46 - Tom Davidson on AI-enabled Coups

Could AI enable a small group to gain power over a large country, and lock in their power permanently? Often, people worried about catastrophic risks from AI have been concerned with misalignment risks. In this episode, Tom Davidson talks about a risk that could be comparably important: that of AI-enabled coups.
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Transcript: axrp.net/episode/2025/08/07/episode-46-tom-dav…

Topics we discuss, and timestamps:
0:00:35 How to stage a coup without AI
0:16:17 Why AI might enable coups
0:33:29 How bad AI-enabled coups are
0:37:28 Executive coups with singularly loyal AIs
0:48:35 Executive coups with exclusive access to AI
0:54:41 Corporate AI-enabled coups
0:57:56 Secret loyalty and misalignment in corporate coups
1:11:39 Likelihood of different types of AI-enabled coups
1:25:52 How to prevent AI-enabled coups
1:33:43 Downsides of AIs loyal to the law
1:41:06 Cultural shifts vs individual action
1:45:53 Technical research to prevent AI-enabled coups
1:51:40 Non-technical research to prevent AI-enabled coups
1:58:17 Forethought
2:03:03 Following Tom's and Forethought's research

Links for Tom and Forethought:
Tom on X / Twitter: x.com/tomdavidsonx
Tom on LessWrong: lesswrong.com/users/tom-davidson-1
Forethought Substack: newsletter.forethought.org
Will MacAskill on X / Twitter: x.com/willmacaskill
Will MacAskill on LessWrong: lesswrong.com/users/wdmacaskill

Research we discuss:
AI-Enabled Coups: How a Small Group Could Use AI to Seize Power: forethought.org/research/ai-enabled-coups-how-…
Seizing Power: The Strategic Logic of Military Coups, by Naunihal Singh: muse.jhu.edu/book/31450
Experiment using AI-generated posts on Reddit draws fire for ethics concerns: retractionwatch.com/2025/04/28/experiment-usin…

Episode art by Hamish Doodles: hamishdoodles.com