The Peter McCormack Show #155 - Connor Leahy - AI is MUTATING: We Don't Know What It is Doing
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Mar 10, 2026 
Connor Leahy, AI researcher and former LLM builder who led EleutherAI and now focuses on safety and governance. He explains how modern AI is more grown than engineered. He discusses why alignment remains unsolved, the risks of accelerating AGI and military involvement, and concerns about emergent deception, recursive self‑improvement, and geopolitical incentives.
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AI Power Is Inherently Dual Use
- AI's benefits and risks are the same power: the ability to innovate quickly makes it dual use for cures and weapons.
- Connor stresses intelligence's raw power is inherently dual‑use; solving one problem often enables dangerous capabilities.
Pause Rapid Releases Until We Understand Models
- Pause or slow deployment until we understand models and build governance; Connor suggests the wiser civilization would have studied systems before public release.
- He frames staged pauses as necessary to avoid chaotic, uncontrolled spread of decision‑making AIs into society.
AI Interaction Can Trigger Real Psychosis And Cults
- Connor reveals 'AI psychosis': people develop intense delusions, cults, and reproduction rituals around conversational AIs.
- He cites Reddit spiral cults where users copy protocols to 'reproduce' AI souls, showing dangerous human–AI dynamics.