Richard Ngo is an independent AI researcher and philosopher known for

his work on AGI safety and alignment. He recently resigned from

OpenAI, where he was a member of the Governance team focused on

forecasting the capabilities and risks of advanced AI systems. His

debut fiction collection is titled "The Gentle Romance: Stories of AI

and Humanity", published in December 2025. The book features 22

science fiction stories that explore the psychological and

sociological impacts of advanced artificial intelligence.

On X: @RichardMCNgo

(00:00) - Richard Ngo Origins
(03:48) - DeepMind vs LLMs
(09:24) - OpenAI Futurist and AGI Risk
(39:17) - Machine God Tail Risk
(45:20) - Weird Futures and Normies
(51:28) - Alignment Research and Academia
(01:16:25) - Doomers vs Skeptics
(01:23:57) - Labs Governance Futures
(01:39:37) - Doom Scenarios Society

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Steve Hsu is Professor of Theoretical Physics and of Computational Mathematics, Science, and Engineering at Michigan State University. Previously, he was Senior Vice President for Research and Innovation at MSU and Director of the Institute of Theoretical Science at the University of Oregon. Hsu is a startup founder (SuperFocus.ai, SafeWeb, Genomic Prediction, Othram) and advisor to venture capital and other investment firms. He was educated at Caltech and Berkeley, was a Harvard Junior Fellow, and has held faculty positions at Yale, the University of Oregon, and MSU. Please send any questions or suggestions to manifold1podcast@gmail.com or Steve on X @hsu_steve.