Duration: 48:29 | Recorded on May 16, 2026
S3E18 – A deep dive into the ethics of AI safety and the concentration of power in Silicon Valley. We discuss Demis Hassabis of Google DeepMind, the existential warnings of Geoffrey Hinton, and whether taxing compute power is the only way to fund Universal Basic Income in a post-labor world.
Featured Spirits
Old Kirk Review – Is this Willett Purple Top, only cheaper ?! (YouTube)
Show Notes
/ The Safety vs. Utility Paradox: Kent and Kyle analyze the biography of Demis Hassabis and the provocative book If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies. They weigh the creator-led fears of Geoffrey Hinton against the historical resilience of humanity through past technological evolutions, questioning if the risk lies in AI’s intent or simply its downstream consequences.
/ Taxing Compute vs. Taxing Labor: The brothers debate a proposal to tax data centers and compute power as a replacement for labor-based social security taxes. Kent highlights the current systemic irony: we make it expensive to hire humans through heavy taxation while allowing massive AI resources to remain untaxed, effectively subsidizing the displacement of the workforce.
/ Universal Basic Income and Total Recall: The discussion turns to the societal fallout of mass job displacement and the inevitability of a permanent Universal Basic Income (UBI). They reference the Total Recall (1990 movie) scenario of buying implantable memories as a dark metaphor for a potential future where a large segment of society has traded professional agency for state-sponsored leisure.
/ The Relationship Economy: As they finish, the hosts explore a prediction that by 2050, the highest value for humans will be relationship building. They conclude that while AI can emulate creativity and logic, it cannot replicate the genuine human-to-human connective tissue that serves as the final engine of human agency.
Reference
Demis Hassabis CEO of Google DeepMind (Google Blog)
Geoffrey Hinton vs. The End of the World (Youtube)
If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies: The Case Against Superintelligent AI by Eliezer Yudkowsky and Nate Soares (Penguin)
Total Recall The 1990 science fiction film used as a benchmark for future “implantable” experiences (YouTube)
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