Subterfuge". Patreon: htt

38.2 - Jesse Hoogland on Singular Learning Theory

Nov 26 2024 18 mins

You may have heard of singular learning theory, and its "local learning coefficient", or LLC - but have you heard of the refined LLC? In this episode, I chat with Jesse Hoogland about his work on SLT, and using the refined LLC to find a new circuit in language models. Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/axrpodcast Ko-fi: https://ko-fi.com/axrpodcast The transcript: https://axrp.net

38.1 - Alan Chan on Agent Infrastructure

Nov 16 2024 24 mins

Road lines, street lights, and licence plates are examples of infrastructure used to ensure that roads operate smoothly. In this episode, Alan Chan talks about using similar interventions to help avoid bad outcomes from the deployment of AI agents. Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/axrpodcast Ko-fi: https://ko-fi.com/axrpodcast The transcript: https://axrp.net/episode/2024/11/16/ep

38.0 - Zhijing Jin on LLMs, Causality, and Multi-Agent Systems

Nov 13 2024 22 mins

Do language models understand the causal structure of the world, or do they merely note correlations? And what happens when you build a big AI society out of them? In this brief episode, recorded at the Bay Area Alignment Workshop, I chat with Zhijing Jin about her research on these questions. Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/axrpodcast Ko-fi: https://ko-fi.com/axrpodcast The trans