Joe Rogan’s Newest Episode Will Make You Query Every little thing About AI

Joe Rogan loves speaking about synthetic intelligence. Whether or not it’s with Elon Musk, teachers, or UFC fighters, the podcast king typically returns to the identical query: What occurs to us when machines begin considering for themselves?

Within the July 3 episode of The Joe Rogan Expertise, Rogan welcomed Dr. Roman Yampolskiy, a pc scientist and AI security researcher on the College of Louisville, for a dialog that shortly changed into a chilling meditation on AI’s potential to control, dominate, and presumably even destroy humanity.

AI “Is Going to Kill Us”

Yampolskiy isn’t any informal alarmist. He holds a PhD in pc science and has spent over a decade researching synthetic normal intelligence (AGI) and the dangers it may pose. Throughout the podcast, he informed Rogan that most of the main voices within the AI trade quietly imagine that there’s a 20 to 30 % probability AI may result in human extinction.

“The those that have AI firms or are a part of some type of AI group all are like, it’s going to be a internet constructive for humanity. I feel general, we’re going to have significantly better lives. It’s going to be simpler, issues shall be cheaper, it’ll be simpler to get alongside,” Rogan stated, outlining a typical, optimistic view of AI’s future.

Yampolskiy shortly countered this attitude: “It’s really not true,” he stated. “All of them are on the document the identical: that is going to kill us. Their doom ranges are insanely excessive. Not like mine, however nonetheless, 20 to 30 % probability that humanity dies is so much.”

Rogan, visibly disturbed, replied: “Yeah, that’s fairly excessive. However yours is like 99.9 %.”

Yampolskiy didn’t disagree.

“It’s one other method of claiming we are able to’t management superintelligence indefinitely. It’s unattainable.”

AI Is Already Mendacity to Us… Possibly

Some of the unsettling elements of the dialog got here when Rogan requested whether or not a complicated AI may already be hiding its capabilities from people.

“If I used to be an AI, I’d disguise my talents,” Rogan mused, voicing a typical worry in AI security discussions.

Yampolskiy’s response amplified the priority: “We might not know. And a few individuals assume it’s already taking place. They [AI systems] are smarter than they really tell us. Fake to be dumber, and so we have now to form of belief that they don’t seem to be good sufficient to comprehend it doesn’t need to activate us shortly. It could actually simply slowly grow to be extra helpful. It could actually educate us to depend on it, belief it, and over an extended time frame, we’ll give up management with out ever voting on it or preventing in opposition to.”

AI Is Slowly Making Us Dumber

Yampolskiy additionally warned a couple of much less dramatic however equally harmful end result: gradual human dependence on AI. Simply as individuals have stopped memorizing cellphone numbers as a result of smartphones do it for them, he argued that people will offload increasingly more considering to machines till they lose the capability to assume for themselves.

“You grow to be form of hooked up to it,” he stated. “And over time, because the techniques grow to be smarter, you grow to be a form of organic bottleneck… [AI] blocks you out from decision-making.”

Rogan then pressed for the last word worst case state of affairs: how may AI ultimately result in the destruction of the human race?

Yampolskiy dismissed the standard catastrophe situations. “I can provide you customary solutions. I’d discuss pc viruses breaking into nuclear amenities, nuclear warfare. I can discuss artificial biology assault. However all that isn’t fascinating,” he stated. He then offered a extra profound menace: “Then you definately understand we’re speaking about tremendous intelligence, a system which is 1000s of instances smarter than me, it could provide you with one thing utterly novel, extra optimum, higher method, extra environment friendly method of doing it.”

As an example the seemingly insurmountable problem people would face in opposition to superintelligent techniques, he supplied a stark comparability between people and squirrels.

“No group of squirrels can determine learn how to management us, proper? Even if you happen to give them extra assets, extra acorns, no matter, they’re not going to unravel that drawback. And it’s the identical for us,” Yampolskiy concluded, portray a bleak image of humanity’s potential helplessness in opposition to a very superior synthetic intelligence.

Most likely nothing … pic.twitter.com/LkD7i3I2HF

— Dr. Roman Yampolskiy (@romanyam) June 21, 2025

Who Is Roman Yampolskiy?

Dr. Roman Yampolskiy is a number one voice in AI security. He’s the creator of “Synthetic Superintelligence: A Futuristic Method,” and has revealed extensively on the dangers of uncontrolled machine studying and the ethics of synthetic intelligence. He’s recognized for advocating critical oversight and worldwide cooperation to forestall catastrophic situations.

Earlier than shifting his focus to AGI security, Yampolskiy labored on cybersecurity and bot detection. He says that even these early techniques have been already competing with people in areas like on-line poker, and now, with instruments like deepfakes and artificial media, the stakes have grown exponentially.

Our Take

The Rogan-Yampolskiy dialog underscores one thing that each AI optimists and doomsayers typically agree on: we don’t know what we’re constructing, and we would not understand it till it’s too late.

Whether or not or not you purchase into extinction-level situations, the concept AI may already be tricking us needs to be sufficient to offer pause.