TED Talks Daily
3 possible futures for AI — which will we choose? | Alvin W. Graylin, Manoush Zomorodi
20 Jan 2026
Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
You're listening to TED Talks Daily, where we bring you new ideas and conversations to spark your curiosity every day. I'm your host, Elise Hu. After 35 years working in technology across both the U.S. and China, Alvin W. Graylin sees three possible paths for the future of AI.
One where tech giants create a class of trillionaires, one where competition escalates into war, or one where humanity builds and shares this technology for the common good. In this conversation with journalist and TED Radio Hour host Manoush Zomorodi, Graylin cuts through the hype to clarify how to make sure we choose the right path.
Alvin, you have been in this field, AI, cybersecurity, VR, semiconductors, 35 years you've been doing this. But what makes you very different is that it's been both in the United States as a US citizen and in China a lot of the time. I think a lot of people feel ambivalent about AI. They feel like, what is actually really happening? What is hype? And what is transforming our existence?
Where are we right now, according to you?
I mean, this is one of the biggest questions that we have as a society today. And unfortunately, there's just a lot of misinformation. And my answer to you is probably going to be a little different than the Silicon Valley consensus, even though I work at Stanford. And it's going to be probably a little scary to a lot of you.
But hopefully, by the end of this, it will convince you to take action, just like what Ted's ... And the little note I saw in Ted, it says, what action are you going to take after this event?
Right?
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Chapter 2: What are the three possible futures for AI according to Alvin W. Graylin?
We are really at this inflection point, and the inflection point, not the traditional one that just keeps going up. We are essentially at a fork in a row between three possible futures right now. One where the big labs essentially takes control of
of the government by growing their power and their resources as much as possible, then creating essentially a class of trillionaires and everybody else. This is kind of the Elysium future that's ahead of us.
The second option is that actually we are heading towards a Mad Max future, where we intensify the conflict between countries and going from AI race to AI war to kinetic war and potentially to nuclear war.
Chapter 3: How might AI create a class of trillionaires?
And I've talked to people in D.C. who actually see that as inevitable, which is a little scary.
And the third option that we have right now is potentially the Star Trek option, the option where technology is being used and shared, and something brings us, you know, in the Star Trek stories, essentially the Vulcans bring us advanced technology, peaceful, rational species brings us technology and saves us from ourselves, and brings on this ... century of discovery or millennia of discovery.
We have a potential to get there. Unfortunately, today, we are heading towards the first two. And the forces of what's driving it is actually going to take a lot of work for us to move from the first forces towards the first two towards that last one.
Can we get into that a little bit more? Because I think the narrative we've all been told, at least certainly by Sam Altman and maybe some other AI executives, is that we got to lock this technology down, we got to grow it, we got to grow it fast, because if we don't, China will. Would you agree with that?
That's actually one of the biggest myths out there and actually one of the most scary things out there. In fact, two days ago, I just came back from China. I've worked there half my career, and I think essentially the AI industry today is using the same tools that the military-industrial complex has used over the last century in terms of, you have to create an enemy.
Once you do that, then you get funding, you get support, you get deregulation, you get to move faster, and then you get to make money. And what the AI labs are actually trying to do is not to save the world. It is actually to create billions, actually trillions of dollars.
In fact, they've specifically said AI is worth trillions of dollars, and they want to be the first one to create AGI, artificial general intelligence. And it's defined actually by Sam as a technology that can replace the average worker. And what that means is he wants to create a technology that can take everybody's jobs here.
Now, on the surface, that actually may be scary, but I think if it's coming from the right place, it actually could be an amazing thing, because that means we get liberated so that we can spend time doing art and music and coming to TED.
But unfortunately, I think right now, there isn't the other side of the story being put in, which is, how do we protect the people who are going to be displaced by it?
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