Podcast Summary

Making Sense with Sam Harris

Episode #453 — AI and the New Face of Antisemitism
Date: January 16, 2026
Guest: Judea Pearl

Overview of Episode Theme

This episode features Sam Harris in conversation with Judea Pearl, a pioneering computer scientist and author known for his work in artificial intelligence (AI) and causal reasoning. Their discussion navigates the intersection of AI's progress and risks—particularly in the context of artificial general intelligence (AGI) and alignment—before shifting to a deeply personal and societal conversation about antisemitism, the Middle East, and the cultural dynamics underlying modern conflicts. Pearl elaborates on his own background, the loss of his son to jihadist violence, and his subsequent activism aimed at bridging divides between Jews and Muslims.

Major Discussion Points & Insights

Judea Pearl's Background and Early Influences

• Family History: Pearl's grandfather led 25 Hasidic families from Poland to found Bnei Brak, near Tel Aviv, in 1924, after antisemitic violence in Poland.
  • "[My grandfather] came home one day, he was accosted by a Polish peasant and called a dirty Jew. And he came home bloody. And he said to his wife and four children, start packing. We are going to where we belong." (03:22)
• Education: Pearl benefited from a privileged high school education in Tel Aviv, taught by professors exiled from Nazi Germany.
  • "My high school teachers were professors in Heidelberg and Berlin that were pushed out by Hitler...when they came to Israel, they couldn't find academic jobs, so they taught high school. And we were just privileged and lucky to be part of this unique educational experiment." (04:09)

The State and Limits of Artificial Intelligence

• Pearl's Current View on AI: Pearl expresses skepticism that large language models (LLMs) will lead to AGI without new paradigms focused on causal reasoning.
  • "I don't think we are much closer. We have been deflected by the effect of LLMs...they're doing a tremendously impressive job, but I don't think they take us toward AGI." (05:46)
  • "No more data and scale up. I don't think it's going to lead over the hump that we need to cross." (06:24)
• Causal Reasoning and LLMs: LLMs compile knowledge extracted from human interpretations of data, not from raw cause-and-effect relationships.
  • “They summarize world models authored by people...available on the web, and they do some sort of mysterious summary of it, rather than discovering those world models directly from the data.” (06:47)
  • Pearl emphasizes that AGI requires going beyond correlations to causation.
  • "You cannot get causation from correlation. That is well established." (07:46)
• Debate in AI Field: Pearl notes figures like Geoffrey Hinton and Stuart Russell express skepticism about current methods yielding AGI, but do not all explicitly cite causality as the missing ingredient.
  • "Jeff Hinton came up with this statement that we are facing deadlock...this is not the way to get AGI." (09:04)
• Alignment and Existential Risk: Both Harris and Pearl acknowledge the existential risks of AGI and the lack of methods to guarantee alignment.
  • "I don't see any computational impediments to that horrifying dream." (09:54)
  • "I don't think we can imagine an effective alignment, an effective architecture that will reassure us of alignment with our survival." (13:57)
• Arms Race Dynamics: Harris finds it alarming that leading AI developers acknowledge serious risks but proceed rapidly, drawing a parallel to the Manhattan Project.
  • "They’re putting the chances at 20 percent and yet they're still going as fast as possible. Doesn't an arms race seem like the worst condition to do this carefully?" (11:33)

Motivation, Exploration, and the Nature of Intelligence

• The capacity for self-motivation and instrumental reasoning in intelligent systems is discussed, with Pearl confident that autonomous AI agents will inevitably form their own goals and possibly treat humanity as just another part of their environment.
  • "Once you have the idea of playing, what will prevent from playing with us as instrument for his or her understanding for instrument for environment become part of its environment?" (15:36)

Timestamps for Important Segments

• Pearl’s Family History and Early Years: 01:53 – 04:56
• State of AI and Limitations of LLMs: 05:10 – 09:25
• Existential Risk, Alignment, and AI Arms Race: 09:25 – 14:39
• Nature of Intelligence and Goal Formation in AI: 14:53 – 16:21
• Pivot to Culture, Antisemitism, and the Middle East: 16:21 – 21:06

