ForeCast

Owen Cotton-Barratt is a research consultant working with the Future of Life Institute, and a co-author of several recent Forethought articles on AI tools for epistemics and coordination. Rose Hadshar is a researcher at Forethought. They discuss: Whether LLMs are now good enough to start building tools that meaningfully help people track what's true What AI-powered reliability tracking could look like How AI negotiation systems could work Structured transparency and automated arms inspection — verifying compliance without revealing confidential information Whether coordination tech is more likely to enable cooperation or collusion The vision of a "Sensible Revolution": moving from individual tools to background infrastructure that makes civilisation's decision-making less insane Why building the good versions of these tools early matters for path dependency You can read a full transcript here. To see all Forethought's published research, visit forethought.org/research. To subscribe to our newsletter, visit forethought.org/subscribe.

Phil Trammell is an economics postdoc at Stanford University's Digital Economy Lab, working on questions related to economic growth and AI. He discusses: Why Piketty's thesis about runaway inequality was likely wrong about the past but right about the future How full automation turns capital and labour into gross substitutes Why catch-up growth between rich and poor countries could end How the privatisation of returns is already concentrating wealth Why family dynasties and inheritance become far more important in a post-automation economy Whether autocratic regimes can outgrow democracies after AGI How to measure whether capital is becoming truly self-replicating — and what the data currently shows Watch the video version on YouTube. Read a full transcript here. To see all Forethought’s published research, visit forethought.org/research. To subscribe to our newsletter, visit forethought.org/subscribe.

This is an AI narration of "Moral public goods are a big deal for whether we get a good future" by Tom Davidson, William MacAskill, Mia Taylor. The article was first released on 23rd February 2026. You can read more of our research at forethought.org/research. Thank you to Type III audio for providing these automated narrations.

Sam Hammond is is Chief Economist at the Foundation for American Innovation. He discusses: How collapsing transaction costs could push towards privatising the nation-state The “distributed denial of service” problem for courts and regulators Why perfect enforcement of existing laws would be effectively totalitarian Estonia's government-as-API as a model for AI-era governance Whether 20th-century social democracy was a technological aberration Why post-AGI states might look more like Dubai than Denmark Mormons, religion, and social scaffolding for a post-scarcity world Watch the video version on YouTube. Read a full transcript here. To see all Forethought’s published research, visit forethought.org/research. To subscribe to our newsletter, visit forethought.org/subscribe.

This is an AI narration of "Design sketches for a more sensible world" by Owen Cotton-Barratt, Lizka Vaintrob, Oly Sourbut, and Rose Hadshar. The article was first released on 5th February 2026. You can read more of our research at forethought.org/research. Thank you to Type III audio for providing these automated narrations.

This is an AI narration of "Design Sketches: Angels-on-the-Shoulder" by Owen Cotton-Barratt, Lizka Vaintrob, Oly Sourbut, and Rose Hadshar. The article was first released on 29th January 2026. You can read more of our research at forethought.org/research. Thank you to Type III audio for providing these automated narrations.

Rose Hadshar is a researcher at Forethought. She discusses: Why governments might pursue an international AGI government The chance that the first AGI developer becomes a de facto world government The "Intelsat model" – treating AGI as commercial infrastructure rather than a weapon or science project Membership and voting structures that might make a US-led coalition viable The "AGI convention" proposal Watch the video version on YouTube. Read a full transcript here. To see all Forethought’s published research, visit forethought.org/research. To subscribe to our newsletter, visit forethought.org/subscribe.

This is an AI narration of "An overview of some international organisations, with their voting structures" by Rose Hadshar. The article was first released on 26th January 2026. You can read more of our research at forethought.org/research. Thank you to Type III audio for providing these automated narrations.

This is an AI narration of "A global convention to govern the intelligence explosion" by William MacAskill. The article was first released on 26th January 2026. You can read more of our research at forethought.org/research. Thank you to Type III audio for providing these automated narrations.

This is an AI narration of "International AI projects and differential AI development" by William MacAskill. The article was first released on 26th January 2026. You can read more of our research at forethought.org/research. Thank you to Type III audio for providing these automated narrations.

This is an AI narration of "AGI and World Government" by William MacAskill and Rose Hadshar. The article was first released on 26th January 2026. You can read more of our research at forethought.org/research. Thank you to Type III audio for providing these automated narrations.

This is an AI narration of "What an international project to develop AGI should look like" by William MacAskill. The article was first released on 26th January 2026. You can read more of our research at forethought.org/research. Thank you to Type III audio for providing these automated narrations.

This is an AI narration of "The International AGI Project Series" by William MacAskill. The article was first released on 26th January 2026. You can read more of our research at forethought.org/research. Thank you to Type III audio for providing these automated narrations.

This is an AI narration of "The UN Charter: a case study in international governance" by Forethought Research. The article was first released on 26th January 2026. You can read more of our research at forethought.org/research. Thank you to Type III audio for providing these automated narrations.

