Sebastian Mallaby (@scmallaby) is the Paul A.
Volcker senior fellow for international economics at the Council
on Foreign Relations, a two-time Pulitzer Prize finalist, and the
author of six books, including More Money Than God, The Power
Law, The Man Who Knew, and The World's Banker. His latest book is
The Infinity Machine: Demis Hassabis, DeepMind, and the
Quest for Superintelligence.
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Timestamps
[00:00:00] Start.
[00:02:11] The twinkly eyed polymath who became Sebastian's
next book.
[00:06:55] Picking the next book project the way a great VC
picks a startup.
[00:09:41] Why God keeps crashing the superintelligence
party.
[00:11:13] Shane Legg's grainy 2009 prophecy — and the
nervous giggle.
[00:13:11] Ilya Sutskever burns an effigy.
[00:13:54] Demis at 4 a.m., hunting God's algorithm.
[00:18:43] Super-abundance, Mad Max, and the China shock
lesson.
[00:22:39] The kitchen debate with Geoff Hinton that flipped
Sebastian.
[00:24:06] Why a zero-percent chance of doom is indefensible.
[00:24:52] Will Washington seize the labs? The Mythos wake-up
call.
[00:27:18] Anthropic's bull case, bear case, and a dead
parent's letter.
[00:33:24] Where Sebastian and Benedict Evans part ways.
[00:38:16] Is the SaaS apocalypse overdone? One word:
Palantir.
[00:39:53] The AI friend you'll never switch.
[00:41:56] Does Google win consumer AI by default?
[00:44:45] Four cities, eight days: China actually talks
safety.
[00:47:28] A Cold War non-proliferation playbook for AI.
[00:49:45] Did the chip export controls actually work?
[00:51:49] Burned doves: why Washington swears China won't
talk.
[00:54:56] "By 2028, the race is over" — one lab boss' bet.
[00:59:11] Inside Hikvision: toddlers, sensors, and US
sanctions.
[01:01:07] Bill Gurley's Uber bet: venture capital perfected.
[01:05:18] Luke Nosek bear-hugs DeepMind into existence.
[01:10:52] Thiel's heresy: never invest by committee.
[01:11:59] How Founders Fund nearly fumbled the deal of the
century.
[01:14:30] Selling to Google for $650M: a secret British
heist?
[01:16:41] The Traitorous Eight, gardening leave, and the
UK's to-do list.
[01:20:55] Ender's Game: "That's really how I see myself."
[01:23:42] Too dumb for Gödel, Escher, Bach? Maybe an LLM can
help.
[01:25:19] If not Demis or Sam, then Dario.
[01:26:04] My royalties cliff — and what dropped in late
2022.
[01:27:47] Lila Sciences and the labs that run themselves.
[01:31:13] Sebastian's billboard: "Prepare your mind."
[01:35:14] The one thing Sebastian will never outsource to
AI.
[01:40:09] Parting thoughts.
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