Academic State of AI Safety Research

Renowned scientists just set The Doomsday Clock closer than ever to midnight.

I agree our collective doom seems imminent, but why do the clocksetters point to climate change—not rogue AI—as an existential threat?

UChicago Professor Daniel Holz, a top physicist who sets the Doomsday Clock, joins me to debate society’s top existential risks.

00:00:00 — Cold Open 

00:00:51 — Introducing Professor Holz

00:02:08 — The Doomsday Clock is at 85 Seconds to Midnight! 

00:04:37 — What's Your P(Doom)?™ 

00:08:09 — Making A Probability of Doomsday, or P(Doom), Equation 

00:12:07 — How We All Die: Nuclear vs Climate vs AI 

00:21:08 — Nuclear Close Calls from The Cold War 

00:28:38 — History of The Doomsday Clock 

00:30:18 — The Threat of Biological Risks Like Mirror Life 

00:33:40 — Professor Holz’s Position on AI Misalignment Risk 

00:44:49 — Does The Doomsday Clock Give Short Shrift to AI Misalignment Risk? 

00:59:09 — Why Professor Holz Founded UChicago’s Existential Risk Laboratory (XLab) 

01:06:22 — The State of Academic Research on AI Safety & Existential Risks 

01:12:32 — The Case for Pausing AI Development 

01:17:11 — Debate: Is Climate Change an Existential Threat? 

01:28:48 — Call to Action: How to Reduce Our Collective Threat

Links

Professor Daniel Holz’s Wikipedia — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Holz

XLab (Existential Risk Laboratory) — https://xrisk.uchicago.edu/

2026 Doomsday Clock Statement — https://thebulletin.org/doomsday-clock/2026-statement/

The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists (Nonprofit that produces the clock)— https://thebulletin.org/

UChicago Magazine features Prof. Holz’s class — “Are We Doomed?”: https://mag.uchicago.edu/science-medicine/are-we-doomed

The Doomsday Machine by Daniel Ellsberg — https://www.amazon.com/Doomsday-Machine-Confessions-Nuclear-Planner/dp/1608196704

If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies by Eliezer Yudkowsky & Nate Soares — https://www.amazon.com/Anyone-Builds-Everyone-Dies-Superhuman/dp/0316595640

Learn more about pausing frontier AI development from PauseAI — https://pauseai.info

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