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RS Randan Steinhauser On Doom Debates!

“We hear a lot from Republicans of like, well, if we don't do it, China's going to do it. Here's the secret: it doesn't matter if it's American-made superintelligence or Chinese-made superintelligence. Superintelligence is not going to be controlled by its creator. It is going to be able to control its own destiny. … This technology is not going to be controlled by any one government or any one person or any one company. That's the whole premise of loss of control.”

Doom Debates! · AI Research & Frontier Labs · November 2026

“We hear a lot from Republicans of like, well, if we don't do it, China's going to do it. Here's the secret: it doesn't matter if it's American-made superintelligence or Chinese-made superintelligence. Superintelligence is not going to be controlled by its creator. It is going to be able to control its own destiny. … This technology is not going to be controlled by any one government or any one person or any one company. That's the whole premise of loss of control.” — Randan Steinhauser, Doom Debates!

Context

Asked about the morality of the leading AI labs, Randan takes on the argument that the US has to win the AI race against China, arguing that loss of control makes the creator's nationality irrelevant.

Listen to the episode → More from Randan Steinhauser → More AI Research & Frontier Labs quotes →

Transcript

Doom Debates! Around 37:35 into the episode
Brendan Steinhauser

…I think the states are going to play a big role. And that's why you've seen a lot of the tech companies oppose state legislation through this idea of federal preemption. The idea that the federal government would preempt any state laws on these topics. So we're going to continue that fight in 2027.

Liron Shapira

…the frontier forward. The names that come to mind for me, OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, Meta, SpaceX, and NVIDIA. I think that's six. Let's take that set of companies. Randall, what do you think about the morality of the leaders of those companies and anybody who's still working for those companies?

Randan Steinhauser

…this idea. We hear a lot from Republicans of like, well, if we don't do it, China's going to do it. Here's the secret. It doesn't matter if it's American-made superintelligence or Chinese-made superintelligence. Superintelligence is not going to be controlled by its creator. It is going to be able to control its own destiny, if you will. And so we have to have an understanding of the fact that this technology is not going to be controlled by any one government or any one person or any one company. That's the whole premise of loss of control. So I think there's a real, very serious moral concern.

Liron Shapira

You know, I'm a member of Paws AI Global and Paws AI U.S. and we're a volunteer organization and we basically do protests and we talk to people in government. We try to promote these kind of bills, chip regulation, building the off switch. We're a pretty small and scrappy movement so far. The…

Randan Steinhauser

I'm a big fan. I'm a big fan of it because I believe in the power of protesting. I believe in the power of organizing people from all walks of life. I mean, I think Brendan actually coined this like the rural Bubbas and the blue haired, you know, liberals coming together and marching the Bernie to…

Liron Shapira

Nice. Well, you know, one of PauseAI US's positions is they are taking the moral angle. Holly Elmore has been on this show. She's the executive director of PauseAI US. And she was one of the first to openly call for people working for AI companies quit and being like, look at this point you guys…

Speaker names come from our own diarization. The position is estimated from where the line sits in the episode.

More from Doom Debates!

“All of the money in the world, trillions and trillions of dollars, probably will not move public opinion on this very much if it's coming from big tech and their friends. Because the American people don't trust them. … They're being told by the companies, AI is going to replace you, it's going to take your job. … And then they're being told this could actually wipe out humanity. This could kill you. So why would anybody support this other than they financially have a stake in it?” — Brendan Steinhauser, Doom Debates! “We don't allow automobile companies to self-govern, or the aviation industry, or even food trucks. We have more regulations on barbershops and food trucks than we have on this technology. … We might not like the word regulation, but what are we doing? We're giving them a free pass to develop this technology safely under their terms, under their conditions. That's just not acceptable.” — Randan Steinhauser, Doom Debates!