“The Root Cause” by EuanMcLean

In her office nestled in the corner of constellation, Amina is checking in with her employee Diego about his project – a new AI alignment technique. It's 8pm and the setting sun is filling Amina's office with a red glow. Diego is clearly running a sleep deficit, and 60% of Amina's mind is on a paper deadline next week. 1: Hopelessness Diego: I’m feeling quite hopeless about the whole thing. Amina: About the project? I think it's going well, no? Diego: No, I mean the whole thing. AI safety. It's so hard for me to imagine the work I’m doing actually moving the p(doom) needle. Amina: This happens to a lot of people in the bay. There are too many doomers around here! Personally I think the default outcome is that we won’t get paperclipped, we’re just addressing a tail risk. Diego: That's not really what I mean. It's [...] ---Outline:(00:38) 1: Hopelessness(11:02) 2: The metacrisis movement(21:58) 3: The root cause of existential risk(35:31) Wanna read more about the metacrisis (and related ideas)?--- First published: June 17th, 2025 Source: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/w3zfrpg4YuHQKKSEG/the-root-cause --- Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO. ---Images from the article:Apple Podcasts and Spotify do not show images in the episode description. Try Pocket Casts, or another podcast app.