Ross Douthat

because the law requires there to be a human.

That just seems like a very interesting way of thinking about the future, where it's volitional whether we stay in charge.

we've been talking about white-collar jobs and professional jobs.

And one of the interesting things about this moment is that there are ways in which, unlike past disruptions, it could be that blue-collar, working-class jobs, trades, jobs that require intense physical engagement with the world, might be for a little while more protected, that paralegals and junior associates might be in more trouble than, you know, plumbers and so on, right?

One, do you think that's right?

And two, it seems like how long that lasts depends entirely on how fast robotics advances, right?

Yeah.

Do you think that, though, that there is something...

distinctively difficult about operating in physical reality the way humans do that is very different from the kind of problems that ai models have been overcoming already intellectually speaking i don't think so um you know we we had this thing where anthropics model claude was actually used to pilot the mars rover

Exactly.

Okay.

So you think it is reasonable to expect the kind of whatever your sci-fi vision of a robot butler might be to be a reality in...

you know, in 10 years, let's say.

Okay.

So these are challenges and disruptive forces that exist in the good timeline, in the timeline where we are generally curing diseases, building wealth and maintaining a stable and democratic world.

But then there are also scenarios that are

more dangerous, right?

And so here we're going to move to the second Amadé essay, which came out recently, called The Adolescence of Technology, that is about what you see as the most serious AI risks.

And you list a whole bunch.

I want to try and focus on just two, which are basically