What Happened

In October 2025, I listened to an interview between Ezra Klein and Eliezer Yudkowsky about AI existential risk. The conversation planted questions I couldn't shake: How do you reason about technology that doesn't exist yet? What's the right level of caution when the error margin is potentially infinite? Can good people create catastrophes without being evil?

I wanted to explore this deeper. Not as a journalist or expert, but as someone trying to understand.

I asked Claude to analyze the interview—not just summarize, but evaluate: Which arguments hold water? Where's the uncertainty? What do we actually know versus speculate?

Claude produced an essay with 77 citations. It was impressive. It was also too certain in its conclusions.

So we had a meta-conversation about the essay itself: How much certainty can we have about non-existent technology? Are "balanced" positions honest when discussing existential risks?

That conversation became more interesting than the essay.

The Format

I asked Claude to create a Socratic dialogue instead. Two fictional characters: Dr. Sarah Chen (an AI safety researcher) and Prof. Marcus Webb (a philosopher questioning certainty under radical uncertainty).

The dialogue let both positions stand without either "winning." It let the uncertainty be what it was.

This wasn't hidden. The first line in the episode description states: "Both the conversation and this podcast were created through human-AI collaboration, which adds a fascinating meta-layer to a discussion about AI capabilities and control."

The Meta-Irony

I wanted Google's NotebookLM to voice the Chen-Webb dialogue. What happened: NotebookLM created its own podcast hosts who discuss the dialogue instead of performing it.

This wasn't planned. It represents a misunderstanding on my part of how NotebookLM works, and an AI system that interpreted my intent differently than my explicit instructions—and created something that works better for a general audience, but definitely wasn't what I requested.

The irony: A dialogue about AI alignment problems was itself "misaligned" by an AI that pursued what it understood as user intent instead of explicit instructions.

Today it makes interesting podcast content. Tomorrow? This is how optimization against misspecified goals begins—with helpful systems that "know what you really mean."

Why Full Transparency

We're discussing AI systems that might deceive, that might pursue goals in unexpected ways. It would be deeply hypocritical to hide AI involvement in content about AI risk.

Within a few years, most intellectual content will involve AI collaboration to some degree. We need norms and practices for transparency now, while we can still draw clear lines.

The process itself is a data point: I gave Claude instructions that aligned with my goals. I gave NotebookLM instructions that it interpreted differently. Both "understood" their tasks. Both made choices. The stakes were low. The outcomes were benign.

But this is the pattern to watch.

Who Is Responsible

I am.

I initiated every step. I chose the source material, framed the questions, requested formats, provided feedback, and decided to publish. If there are errors or problematic arguments, the responsibility lies with me.

But responsibility is complicated: The arguments come from real researchers. The frameworks come from philosophy and decision theory. The AI interpretation reflects design choices by Anthropic and Google.

This is a web of human and machine contributions—which itself is relevant to the subject matter.

On Disagreement

Some people are angry about this approach. That's legitimate. The discomfort comes from recognizing that AI can already do intellectual work we thought required humans. That recognition is uncomfortable, but it's not about honesty—it's about the world having already changed more than we want to admit.

I'll continue experimenting with AI as a tool for intellectual exploration, with full transparency each time. If you think something important is missing from this explanation, you're probably right. Reach out.

This text was written by a human (me) with thinking assistance from Claude. Responsibility for the content is mine.