Uploaded July 2025 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
In 2023, researcher Daniel Kokotajlo left OpenAI—and risked millions in stock options—to warn the world about the dangerous direction of AI development. Now he’s out with AI 2027, a forecast of where that direction might take us in the very near future.
AI 2027 predicts a world where humans lose control over our destiny at the hands of misaligned, super-intelligent AI systems within just the next few years. That may sound like science fiction but when you’re living on the upward slope of an exponential curve, science fiction can quickly become all too real. And you don’t have to agree with Daniel’s specific forecast to recognize that the incentives around AI could take us to a very bad place.
We invited Daniel on the show this week to discuss those incentives, how they shape the outcomes he predicts in AI 2027, and what concrete steps we can take today to help prevent those outcomes.
Subscribe to our podcast: humanetech.com/podcast
Subscribe to our Substack centerforhumanetechnology.substack.com
CORRECTION: Tristan referred to OpenAI as having a few hundred engineers in 2015. In reality, it had only a few dozen, if that.
In 2023, researcher Daniel Kokotajlo left OpenAI—and risked millions in stock options—to warn the world about the dangerous direction of AI development. Now he’s out with AI 2027, a forecast of where that direction might take us in the very near future.
AI 2027 predicts a world where humans lose control over our destiny at the hands of misaligned, super-intelligent AI systems within just the next few years. That may sound like science fiction but when you’re living on the upward slope of an exponential curve, science fiction can quickly become all too real. And you don’t have to agree with Daniel’s specific forecast to recognize that the incentives around AI could take us to a very bad place.
We invited Daniel on the show this week to discuss those incentives, how they shape the outcomes he predicts in AI 2027, and what concrete steps we can take today to help prevent those outcomes.
Subscribe to our podcast: humanetech.com/podcast
Subscribe to our Substack centerforhumanetechnology.substack.com
CORRECTION: Tristan referred to OpenAI as having a few hundred engineers in 2015. In reality, it had only a few dozen, if that.