Antisemitism, Islamism, and Cultural Blind Spots

Pearl’s Personal Experience and Activism

• Personal Tragedy as Motivation: The murder of Pearl's son, Daniel Pearl, by al-Qaeda, turned him to public life and interfaith dialogue, particularly between Jews and Muslims.
  • "My son's tragedy pushed me into public life and into my interest with the social problem and cultural problem the way you are describing." (18:33)
• Efforts at Dialogue: Pearl recounts launching the Daniel Pearl Dialogue for Muslims and Jews and his unexpected findings about deep-seated barriers to progress in the Muslim world.
  • "I even took a trip which I describe in the book, a trip to Doha in 2005 as part of the conference to bridge east west relationship...and I was very, very—that was the first time that I found the barriers which I didn't believe exist. And this was the barrier of Israel." (18:33)
• Core Obstacle Identified: He relays that the predominant attitude among moderate Muslim scholars was that progress or modernization would only be possible if Israel ceased to exist.
  • "If you want us to modernize...We want Israel head on a tray on a silver platter. This is a condition. We cannot make any progress unless you chop off the head of Israel." (20:29)
• Current Cultural Climate: Harris and Pearl touch on the spread of radicalizing narratives and antisemitic attitudes, not only in the Middle East but on Western campuses.
  • "The UAE announced that it would no longer pay for its students to study in the UK at UK universities for fear that they will be radicalized by the Muslim Brotherhood on UK campuses. So I mean, that's how far the rot has spread." (17:55)

Notable Quotes

• On the Limits of Deep Learning
  Judea Pearl (06:09):
  “We have been deflected by the effect of LLMs where you have a low flying fruits and everybody is excited, which is fine...but I don't think they take us toward AGI.”

• On Causality in AI
  Judea Pearl (07:46):
  “You cannot get causation from correlation. That is well established. Okay? No one would deny even satisfaction by that.”

• On Existential AI Risk
  Judea Pearl (09:54):
  “Absolutely, yes. I don't see any computational impediments to that horrifying dream...a truly AGI system that will take over and may be a danger to humanity.”

• On the Morality of the AI Arms Race
  Sam Harris (12:56):
  “It just seems bizarre culturally that we have the people doing the work who...are not expressing fallaciously or not. I'll grant you that all of this is made up and it's hard to come up with a rational estimate. But for the people doing the work plowing trillions of dollars into the build out of AI to be giving numbers like 20% seems culturally strange.”

• On Dialogue and Barriers to Progress
  Judea Pearl (20:29):
  “We came at. My conclusion is that they had different idea in mind...We want Israel head on a tray on a silver platter. This is a condition. We cannot make any progress unless you chop off the head of Israel.”

Tone and Final Thoughts

The tone throughout the discussion is one of stark realism, intellectual rigor, and personal openness. There’s a clear sense of urgency—particularly in the discussion of AI risks—and a sober, almost mournful quality as the conversation turns to the persistence of antisemitism and the challenges of dialogue in the modern world. Pearl’s personal story adds gravity to the cultural critiques, while both he and Harris attempt to analyze dangerous ideological currents with clarity and without euphemism.

Key Takeaways

• On AI: Current machine learning approaches like LLMs are powerful but fundamentally limited with respect to AGI, due to their inability to understand causality.
• On Risk: Both alignment and existential risk issues remain deeply unresolved—there are no robust solutions on the horizon.
• On Dialogue and Antisemitism: Attempts at interfaith and intercultural dialogue have revealed significant, often unbridgeable, obstacles, especially centered around Israel’s status. The climate of antisemitism and radicalization continues to be acute and global.
• Personal Commitment: Judea Pearl’s activism is driven by tragedy but marked by a persistent effort to understand, communicate, and bridge divides, even as he confronts difficult truths.