Bernie Goes Down the X-Risk Rabbithole (with Dr. Nathalie Maréchal), 2026.05.04

Senator Bernie Sanders recently hosted a panel on "The Existential Threat of AI," featuring Future of Life Institute co-founder Max Tegmark and other x-riskers. Dr. Nathalie Maréchal joins Emily and Alex to unpack this latest stop on Bernie's descent into doomerism. We return to the MST3k model with a rare video artifact!
Nathalie Maréchal is a writer, researcher and advocate fighting for democracy and human rights in the age of technofascism. Her latest article, "Tech Policy Is on the Front Line of Fascism vs. Democracy. Pick a Side," (techpolicy.press/tech-policy-is-on-the-front-l…) is available in Tech Policy Press. She is currently the managing policy director at Northeastern University’s Institute for Information, the Internet, and Democracy.
References:
• "LIVE: The Existential Threat of AI and the Need for International Cooperation" (youtube.com/watch?v=wjBfS3AEk2c)
Fresh AI Hell:
• "The AI Pledge for Humanity" petition (actionnetwork.org/petitions/the-ai-pledge-for-…)
• Richard Dawkins force-femmes a chatbot (archive.is/6RdK9)
• Anthropic claims LLMs have "emotion concepts" (anthropic.com/research/emotion-concepts-function)
• Palantir wants us all to stop being mean to data centers (archive.is/Hqsou)
• "Optimizing LLM costs by inventing employees again" (bsky.app/profile/alexhanna.bsky.social/post/3m…)
• Luxury surveillance cat (bsky.app/profile/standplaatskrk.pl/post/3mkb5z…)
Check out future streams on Twitch (twitch.tv/dair_institute). Meanwhile, send us any AI Hell you see (thecon.ai/submit-fresh-ai-hell).
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Music by Toby Menon.
Artwork by Naomi Pleasure-Park (naomipleasurepark.com).
Production by Ozzy Llinas Goodman.