We're Not Ready for AGI (with Will MacAskill)

William MacAskill is a senior research fellow at Forethought. He joins the podcast to discuss his Better Futures essay series. We explore moral error risks, AI character design, space governance, and persistent path dependence. The conversation also covers risk-averse AI systems, moral trade between value systems, and improving model specifications for ethical reasoning. LINKS: - Better Futures Research Series: - William MacAskill Forethought Profile: CHAPTERS: (00:00) Episode Preview (01:03) Improving The Future's Quality (09:58) Moral Errors and AI Rights (18:24) AI's Impact on Thinking (27:17) Utopias and Population Ethics (36:41) The Danger of Moral Lock-in (44:38) Deals with Misaligned AI (57:25) AI and Moral Trade (01:08:21) Improving AI Ethical Reasoning (01:16:05) The Risk of Path Dependence (01:27:41) Avoiding Future Lock-in (01:36:22) The Urgency of Space Governance (01:46:19) A Future Research Agenda (01:57:36) Is Intelligence a Good Bet? PRODUCED BY: SOCIAL LINKS: Website: Twitter (FLI): Twitter (Gus): LinkedIn: YouTube: Apple: Spotify:

You can listen to We're Not Ready for AGI (with Will MacAskill) online on Radio and Podcast. Open the player on this page to stream the available audio.

We're Not Ready for AGI (with Will MacAskill) is an episode from Future of Life Institute Podcast by Gus Docker.

This episode is 123:08 long.

This episode was published on Nov 14, 2025.

Yes. Use the heart button on the episode page to add it to your favorite episodes list.

Yes. This page shows related episodes from Future of Life Institute Podcast when more episodes are available from the podcast feed.