Ben Bradford

speaker

162 appearances 1 recordings 1 series first heard Jul 2026 last heard 12 Jul

Ben Bradford’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.

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Recordings per month over the last 12 months — 1 in all, peaking in Jul 2026 with 1.

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Up First from NPR · Should we worry about the end of the world? · 12 Jul 2026 podcast

We have AIs that are very autonomous.

Like, you know, in L.A., we have Waymos everywhere driving around the streets.

And that's, you know, very autonomous.

And we know that what companies want to do is merge those two things together.

So they want essentially you to be able to say, you know what, I don't need my accountant anymore.

I can just ask my AI to go file my taxes.

And we know that companies are at least saying that they want it to get better.

They think it can get better.

So the next thing that you need is you have to have the AI that would, you know, quote unquote, turn on us.

And you might ask, why would the AI turn on us?

The risk is not that these machines like come up with a plan on their own.

At no point are we talking about sentience, right, to go kill all humans.

The risk is they're given a task and in the process of trying to complete the task, humans become the adversaries.

And there's this analogy on the show that I think is like super helpful to understand how this happens.

Fantasia, the Disney film.

Mickey, as the sorcerer's apprentice, trudges down a staircase, hauling heavy buckets of water to fill a massive cauldron.

Exhausted, he sees an easier way.

He swipes his boss's pointy blue wizard hat and casts a spell on a nearby broom.

It sprouts arms and picks up the bucket.

So the broom is the AI.

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