{"podcast":{"title":"Doom Debates!","slug":"doom-debates-6934136","podcast_index_feed_id":6934136,"rss_url":"https://api.substack.com/feed/podcast/1777870.rss","website_url":"https://lironshapira.substack.com/podcast","image_url":"https://substackcdn.com/feed/podcast/1777870/10d5e21d47152740410de1f6441ce8bb.jpg","author":"Liron Shapira","episode_count":177,"summary":"AI debates that must be resolved before the world ends","last_synced_at":"2026-07-30T10:18:31.431328+00:00","page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/doom-debates-6934136"},"episode":{"title":"He Leads a Top AI Research Program, But He’d Hit the PAUSE Button Today! Kevin Zhu, Algoverse Founder","slug":"he-leads-a-top-ai-research-program-but-he-d-hit-the-pause-button-today-kevin-zhu-algoverse-founder","published_at":"2026-06-02T17:05:00+00:00","page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/doom-debates-6934136/he-leads-a-top-ai-research-program-but-he-d-hit-the-pause-button-today-kevin-zhu-algoverse-founder","show_page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/doom-debates-6934136","url":"https://lironshapira.substack.com/p/he-leads-a-top-ai-research-program","audio_url":"https://api.substack.com/feed/podcast/200268101/671b93fd810f7a722c0353aa5b3bd758.mp3","summary":"Kevin Zhu walked away from a lucrative quant career to build Algoverse, one of the most productive mentorship programs for aspiring AI researchers. Can we agree on the best research path to a safe future? Let’s take a ride on the Doom Train! 00:00:00 — Cold Open 00:00:58 — Introducing Kevin Zhu 00:02:10 — From Citadel Quant to AI Researcher 00:09:14 — The Story of Founding AlgoVerse 00:12:53 — Discovering AI Safety: LessWrong & ARENA 00:17:22 — Emergent Misalignment Research 00:22:37 — Yudkowsky, MIRI & “Intellidynamics” 00:26:50 — What’s Your P(Doom)?™ 00:29:37 — Kevin’s Timeline to AGI + AI 2027 00:30:42 — Would You Slow Down AI? 00:37:44 — Coming Out of the P(Doom) Closet 00:45:49 — Should We Shame AI Company Workers? 00:52:27 — OpenAI’s Superalignment Team Collapse 00:55:01 — Riding the Doom Train™ 00:55:46 — First Stop: Instrumental Convergence 01:04:58 — Does Kevin Agree with the Orthogonality Thesis? 01:07:08 — “It’s Just Math.” Just Unplug It. 01:08:28 — “We Have a Safe Development Process” 01:11:49 — Group Dynamics & Laws Will Save Us 01:13:44 — Superintelligence Will Spare Us 01:14:25 — Is P(Doom) Just Bad Epistemology? 01:15:53 — China Will Race No Matter What 01:17:45 — Maybe Human Extinction Is Good? 01:20:36 — Wrap-Up Links Algoverse AI Research — https://algoverseairesearch.org/ Kevin Zhu on Instagram — https://www.instagram.com/kevinzhu.ai/reels/ Emergent Misalignment (Betley, Owain Evans et al.) — https://arxiv.org/abs/2502.17424 Emergent Misalignment via In-Context Learning (Algoverse follow-up, ACL 2025) — https://arxiv.org/abs/2510.11288 Agentic Misalignment (the blackmail result) — https://www.anthropic.com/research/agentic-misalignment LessWrong — https://www.lesswrong.com/ PauseAI (global) — https://pauseai.info/ OpenAI Superalignment — disbanded…","meta_description":"Kevin Zhu walked away from a lucrative quant career to build Algoverse, one of the most productive mentorship programs for aspiring AI researchers. Can we…","key_points":[],"chapters":[],"topics":[],"duration_seconds":4992,"processing_state":"not_requested","actions":[{"name":"request_transcript","method":"POST","url":"https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/doom-debates-6934136/episodes/he-leads-a-top-ai-research-program-but-he-d-hit-the-pause-button-today-kevin-zhu-algoverse-founder/transcription-requests","description":"Idempotently request low-priority transcript generation for this episode."},{"name":"read_markdown","method":"GET","url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/doom-debates-6934136/he-leads-a-top-ai-research-program-but-he-d-hit-the-pause-button-today-kevin-zhu-algoverse-founder.md","description":"Read the agent-friendly Markdown representation of this episode resource."}]}}