Against 'The Singularity' w/ Dr. David Thorstad

Philosopher Dr. David Thorstad tears into one of AI safety's most influential arguments: the singularity hypothesis. We discuss why the idea of recursive self-improvement leading to superintelligence doesn't hold up under scrutiny, how these arguments have redirected hundreds of millions in funding away from proven interventions, and why people keep backpedaling to weaker versions when challenged.David walks through the actual structure of singularity arguments, explains why similar patterns show up in other longtermist claims, and makes the case for why we should focus on concrete problems happening right now like poverty, disease, the rise of authoritarianism instead of speculative far-future scenarios.Chapters(00:00) - Intro (02:13) - David's background (08:00) - (Against) The Singularity Hypothesis (29:46) - Beyond the The Singularity (39:56) - What We Should Actually Be Worried About (49:00) - Philanthropic Funding LinksDavid's personal websiteReflective Altruism, David's blogThe Singularity HypothesisDavid's Philosophical Studies article - Against the singularity hypothesisTime "AI Dictionary" page - SingularityEA Forum blogpost - Summary: Against the singularity hypothesisJournal of Conciousness Studies article - The Singularity: A Philisophical AnalysisInterim Report from the Panel Chairs: AAAI Presidential Panel on Long-Term AI FuturesEpoch AI blogpost - Do the returns to software R&D point towards a singularity?Epoch AI report - Estimating Idea Production: A Methodological SurveyFunding ReferencesLessWrong blogpost - An Overview of the AI Safety Funding SituationAISafety.com funding pageReport - Stanford AI Index 2025, Chapter 4.3Forbes article - AI Spending To Exceed A Quarter Trillion Next YearAI Panic article - The “AI Existential Risk” Industrial ComplexGiveWell webpage - How Much Does It Cost To Save a Life?Wikipedia article - Purchasing power parityPascal's Mugging and the St. Petersburg ParadoxWikipedia article - St. Petersburg ParadoxConjecture Magazine article - Pascal’s Mugging and Bad Explanationsneurabites explainer - Ergodicity: the Most Over-Looked AssumptionWikipedia article - Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidenceThe Time of PerilsGlobal Priorities Institute working paper - Existential risk pessimism and the time of perilsEthics article - Mistakes in the Moral Mathematics of Existential RiskPhilosophy & Public Affairs article - High Risk, Low Reward: A Challenge to the Astronomical Value of Existential Risk MitigationToby Ord Book - The PrecipiceRethink Priorities blogpost - Charting the precipiceAI Futures Project blogpost - AI 2027Trump's Higher Education Threat CompactWikipedia article - Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher EducationPen America explainer - What is Trump’s Compact for Higher Education? And More Frequently Asked QuestionsStatement by the Vanderbilt AAUP Executive Committee on the “Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education”The Vanderbilt Hustler article - BREAKING: Chancellor Daniel Diermeier fails to reject higher education compact, reaffirms Vanderbilt’s values and openness to discussionThe Vanderbilt Hustler article - Students and faculty organize rally outside Kirkland Hall against Trump administration’s higher education compactFree Speech Center article - Compact for Academic ExcellenceMore of David's WorkGlobal Priorities Institute working paper - What power-seeking theorems do not showBook - Essays on LongtermismVibe ShiftBlood in the Machine article - GPT-5 Is a Joke. Will It Matter?Futurism article - Evidence Grows That GPT-5 Is a Bit of a DudGary Marcus substack - GPT-5: Overdue, overhyped and underwhelming. And that’s not the worst of it.Pew Research report - How the U.S. Public and AI Experts View Artificial IntelligenceN...