Brendan McCord
Founder & Chair, Cosmos Institute. On 2 shows, 2 appearances. The Shows tab opens the full record on each.
founderexecutiveother@mbrendan1 ↗LinkedIn ↗
A former U.S. Navy submarine officer, McCord was the founding CEO of two AI startups acquired for a combined $400 million and authored the Department of Defense's first AI strategy. He currently leads the Cosmos Institute, a non-profit initiative focused on guiding artificial intelligence development.
2shows
2appearances
43statements
7resolved
7supported
0contradicted
100%fully supported
Everything Brendan McCord said on any show that made the record, most notable first. Each card names its show and opens the statement there.
McCord: Top AI lab leaders privately believe AI should direct human actions
“At the top labs, the AI labs that are really driving this, a lot of people behind closed doors believe that we should in fact do that, that we're being foolish rebels. If we don't listen to artificial intelligence, tell us what to do.”
McCord: Having sex with robots will weaken human capacity for democracy
“The other thing is having sex with robots is going to make us worse at democracy.”
McCord: Treating AI progress as ultimate end risks abandoning human defense
“To say that that is the ultimate end of human life, that that's what we move towards, gives you these kind of sinister conclusions, which is like, we should pass the baton to this higher, better intelligence if we can. You know, in other words, like. There's n…”
McCord: Existing AI provides decades of profitable deployment even without new advances
“Technology, even if it's immediately available, takes a long time to like propagate. In other words, you could stop right now. Google just did its big announcement, like stop, pause, you know, nothing else. And we would have, A few decades of like very profita…”
McCord: Universal Basic Income is a guaranteed way to levelize an economy
“UBI Crucially separates, like, untethers one's contribution from one's reward. And I don't mean this in a kind of moralistic way, like we need contributors. I think we do need contributors, but I mean that the price mechanism in markets is the thing that tells…”
McCord: AI Mediates 20% of Human Waking Life
“The stuff we're building now, mind blowing statistic, but it mediates, meaning AI mediates, 20%
Of waking life.”
McCord: Universities Produce Narrow Technicians or Conforming Ideologues
“You look across the landscape and you see universities almost without exception as being a place where people who are either narrow
In their specialization, narrow technician or conforming ideologue who really is not thinking about these questions very deeply.”
McCord: FIRE Is What the ACLU Could Have Been
“They are the very best when it comes to defending things like free speech, right? They're what the ACLU could have been.”
McCord: Constant AI Delegation Risks Atrophying Human Deliberation Over Goals
“As we use AI like a thousand times a day, if we are constantly delegating Delegating for micro abdicating what's going to happen. What's going to happen is we're going to develop a habit whereby we don't actually think about our ends. And if we lose that, we l…”
McCord: AI cannot succeed as a central economic planner
“AI will not be a good central planner. Fundamental epistemological reasons why it will not be a good central planner. Same reasons that were surfaced by Ludwig von Mises in the 19 twenties, enhanced by Hayek decades later same wall.”
McCord: AI infrastructure spending will reach $1T by early 2030s
“I think, you know, it'll be the biggest infrastructure build that humanity has ever done, I think. I think you could make that argument. I think we will hit a trillion dollars in the early 20 thirties.”
McCord: Complex systems adapt best under simple property and liability rules
“Actually, the best way in complex systems is to have
A very simple uniform set of rules like property rights or contract law or tort liability.
And these things are much better at adapting than trying to come up with a patchwork of systems that just lead to in…”
McCord: AI Growth Will Create More Net Jobs Across Unpredictable Categories
“I think more jobs will arise out of this growth out of, but there'll be unpredictable categories of jobs.”
McCord: Decentralization gives US adaptive edge over Europe and China
“Societies that are run by top-down mandate, they're highly, highly fragile. And so this is where, you know, US has a distinct advantage versus China versus Europe. Like these are Extremely maladaptive, though they may be more efficient at any given moment to r…”
McCord: Harvard Business School's market curriculum focused on market flaws and socialism
“I went to Harvard Business School, which is like a Mecca of capitalism or a West Point of, I don't know what to call it, but not West Point, Naval Academy of capitalism. But there was one class on how markets work and it was called reimagining capitalism. And …”
McCord: AI without Western values will become a perfect system of control
“So I think Elon's right. I think you need to have people that are focused on the human goods, focused on key ideas that underpin the West, building these systems. And if you don't have that, you're going to have one of the most perfect systems of control ever,…”
McCord: Using AI Is Mandatory to Stay Part of Civilization
“If we don't use AI, we will simply be left behind. I think we have to like embrace that fact. Like it's not optional. You could live a kind of a life like throw, you know, and like in, you know, in the woods, I guess. But for us who want to be part of civiliza…”
McCord: AI companions are an incredible platform for user manipulation
“This is a this is a software system that is programmed by another. And so it is very easy to modulate the extent to which and the way in which it delivers said recognition. So it's a, it's an incredible platform for manipulation. In other words, it's not an au…”
McCord: Centralized AI medical advice risks suppressing effective, unsanctioned treatments
“The reason I invoke this is because when you have a small number of AI systems that have the role of giving this medical advice, like they may suppress treatments that work, but are not kind of like sanctioned, if you will. And if that happens, like a lifesavi…”
McCord: AI will increase risks of flawed technocratic governance experiments
“And then for me, it brings up like the failed sort of like Soviet communism or the French revolution where like we really thought that we could apply a kind of Technocratic solution. Like we could design a better way. It feels like AI will magnify the possibil…”
McCord: 4,000 Google Employees Protested Project Maven Military AI Work
“After I left, after I rolled off the project, we had deployed it in Afghanistan, all that, 4000 people came together and they protested Google's involvement.”
McCord: Outsourcing moral deliberation leads ordinary people to commit atrocities
“Normal people, people who don't have great evil you know, genetically or pre, or, you know, they weren't engaging in active malice. Became concentration camp guards. Because they outsourced gradually, you know, bit by bit, pieces of their moral deliberation.”
McCord: Human biological passivity makes AI cognitive offloading uniquely dangerous
“Human brain works on glucose. There's only so much glucose to go around. We're biologically wired to be passive. So AI presents this very interesting, sinister. It's very good in the sense that it can offload plausibly everything, but it's bad in the sense tha…”
McCord: EA, Rationalism, and Longtermism Dominate the AI Practitioner Community
“That's the most common dominant philosophy in the practitioner community, and it's three philosophies in a trench coat, but they're all very entangled. One is effective altruism, One is rationalism, one is long-termism.”
One line per show, most statements first. The link opens Brendan's full record on that show: the calibration, argument clarity, speaking style and every statement made there.
| Show | Role there | Eps | Statements | Record | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 BIGDEALLEDGER | Founder & Chair, Cosmos Institute | 1 | 25 | 100% 2/2 | full record on BigDeal → |
 AMERICAN OPTIMISTLEDGER | Founder & Chair, Cosmos Institute | 1 | 18 | 100% 5/5 | full record on American Optimist → |