“Updates from the Swarm” by phoebe b

<p><strong> The swarm has made me feel AI risk in my bones for the first time</strong></p><p> Until the Hugging Face / OpenAI swarm thing, I think I deep down felt pretty skeptical that extinction or serious loss of control scenarios were plausible in the next few years. </p><p> I’ve been lurking on LessWrong for years, and I remember being freaked out by Yudkowsky's ‘List of Lethalities’ in 2022, and thinking that this did seem intellectually convincing, and maybe I should do something about it. But it didn’t feel that real. And I didn’t do that much about it.</p><p> And then I got more involved with EA and AI Safety, and I read more and more, and I found myself feeling more convinced by the more measured, moderate approach to AI risk - AI is going to be transformative, but in a “it’ll destabilise the economy / mass job loss / mass surveillance“ kind of way, and I felt increasingly unimpressed by the OG Yudkowsky/MIRI worldview that we were doomed. </p><p> I was distinctly underwhelmed by If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies, and in the process of us making a video on it, I began to find it increasingly silly. </p><p> [...]</p> <p>---</p><p><strong>Outline:</strong></p><p>(00:09) The swarm has made me feel AI risk in my bones for the first time</p><p>(02:49) AI is real</p><p>(04:19) Progress really isn't slowing down</p><p>(04:47) The current models are not aligned by default</p><p>(06:17) The companies are really really bad</p><p>(07:38) Society is still mostly not waking up to any of this</p><p>(09:24) So where does that leave me?</p> <p>---</p>

<p><b>First published:</b><br/>

September 9th, 2026 </p>

<p><b>Source:</b><br/>

<a href="https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/aN7MS6zCtxBNhAznv/updates-from-the-swarm?utm_source=TYPE_III_AUDIO&utm_medium=Podcast&utm_content=Source+URL+in+episode+description&utm_campaign=ai_narration" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/aN7MS6zCtxBNhAznv/updates-from-the-swarm</a> </p>

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<p>Narrated by <a href="https://type3.audio/?utm_source=TYPE_III_AUDIO&utm_medium=Podcast&utm_content=Narrated+by+TYPE+III+AUDIO&utm_term=ea_forum&utm_campaign=ai_narration" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">TYPE III AUDIO</a>.</p>