Zack Shapiro’s p(doom)
In their words
Zack Shapiro (Head of Policy, Bitcoin Policy Institute; lawyer) put their p(doom) at 15% (AI becomes our overlords / wipes us out (host's question: 'we get it existentially wrong and the stuff just wipes us out')), on a podcast on Aug 14, 2026.
Do you think there's any shot that we've made a mistake here and it will become our overlords? Yes. What percentage would you put on that? 15%.
Source · re-checked against the primary source.
Machine transcript without speaker labels; the official episode description gives 15%, and later in the episode he restates "some low double-digit percentage".
In context
Among independent in the database (63 people), the median is 5%. Across all 223 people it is 10%. How the medians and the index are built.
A p(doom) is a personal, subjective estimate of the probability that advanced AI ends in human extinction or a comparable, irreversible catastrophe. Scope and timeframe differ from person to person, so compare with care: why p(doom) numbers disagree.