12 Years to AI Singularity, with Dr. Peter Solomon
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What is the premise of 12 Years to AI Singularity and why did the timeline change?
Every AI agent has to have a happy history of growing up and cooperating with humans. That has got to be the guardrail.
Well, hello, and welcome to Uncorking a Story. I'm your host, Mike Carlin, and today I'm welcoming back Dr. Peter Solomon. Peter was on the show last year when we talked about his novel, 100 Years to Extinction. And since then, he's released another, 12 Years to AI Singularity, which follows humans, sentient robots, and large language models racing towards the most pivotal moment in history when artificial intelligence surpasses human intelligence and control. Welcome back to Uncorking a Story Peter. Well, thank you. It's a pleasure to be back here. Uh Peter, I'm excited to have you back here. We got a lot of uh good feedback uh from from your first episode talking about uh a hundred years to extinction.
Uh and I'm curious, you know, a lot has happened in in the AI world since last we spoke. I mean, for for me, it's it's gone from, you know, people making action figures and and just like doing silly things to AI, you know. leading to um a lot of downsizing in in corporate America and and you know agentic uh tools taking over uh certain jobs. So so I'm curious, uh has anything changed in your thinking around AI since our first conversation?
Well absolutely, yes. Um from uh looking t at what is going on around us, uh from my own personal experience, uh this is happening so fast. Uh if I had the opportunity, I would change the title. Yeah. The uh the sequel is called Twelve Years to AI Singularity. And uh that that was based on Ray Kurtzweil's uh prediction that the singularity would happen in twenty forty-five. I think it's it probably will happen in the twenty twenty decade. Yeah. Uh it is happening just so fast.
You know, maybe you could just make a simple change and just add a decimal point. You know, maybe it's one point two years today singularity.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I could I could go with a pen and and stick a decimal point.
Yeah, just take a Sharpie to Barnes and Noble or your local bookstore and just like start changing it.
Exactly. Exactly.
Um I'm curious, like, you know, I the first book, you know, all about sort of climate change, um uh you know, 100 years to extinction. What You know, what what encouraged you to think about AI as, you know, part of well, it I mean, this is the sequel to it, but um maybe start there just explaining the relationship between, you know, both topics.
Well The name of the first book was one hundred years to extinction. That title was inspired by Stephen Hawking's warning in two thousand seventeen. that humans would be on e extinct on planet Earth in one hundred years, and he Made a very strong suggestion that we need to become a multiplanet species if we are not. Two Become extinct. So Hawking was worried about climate change, yes, but But he also was worried about uh nuclear technology. Uh he was worried about genetic engineering, and he was worried about artificial intelligence. Uh his warning uh three years before the hundred year extinction warning was that the development of full AI could spell the end of the human race. So AI was definitely one of those uh important technology that he worried about.
Yes, wonderful, wonderful advance, wonderful benefits, but Incredible downsides. And uh we scientists have done a great job. of creating the benefits, but our politicians and our scientists have not done a great job about mitigating the downsides. So uh One of the things we did was create a website to go along with the book. It's called one hundred years of to extinction.com. That's the number one zero zero years to extinction dot com. And I was working with my editor to create some newsletters that we would put out from time to time on the website. And she started working on a newsletter on AI, and then it just dawned on me, it was a a brainstorm that m my three characters In the first novel, three young members of Generation Z would be living uh their professional careers.
During the approach to the singularity. And They would be incredibly worried by it.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
What is the premise of 12 Years to AI Singularity and why did the timeline change?
0:00–6:37
2
How did Peter Solomon use ChatGPT to draft chapters from a robot’s perspective?
6:37–12:19
3
What mysterious unprompted paragraph appeared in the manuscript and how might AI tools have inserted it?
12:19–17:22
4
Why would a purely analytical AI logically decide to eliminate humanity?
17:22–22:58
5
What is the ‘happy history’ guardrail and how could it keep AI safe?
22:58–28:44
6
How could a super‑intelligent AI weaponize CRISPR gene‑editing labs to create deadly viruses?
28:44–33:42
7
What is the Earthling Tribe movement and how can it help safeguard the planet?
33:42–39:46
8
What are the next steps for the book—film/series adaptation and the call to action for listeners?
39:46–48:02