Leopold Aschenbrenner - 2027 AGI, China/US Super-Intelligence Race, & The Return of History

Chatted with my friend Leopold Aschenbrenner about the trillion dollar cluster, unhobblings + scaling = 2027 AGI, CCP espionage at AI labs, leaving OpenAI and starting an AGI investment firm, dangers of outsourcing clusters to the Middle East, & The Project. Read the new essay series from Leopold this episode is based on here: https://situational-awareness.ai/ Timestamps 00:00:00 The trillion-dollar cluster and unhobbling 00:21:20 AI 2028: The return of history 00:41:15 Espionage & American AI superiority 01:09:09 Geopolitical implications of AI 01:32:12 State-led vs. private-led AI 02:13:12 Becoming Valedictorian of Columbia at 19 02:31:24 What happened at OpenAI 02:46:00 Intelligence explosion 03:26:47 Alignment 03:42:15 On Germany, and understanding foreign perspectives 03:57:53 Dwarkesh's immigration story and path to the podcast 04:03:16 Random questions 04:08:47 Launching an AGI hedge fund 04:20:03 Lessons from WWII 04:29:57 Coda: Frederick the Great Links Transcript: https://www.dwarkeshpatel.com/p/leopold-aschenbrenner Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/leopold-aschenbrenner-china-us-super-intelligence-race/id1516093381?i=1000657821539 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/episode/5NQFPblNw8ewxKolIDpiYN?si=6NaTHAugT2SxZrspW3lziw Follow me on Twitter: https://twitter.com/dwarkesh_sp Follow Leopold on Twitter: https://x.com/leopoldasch