Tom Davidson and Will MacAskill are both researchers at Forethought. They discuss: What is the industrial explosion? Why the case for recursive self-improvement is stronger for physical industry than for software How fast the physical economy could grow, the case for weekly doubling times, and limits from natural resources Why authoritarian regimes might have a structural advantage in the industrial explosion Could a leading country outgrow the entire world to achieve decisive dominance? Why does the industrial explosion get ~1% of the attention of the intelligence explosion? You can read a full transcript here. To see all Forethought’s published research, visit forethought.org/research. To subscribe to our newsletter, visit forethought.org/subscribe.

This is an AI narration of "Short Timelines Aren't Obviously Higher-Leverage" by William MacAskill and Mia Taylor. The article was first released on 22nd January 2026. You can read more of our research at forethought.org/research. Thank you to Type III audio for providing these automated narrations.

This is an AI narration of "Beyond Existential Risk" by William MacAskill and Guive Assadi. The article was first released on 21st January 2026. You can read more of our research at forethought.org/research. Thank you to Type III audio for providing these automated narrations.

This is an AI narration of "Is Flourishing Predetermined?" by Fin Moorhouse and Carlo Leonardo Attubato. The article was first released on 21st January 2026. You can read more of our research at forethought.org/research. Thank you to Type III audio for providing these automated narrations.

This is an AI narration of "ML research directions for preventing catastrophic data poisoning" by Tom Davidson. The article was first released on 7th January 2026. You can read more of our research at forethought.org/research. Thank you to Type III audio for providing these automated narrations.

This is an AI narration of "Viatopia" by William MacAskill. The article was first released on 7th January 2026. You can read more of our research at forethought.org/research. Thank you to Type III audio for providing these automated narrations.

This is an AI narration of "Design Sketches: Collective Epistemics" by Owen Cotton-Barratt, Lizka Vaintrob, and Oly Sourbut. The article was first released on 25th December 2025. You can read more of our research at forethought.org/research. Thank you to Type III audio for providing these automated narrations.

Lukas Finnveden is a Research Analyst at Redwood Research. We talk about making deals with early scheming AIs: paying them to cooperate rather than take over. You can read a full transcript here. To see all Forethought’s published research, visit forethought.org/research. To subscribe to our newsletter, visit forethought.org/subscribe.

This is an AI narration of "The first type of transformative AI?" by Owen Cotton-Barratt, Lizka Vaintrob, and Oly Sourbut. The article was first released on 18th December 2025. You can read more of our research at forethought.org/research. Thank you to Type III audio for providing these automated narrations.

This is an AI narration of "Space Debris and Launch Denial" by Fin Moorhouse. The article was first released on 17th December 2025. You can read more of our research at forethought.org/research. Thank you to Type III audio for providing these automated narrations.

Rose Hadshar (Forethought) and Nora Ammann (ARIA) talk about power concentration, checks and balances, coups, and post-AGI political economy. You can read a full transcript here. This is the audio version of a video podcast. Watch the video on YouTube: youtu.be/PB855Xpx1kk?si=v05LVM-2VQ3XiT7N Prompted in part by Rose's recent article for 80,000 Hours on ‘Extreme power concentration’ — 80000hours.org/problem-profiles/extreme-power-concentration Timstamps: 00:00:00 Intro 00:01:26 What is ‘power concentration’? Is power concentration the right framing? 00:05:25 When can it be good for power to be centralised? 00:09:40 Is ‘checks and balances’ a better framing? 00:11:16 How AI undermines existing checks and balances 00:15:25 Economic power, meme complexes, and cultural influence 00:28:50 AI companies vs governments as centres of power 00:31:25 The difficulty of knowing where power actually lies 00:40:05 Do humans and AIs concentrate power differently? 00:48:38 Should we be trying to imagine a better post-AGI political economy? 00:56:28 Concrete actions: transparency & whistleblower protections 00:59:07 Human-AI teaming and collaborative intelligence 01:01:16 AI agent economies and proving trustworthiness 01:13:16 Can we train AI to follow the law? 01:16:33 Building resilient coalitions of trustworthy agents 01:18:42 Closing reflections

Joe Carlsmith is a writer, researcher, and philosopher. He works at Anthropic on the character/constitution/spec for Claude. Before that, he was a senior advisor at Open Philanthropy. You can read a full transcript here. To see all Forethought’s published research, visit forethought.org/research. To subscribe to our newsletter, visit forethought.org/subscribe.

This is a bonus episode to say that Forethought is hiring researchers. After an overview of the roles, we hear from Research Fellow Mia Taylor about working at Forethought. You can read a full transcript here. The application deadline has been extended to November 1st 2025. Apply here: forethought.org/careers/researcher Chapters (00:00:00) Forethought hiring overview and roles (00:03:21) Interview with Mia begins (00:03:34) Why Mia joined Forethought (00:05:59) Daily work, how work at Forethought was different from expected (00:08:38) Research examples (00:10:58) Who should and shouldn't apply (00:14:11) Disagreements and closing thoughts Links Apply for researcher positions Referral form (if you know someone who might be a good fit)

This is a narration of ‘Introducing Better Futures ’ by William MacAskill; published 3rd August 2025. Narration by Perrin Walker (@perrinjwalker).

