A short street-interview transcript from a YouTube episode asking passersby the repeated question “Do you think AI is going to kill us all or take our jobs?” Responses vary from immediate dismissals to cautious pessimism about job loss and depersonalization, along with occasional positive takes (AI accelerating drug discovery). One participant (SPEAKER A) identifies as running an open-source AI startup focused on solving existential risk and says they plan to have children and want to improve the future. The tone is informal and exploratory — sampling public impressions rather than presenting technical analysis.
Question.
Do you think AI is going to.
Kill us all, take our jobs? No, I like that positive view of the future.
Cool, that's great.
Okay, so I don't know if I can actually count some of these like passing no's because they're not engaging so much.
Let me ask this first.
Excuse me.
Do you think AI is going to.
Kill us all, take our jobs? Yes. Oh, negative view of the future. Thank you. Excuse me, do you think AI is going to kill us all or take our jobs? Curious.
I'm sorry.
Okay.
All right, have a great day.
Excuse me, do you have a second?
Do you think AI is going to.
Kill us all or take our jobs? Probably. Probably. Wait, tell me more.
No, I just think probably jobs.
It's going to take jobs, but not kill us all.
In fact, you know, it could also give some talk that it might have get cures for some things.
Absolutely. Actually, like there's a lot of.
Yeah.
Oh, I haven't heard about that. But certainly just sequencing data at scale to be able to solve for different drugs, bringing them to market faster. Like orphan drugs. So that's definitely a positive view. Yeah, yeah. Any more positive or negative takes?
You know, I'm not huge on modern technology.
Really.
Got it. What phone do you use?
Samsung.
Like a touchscreen? Is it smartphone?
Yeah.
Okay. Okay, okay, got it, got it. Okay. And do you have kids?
Don't.
Don't have kids. Okay.
4.
An adult.
You have adult children?
Yeah, one adult child.
How old are they?
He's in his 50s.
Okay, so you're not worried about him?
I have a granddaughter who just started uc.
Okay, Are you worried about her job prospects going in the future?
I don't know.
She's pretty bright and pretty hard working, so.
So you keep those traits be good no matter the era.
Well, we'll see.
I like that, I like that.
You know, I certainly have my pessimistic side about the future.
Give me one take about that. What do you mean?
Well, like technology, replacing. Replacing people, just, you know, depersonalizing.
Depersonalizing?
Yeah.
Making us all like products and capitalism kind of wheel. Is that what you're saying?
Yeah, I guess.
Okay, got it.
And how does that show up in real life?
Hasn't really affected me very much.
Okay.
Because I, you know, I mean, besides my smartphone, I don't use it a lot.
So you just try to stay present.
I love that.
Try. But.
Yeah, but the smartphone takes you away sometimes.
Well, it's nice for listening to music.
That's true.
Okay, last question. What kind of music you Listen to.
Blues and a lot of 60s and.
70S shout out your favorite band Traveling wheelbarrows. All right, yo.
Thank you so much. Much appreciated.
Have a great day.
I run an AI startup, and I'm trying to solve for existential risk so it doesn't kill us all. So we're building in public, and I've had enough of hearing about tech billionaires telling us what to think. And I'd rather just go talk to people and ask what you all think. And as I build and everything's in public and everything's open source, we're really trying to solve AI alignment. And I want to have kids in four to five years, and I want to bring them to a world where even though super intelligence is the apex predator now, I still believe that they'll live in a world where they could.
Become their best selves and they have opportunity for that.
So I'm working on that, and I'm just doing street interviews, trying to get a pulse of the people. All right.
Stay optimistic.
Yeah. Hey, have a good day. Thank you so much. Hey, quick question. Is AI going to kill solid checker jobs? Thoughts? Probably. Probably. Wait, say more on that. I don't have a whole.
You don't have just probably. Okay, how about yourself?
AI going to kill us all, take our jobs? Not sure. Okay.
All right.
Thank you. Okay, so some people are just like probably, but also don't have that much depth of maybe. Like they haven't thought about it as much. I'd have to ask more to know, but we'll see. We'll start asking some more, folks and.
See what they think. I've been. I haven't been here in a while.
This spot is really cool for, like.
Beers and brews and burgers. Jupiter over there, inside there. So for you personally, James, let's ask this guy.
Hey, yo, dude, quick question.
Do you think AI is going to.
Kill us all, take our jobs? No, sir. No. Tell me why.
Beneficial.
Okay. All right. Have a good day. I like the immediate no. And he smiled.
