#960 Confronting Plummeting Birth Rates & Banning Superintelligence with Connor Leahy, US Director at ControlAI

He’s 31, and nobody he knows is having kids. Tech is to blame, but what’s the solution?

Today, we're talking to Connor Leahy, US Director at ControlAI. We discuss why plummeting birth rates look eerily similar to what happens when zoo animals stop breeding, how ideas can spread and cause real harm the same way diseases do, and why the safest path with superintelligence might be to ban it outright rather than pretend we already understand it.

All of this right here, right now, on the Modern CTO Podcast!

To learn more about ControlAI, check out their website here.

About Connor Leahy

Connor Leahy is a German-American artificial intelligence researcher and entrepreneur known for his work on large language models and advocacy on the risks of advanced AI. He co-founded EleutherAI and founded the AI safety research company Conjecture, which he led as CEO until 2026.