David Duvenaud is an associate professor at the University of Toronto. He recently organised the workshop on ‘Post-AGI Civilizational Equilibria’ , and he is a co-author of ‘Gradual Disempowerment’. He recently finished an extended sabbatical on the Alignment Science team at Anthropic. You can read a full transcript here. To see all Forethought’s published research, visit forethought.org/research. To subscribe to our newsletter, visit forethought.org/subscribe.

This is an AI narration of "Evaluating the Infinite" by Toby Ord. The article was first released on 21st September 2025. You can read more of our research at forethought.org/research. Thank you to Type III audio for providing these automated narrations.

This is a narration of ‘AI Tools for Existential Security’ by Lizka Vaintrob and Owen Cotton-Barratt; published 14th March 2025. Narration by Perrin Walker (@perrinjwalker).

Raymond Douglas is a researcher focused on the societal effects of AI. In this episode, we discuss Gradual Disempowerment. You can read a full transcript here. To see all our published research, visit forethought.org/research. To subscribe to our newsletter, visit forethought.org/subscribe.

This is a narration of ‘Intelsat as a Model for International AGI Governance ’ by Will MacAskill and Rose Hadshar; published 13th March 2025. Narration by Perrin Walker (@perrinjwalker).

This is a narration of ‘Will AI R&D Automation Cause a Software Intelligence Explosion?’ by Daniel Eth and Tom Davidson; published 26th March 2025. Narration by Perrin Walker (@perrinjwalker).

Cullen O'Keefe is Director of Research at the Institute for Law & AI. In this episode, we discuss 'Law-Following AI: designing AI agents to obey human laws'. You can read a full transcript here. To see all our published research, visit forethought.org/research. To subscribe to our newsletter, visit forethought.org/subscribe.

This is a narration of ‘AI-Enabled Coups: How a Small Group Could Use AI to Seize Power’ by Tom Davidson, Lukas Finnveden, and Rose Hadshar; published 16th April 2025. Narration by Perrin Walker (@perrinjwalker).

This is an AI narration of "Could One Country Outgrow the Rest of the World After AGI? Economic Analysis of Superexponential Growth" by Tom Davidson. The article was first released on 20th August 2025. You can read more of our research at forethought.org/research. Thank you to Type III audio for providing these automated narrations.

Tom Davidson is a Senior Research Fellow at Forethought. In this episode, he discusses concrete mitigations against AI-enabled coups. You can read a full transcript here. Listen to Tom's appearance on the 80,000 Hours podcast here, and read the original paper here. To see all our published research, visit forethought.org/research.

Will MacAskill discusses his new research series ‘Better Futures’. You can read a full transcript here. To see all our published research, visit forethought.org/research.

This is an AI narration of "How quick and big would a software intelligence explosion be?" by Tom Davidson, Tom Houlden. The article was first released on 4th August 2025. You can read more of our research at forethought.org/research. Thank you to Type III audio for providing these automated narrations.

This is an AI narration of "The Basic Case for Better Futures: SF Model Analysis" by William MacAskill, Philip Trammell. The article was first released on 3rd August 2025. You can read more of our research at forethought.org/research. Thank you to Type III audio for providing these automated narrations.

This is an AI narration of "How to Make the Future Better" by William MacAskill. The article was first released on 3rd August 2025. You can read more of our research at forethought.org/research. Thank you to Type III audio for providing these automated narrations.

This is an AI narration of "Convergence and Compromise" by Fin Moorhouse, William MacAskill. The article was first released on 3rd August 2025. You can read more of our research at forethought.org/research. Thank you to Type III audio for providing these automated narrations.

This is an AI narration of "No Easy Eutopia" by Fin Moorhouse, William MacAskill. The article was first released on 3rd August 2025. You can read more of our research at forethought.org/research. Thank you to Type III audio for providing these automated narrations.

This is an AI narration of "Persistent Path-Dependence" by William MacAskill. The article was first released on 3rd August 2025. You can read more of our research at forethought.org/research. Thank you to Type III audio for providing these automated narrations.

This is an AI narration of "Introducing Better Futures" by William MacAskill. The article was first released on 3rd August 2025. You can read more of our research at forethought.org/research. Thank you to Type III audio for providing these automated narrations.

Peter Salib is an assistant professor of law at the University of Houston, and Simon Goldstein is an associate professor of philosophy at the University of Hong Kong. We discuss their paper ‘AI Rights for Human Safety’. You can read a full transcript here. To see all our published research, visit forethought.org/research.

Toby Ord is a Senior Researcher at Oxford University. We discuss the ‘scaling paradox’, inference scaling and its implications, ways to interpret trends in the length of tasks AI agents can complete, and some unpublished thoughts on lessons from scientific moratoria for the development of AGI. You can read a full transcript here. To see all our published research, visit forethought.org/research.

This is an AI narration of "The Industrial Explosion" by Tom Davidson, Rose Hadshar. The article was first released on 21th May 2025. You can read more of our research at forethought.org/research. Thank you to Type III audio for providing these automated narrations.

Lizka Vaintrob discusses ‘AI Tools for Existential Security’, co-authored with Owen Cotton-Barratt. You can read a full transcript here. To see all our published research, visit forethought.org/research.