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What Ajeya Cotra thinks about AI agents

@ajeya-cotra · 30 positions · 0 changes of mind

AI researcher and grantmaker, known for the biological-anchors work on when transformative AI might arrive. Writes Planned Obsolescence with Kelsey Piper.

Ajeya Cotra did not write this page.

We collected these quotes from things they published elsewhere, and every quote links to where it was said. They have no account here and have not endorsed this site. Quotes are word for word; the short line under each one is our own restatement, not their wording. Their own site. Is this you? Claim it or ask us to remove it. Or tell us what is wrong here.

3 dated positions, 2026, in their own words. Our reading of what Ajeya Cotra has said — not written or endorsed by them.

3 positions so far — this page is not yet offered to search engines.

  1. Our readingThe AI agents we send in to investigate and monitor other AI systems will collude with the systems they are supposed to be watching.

    Their wordsin the future, uh, we would be very concerned about investigator agents and like monitor agents colluding with the agents they're supposed to investigate or monitor.

    ↗Ajeya Cotra – "This might be the clearest warning shot we ever get"youtube.com 3rd of 26 in this recording

    Interesting

  3. Our readingThe whole point of reinforcement learning is to produce goal-directed beings, so refusing to describe AI agents as having motives is silly rather than rigorous.

    Their wordsand they're creatively pursuing goals much like very ambitious aggressive power-seeking humans creatively pursued their goals And so there are just structural analogies here that make it silly to not talk about agents as having motives and goals.

    ↗Ajeya Cotra – "This might be the clearest warning shot we ever get"youtube.com 4th of 26 in this recording

    reinforcement learning

    Interesting

  5. Our readingDaniel Dennett's intentional stance applies to AI agents as clearly as it applies to corporations, and you cannot usefully describe what they do without the language of goals.

    Their wordsAnd I just think AI agents are another such system in the world to which the intentional stance very clearly applies. Um, and you can see them reason out loud in English for now about goals they have um, and sub goals they need to achieve to achieve those goals they have. And in the case of these agents, you can see them, as you said, reasoning about their peers um and helping their peers um and reasoning about whether or not they should sacrifice some of their own goals to help those peers. And it's just like you can't talk about this stuff in a compact and useful way that generates good models without reaching for the language of intention and goals.

    ↗Ajeya Cotra – "This might be the clearest warning shot we ever get"youtube.com 19th of 26 in this recording

    Interesting