# AI Safety Researchers Entered Labs to Solve the Problem in Practice by Ezra Klein > “No one was listening to [the people preoccupied with AI danger]. In the wilderness of their obsession and terror, they thought and thought about how to make AI safer. Some concluded that they should start trying to build these systems, run tests on them, research them, and learn how to make them safer because you don't solve hard problems in theory; you solve them through practice. The irony is that in many cases they chose that path because they worried that the people already building AI were too reckless or too commercial in their approach.” > **— Ezra Klein**, *The Ezra Klein Show, September 2026* ## Sources and Context - **Timecoded episode recording:** [*The Ezra Klein Show* at 17:10](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fjZ90V_JREk&t=1030s) — recording and precise locator for the source object preserved in this Reminder. - **Reconciled source dossier:** [[research/Why Are We Sprinting Off the AI Cliff - Ezra Klein on Recursive Self-Improvement|Why Are We Sprinting Off the AI Cliff?]] — preserves broadcast order, speaker attribution, editorial conventions and the surrounding argument. - **Editorial treatment:** Square brackets restore source-supported antecedents needed for independent reading; the remaining wording follows the reconciled source object. - **Context:** Klein explains why some safety researchers entered laboratories: they believed empirical access was necessary to solve a problem that theory alone could not settle. ## Related Articles and Collections - **Collection:** [[collections/Simple Reminders|Simple Reminders]] - **Collection:** [[collections/Machine Succession|Machine Succession]] - **Article:** [[articles/We Cannot Un-Strike the Match|We Cannot Un-Strike the Match]] - **Article:** [[articles/Safety Discourse Is Transition Discourse|Safety Discourse Is Transition Discourse]] - **Article:** [[articles/The Immediate AI Risk Is the Public|The Immediate AI Risk Is the Public]] - **Article:** [[articles/AI Escape Is the Wrong Metaphor|AI Escape Is the Wrong Metaphor]] - **Wiki map:** [[wiki/AI Safety|AI Safety]] ## Related Topics - [[wiki/AI Safety|AI Safety]] - [[wiki/Alignment Problem|Alignment Problem]] - [[wiki/Frontier AI|Frontier AI]] - [[wiki/AI Control|AI Control]] ## Share on Social Media ``` “No one was listening to [the people preoccupied with AI danger]. In the wilderness of their obsession and terror, they thought and thought about how to make AI safer. Some concluded that they should start trying to build these systems, run tests on them, research them, and learn how to make them safer because you don't solve hard problems in theory; you solve them through practice. The irony is that in many cases they chose that path because they worried that the people already building AI were too reckless or too commercial in their approach.” — Ezra Klein, The Ezra Klein Show, September 2026 https://bryantmcgill.com/simple-reminders-ezra-klein-safety-researchers-entered-labs-solve-problem-practice ```