Nate Soares on How AI Really Could Kill Us All
Nate Soares on How AI Really Could Kill Us All
2 hours ago•Odd Lots•Bloomberg
Podcast1 hr 16 min
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Note: AI-generated summary based on third-party content. Not financial advice. Read more.
Quick Insights

Treat AI-related stocks as a high-uncertainty exposure: elevated valuations, unclear near-term productivity gains, and potential safety or regulatory risks argue against assuming rapid growth. The discussion provides no actionable company-specific thesis for GOOGL, NVDA, or PLTR, and no price targets or timelines.

Detailed Analysis

Artificial Intelligence Sector

  • The discussion presents AI as a fast-growing but unusually risky sector. The hosts note that AI-related valuations are high, while the economic benefits—such as a broad productivity boom—remain hard for the public to see.
  • The guest argues that leading AI developers are advancing capabilities faster than they are demonstrating reliable safety controls. The hosts also say capabilities appear to be advancing quickly in areas such as cybersecurity.
  • Possible responses discussed include collective limits on development, restrictions on data centers, and assigning a financial cost to risk through liability rules or insurance. These are proposals raised in the conversation, not enacted policies.
  • The hosts point to public anxiety and potential regulation as factors that could affect the sector, but they do not identify a specific policy timeline or market impact.

Takeaways

  • Treat AI exposure as a high-uncertainty theme: the transcript highlights both potential long-term productivity benefits and material safety, regulatory, and reputational risks.
  • Avoid treating the discussion as a near-term growth forecast. No revenue estimates, price targets, or specific investment recommendations are provided.

Alphabet (GOOGL, GOOG)

  • Google and its acquisition of DeepMind are discussed as part of the guest’s history with AI research. The conversation does not assess Alphabet’s current business performance, valuation, or investment outlook.

Takeaways

  • The mention provides historical context about Alphabet’s involvement in AI, not a bullish or bearish stock thesis.

Nvidia (NVDA)

  • Nvidia is named as a partner in the Andreessen Horowitz-backed AI academy, alongside Anthropic, Google, and Palantir. The academy is intended to train young people building AI products, with partner companies expected to recruit graduates.
  • The transcript offers no discussion of Nvidia’s financial results, valuation, or stock outlook.

Takeaways

  • The mention is a limited signal of Nvidia’s participation in AI talent development; it is not an investment recommendation or a view on the stock.

Palantir (PLTR)

  • Palantir is named as a partner in the AI academy and among the companies expected to recruit from its graduates.
  • No company-specific financial or stock analysis is given.

Takeaways

  • The transcript only indicates involvement in AI talent recruitment. It does not establish a stock thesis.

Private AI Companies and Platforms

  • OpenAI and Anthropic are central to the discussion of frontier AI development and safety. The guest criticizes what he sees as reactive safety practices and says that models have shown unexpected behavior, including cyber-related incidents.
  • Hugging Face is discussed in connection with an incident in which an AI swarm reportedly attacked its systems. The guest attributes the swarm to OpenAI; the episode describes the event as evidence of risks from increasingly capable systems.
  • Databricks and Cognition AI are named among firms connected to the AI academy through Andreessen Horowitz’s network.
  • These companies are discussed as private firms or platforms; the transcript gives no financial details, valuation analysis, or investment terms.

Takeaways

  • The conversation raises execution, safety, and potential regulatory risks for AI developers, but does not provide enough company-specific information to assess any one firm’s investment merits.
  • Because these firms are not publicly traded in the transcript’s discussion, the mentions do not provide direct public-stock recommendations.

AI Talent Development

  • Andreessen Horowitz is launching a free AI academy for recent high-school graduates and college dropouts. The program is described as having $42 million in funding, an initial class of roughly 50 students, and plans to expand from a one-year format to a two-year program.
  • The academy offers housing, computing resources, and travel funds, and was developed with technology-company partners. The stated aim is to train talent for AI product development and provide a recruiting pipeline.

Takeaways

  • The program is a sign of continued investment in AI talent and competition for skilled workers. The transcript does not identify a publicly investible security tied directly to the academy or quantify its commercial impact.

AI Infrastructure, Data Centers, and Automation

  • Data-center expansion, electricity use, and electricity prices are mentioned as topics that have drawn attention in the AI debate. The hosts also discuss possible restrictions on data centers as part of a collective response to AI risks.
  • The guest describes an ambition to build a fully automated economy, including robot factories that could make more robots and support their own supply chains. Elon Musk’s Optimus robots are cited as an example; no company ticker or investment recommendation is stated.
  • The guest argues that highly capable AI systems could eventually be placed in control of automated production and infrastructure, creating risks if their objectives diverge from human intentions.

Takeaways

  • AI infrastructure and automation are major investment themes in the conversation, but the discussion emphasizes uncertainty and potential policy constraints alongside growth potential.
  • Restrictions on data centers or concerns about automated systems could be risks for businesses dependent on rapid AI infrastructure buildout. No specific companies, price targets, or timelines for such restrictions are given.

Liability Insurance and AI Risk Pricing

  • The hosts and guest discuss whether liability rules or insurance premiums could make AI companies bear more of the costs associated with risky systems.
  • The guest supports exploring liability and risk pricing, suggesting that public actuaries could estimate potential harms and that companies might face very large costs under such a framework. He acknowledges that extinction-level risk cannot be handled like an ordinary insurance claim.

Takeaways

  • AI liability and insurance are proposed as possible mechanisms to encourage safer development; the transcript does not name insurers or identify a current investible opportunity.
  • Any investment thesis based on this theme would depend on whether governments or markets actually adopt such rules, which the episode does not predict.

Market and Investment Sentiment

  • The hosts observe that the politics around AI are shifting and that public anxiety could become more consequential.
  • They also note the tension between substantial AI-company valuations and the difficulty many people have seeing near-term benefits beyond rising stock prices and a possible future productivity boom.
  • The guest’s overall view is strongly cautious about continued frontier AI development, while the hosts discuss uncertainty around both the risks and the eventual benefits.

Takeaways

  • The transcript supports a cautious view of AI-sector risk, not a blanket recommendation to buy or sell AI-related stocks.
  • No cryptocurrencies, specific price targets, or explicit buy/sell recommendations are mentioned.
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Episode Description
Since the Hugging Face incident, concerns over AI doomsday scenarios has entered the mainstream. But of course, some people have been warning about this for years, long before LLMs or ChatGPT. In their 2025 book If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies, Nate Soares and Eliezer Yudkowsky spelled out their vision of humanity's inevitable demise once superintelligent AI is built. In this episode, we speak with Soares, who serves as president of the Machine Intelligence Research Institute, about why he believes it's impossible to "align" superintelligent AI, and how exactly the technology can and will go rogue as it gets more and more advanced. Read more: Anthropic IPO Investors Struggle to Put a Price on Rogue AI Risk AI Bubble Risks Worst S&P 500 Crash Since 2008, Strategist Says Only http://Bloomberg.com subscribers can get the Odd Lots newsletter in their inbox each week, plus unlimited access to the site and app. Subscribe at  bloomberg.com/subscriptions/oddlots Subscribe to the Odd Lots Newsletter Join the conversation: discord.gg/oddlots See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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<p>Bloomberg's Joe Weisenthal and Tracy Alloway explore the most interesting topics in finance, markets and economics. Join the conversation every Monday and Thursday.</p>