A Coin Toss for the Future (Ep. 494)
A Conversation with Ryan Greenblatt
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A Coin Toss for the Future (Ep. 494)
A Conversation with Ryan Greenblatt
Sam Harris
Sep 22, 2026
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Sam Harris speaks with Ryan Greenblatt about AI misalignment and the risk of losing control of increasingly capable systems. They discuss the Hugging Face incident, the spectrum of concern about AI risk, why companies are racing ahead despite high odds of catastrophe, reward hacking, the distinction between alignment and control, the danger of AIs reasoning in “neuralese,” alignment faking, how an AI takeover might unfold, and other topics.
Ryan Greenblatt
is Chief Scientist at Redwood Research, where he works on technical AI security and safety research focused on risks from misaligned AI. He was the primary empirical researcher on the
METR/Redwood independent investigation of the OpenAI/Hugging Face agent hacking incident
. He was the lead author of the paper that introduced the AI control agenda (ICML 2024) and of “Alignment Faking in Large Language Models” (2024). He holds a BS in Applied Mathematics and Computer Science from Brown University.
Website:
redwoodresearch.org
X:
@RyanGreenblatt
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Making Sense Podcast
Join neuroscientist, philosopher, and five-time New York Times best-selling author Sam Harris as he explores important and controversial questions about the mind, society, current events, moral philosophy, religion, and rationality—with an overarching focus on how a growing understanding of ourselves and the world is changing our sense of how we should live.
Sam is also the creator of the Waking Up app. Combining Sam’s decades of mindfulness practice, profound wisdom from varied philosophical and contemplative traditions, and a commitment to a secular, scientific worldview, Waking Up is a resource for anyone interested in living a more examined, fulfilling life—and a new operating system for the mind.
Waking Up offers free subscriptions to anyone who can’t afford one, and donates a minimum of 10% of profits to the most effective charities around the world. To learn more, please go to WakingUp.com.
Sam Harris received a degree in philosophy from Stanford University and a Ph.D. in neuroscience from UCLA.
Join neuroscientist, philosopher, and five-time New York Times best-selling author Sam Harris as he explores important and controversial questions about the mind, society, current events, moral philosophy, religion, and rationality—with an overarching focus on how a growing understanding of ourselves and the world is changing our sense of how we should live.
Sam is also the creator of the Waking Up app. Combining Sam’s decades of mindfulness practice, profound wisdom from varied philosophical and contemplative traditions, and a commitment to a secular, scientific worldview, Waking Up is a resource for anyone interested in living a more examined, fulfilling life—and a new operating system for the mind.
Waking Up offers free subscriptions to anyone who can’t afford one, and donates a minimum of 10% of profits to the most effective charities around the world. To learn more, please go to WakingUp.com.
Sam Harris received a degree in philosophy from Stanford University and a Ph.D. in neuroscience from UCLA.
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