Rob Wiblin

And I guess, how do you maintain your motivation in the face of what I guess I find very frustrating?

I think the situation which it's most frustrating is when it feels like people are kidding themselves out of financial self-interest when they're doing it because they have equity in some company that wants to go very quickly.

I think I have felt somewhat better noticing that many, many people who don't have a particular financial stake in here, and indeed would be better off by their own lights, in my view, if they were advocating for going slower, also don't think that there's a serious problem here.

It doesn't seem like the financial thing

is the key predictive variable.

It's something else I think about how people reason about as yet unknown technologies.

That's not universal, right?

I find myself often drawn to quite negative thoughts sometimes.

So back in 2019, I think you said to the New York Times, you thought worries about loss of control were completely delusional and fantastical.

I didn't say those words.

Okay.

No, what was it?

They were ridiculous.

I think it was the quote, but maybe that was just the Terminator scenario in particular.

I think so, yeah.

Okay.

Do you really think that was the reason for you?

So it's very tempting to try to, I guess, explain people's disagreeing views by saying it's like irrational factors, like they want to feel good about themselves or their work.

But there's a mirror discourse on the other side, where they'll say, people like you and me, we've been deluded by science fiction, or we want to believe that our safety work is important.

And I find that just incredibly, I find it like not credible and like very frustrating and not persuasive when people try to attribute my beliefs to irrational.