Episode · Big Technology Podcast · 2026-09-16
Books mentioned on A Sober Conversation About AI Existential Risk — With Nate Soares
Nate Soares is president of the Machine Intelligence Research Institute and co-author of If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies. Soares joins Big Technology to discuss why he believes superintelligent AI could pose an existential threat to humanity.
Nate Soares discussed If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies by Eliezer Yudkowsky.
Books mentioned, in the order they came up
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If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies
If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies by Eliezer Yudkowsky and Nate Soares is an accessible exploration of the existential risks and catastrophic scenarios associated with the rapid development of superintelligent artificial intelligence.
Discussed“We actually went over this in my book and you know, we we spent all of chapter 3 saying, "Hey, I know that the AIs don't seem that agentic right now. I know that they don't seem like they have their own goals right now, but like they're going to as they get smarter and here's all the reasons why."”
Where to get it
Other mentions in this episode (4) — ad reads, self-promotion and passing references, never counted
“He's also the author of this book, If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies, uh which is a New York Times bestseller, and MIRI has been sounding the alarm the longest.”
“And so what I would say is like if you find something that says if anyone builds it, everyone dies on it. Uh hopefully it would be attached to a whole book of the reasons that you could just like open it and then check those reasons”
“So, I don't have a looking glass that tells me uh everything about AI. And and we sort of try in the book to say, "Here's what the looking glass can tell you, and here's what it can't."”
“The book is If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies. Nate Soares here with us today, president of the Machine Intelligence Research Institute. Nate, I appreciate your time.”