Dr. Himanshu Tyagi is a professor of engineering at the Indian Institute of Science and the co-founder of Sentient , an open-source AI platform that raised $85M in funding led by Founders Fund. In this conversation, Himanshu gives me Sentient’s pitch. Then we debate whether open-sourcing frontier AGI development is a good idea, or a reckless way to raise humanity’s P(doom). 00:00 Introducing Himanshu Tyagi 01:41 Sentient’s Vision 05:20 How’d You Raise $85M? 11:19 Comparing Sentient to Competitors 27:26 Open Source vs. Closed Source AI 43:01 What’s Your P(Doom)™ 48:44 Extinction from Superintelligent AI 54:02 AI's Control Over Digital and Physical Assets 01:00:26 AI's Influence on Human Movements 01:08:46 Recapping the Debate 01:13:17 Liron’s Announcements Show Notes Himanshu’s Twitter — https://x.com/hstyagi Sentient’s website — https://sentient.foundation Come to the Less Online conference on May 30 - Jun 1, 2025: https://less.online Hope to see you there! If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies by Eliezer Yudkowsky and Nate Soares — https://ifanyonebuildsit.com Watch the Lethal Intelligence Guide, the ultimate introduction to AI x-risk! https://www.youtube.com/@lethal-intelligence PauseAI, the volunteer organization I’m part of: https://pauseai.info Join the PauseAI Discord — https://discord.gg/2XXWXvErfA — and say hi to me in the #doom-debates-podcast channel! Doom Debates’ Mission is to raise mainstream awareness of imminent extinction from AGI and build the social infrastructure for high-quality debate. Support the mission by subscribing to my Substack at https://doomdebates.com and to https://youtube.com/@DoomDebates Get full access to Doom Debates at lironshapira.substack.com/subscribe
