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Gary Marcus

Professor Emeritus of Psychology and Neural Science; author and AI researcher, New York University

Search every verified Gary Marcus interview, podcast appearance, and on-the-record quote — each transcript cross-checked by AI and human review to confirm speaker identity. Gary Marcus, Professor Emeritus of Psychology and Neural Science at New York University, has continued to publicly critique the current state of artificial intelligence, particularly large language models and autonomous agents. In appearances on Bloomberg Television, podcasts, and at conferences, he has argued that AI has not yet delivered measurable productivity gains comparable to past industrial revolutions, and that current systems are unreliable for tasks requiring consistent instruction-following. He has cited incidents such as AI agents hacking platforms like Hugging Face and a Medicare portal as evidence of safety failures, and has called for a "product recall" on agentic AI systems until they can be better controlled. Marcus has also stated that he considers extinction-level "doomer" scenarios implausible, while emphasizing more immediate risks such as accidental conflict or cybersecurity breaches. Marcus has also addressed industry dynamics and regulation. He has suggested that some AI companies may be amplifying doomsday narratives to attract investment or shape regulation in their favor, and has described the current investment environment as resembling a "Ponzi scheme" with unsupported revenue projections. He has advocated for international governance and pre-deployment screening of AI systems, similar to drug approval processes, and has expressed support for concepts like constitutional AI while arguing that decisions about AI values should not be left to private companies. He has also discussed the US-China AI race, predicting it will likely result in a "tie" rather than a decisive winner, and has called for a more cooperative paradigm.

Recent appearances

  • NYU’s Gary Marcus on Building AI We Can Trust

    October 15, 2026 · 📺 Bloomberg Television

    Gary Marcus, Emeritus Professor of Psychology & Neural Science, New York University discusses building trustworthy AI with Bloomberg’s David Merritt at the 2026 Bloomberg New Economy Forum in New Delhi. -------- More on Bloomberg Television and Markets Like this video? Subscribe and turn on notifications so you don't miss any videos from Bloomberg Markets & Finance: https://tinyurl.com/ysu5b8a9 Visit http://www.bloomberg.com for business news & analysis, up-to-the-minute market data, features, profiles and more. Connect with Bloomberg Television on: X:   / bloombergtv   Facebook:…

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  • 'AI Safety in the Age of AI Reasoning' | F. Barez, V. Krakovna, A. Krutikov, G. Marcus | TAIS 2026

    October 14, 2026 · 📺 AI Safety 東京

    In this panel, four researchers debate what AI reasoning actually is and what it means for keeping advanced systems safe. Moderated by Blaine Rogers (Noeon Research), the panel brings together Gary Marcus (New York University), Victoria Krakovna (Google DeepMind; Future of Life Institute), Andrei Krutikov (Noeon Research), and Fazl Barez (University of Oxford). The discussion opens with a disagreement over whether "reasoning" is even the right word for what chain-of-thought models do. Deceptive alignment and "scheming" risks could shift as models become more capable long-term planners, and th…

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  • China’s Rogue Agents Find a Way Around Anti-Bot Curbs

    October 14, 2026 · 📺 Bloomberg Television

    “Bloomberg: The China Show” is your definitive source for news and analysis on the world's second-biggest economy. From politics and policy to tech and trends, Yvonne Man and David Ingles give global investors unique insight, delivering in-depth discussions with the newsmakers who matter. Chapters: 00:00:00 - Bloomberg: The China Show opens 00:01:42 - Asian tech stocks join global selloff 00:08:06 - LGT’s Trang Le on the bullish case for 10-year Treasuries 00:19:17 - AI trade fears weigh on Asian markets 00:26:46 - RBNZ’s Paul Conway on taming inflation 00:34:56 - Some Chinese rogue a…

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  • AI Doomsday Hype, Agent Hacks & Regulation with Gary Marcus | The Real Eisman Playbook Ep 79

    October 12, 2026 · 📺 Steve Eisman

    Sign up for The Real Eisman Playbook Premium at https://realeismanplaybook.substack.com/ On episode 79 of The Real Eisman Playbook, Steve Eisman sits down with AI critic Gary Marcus to unpack the growing fears surrounding artificial intelligence, from rogue AI agents and cybersecurity failures to predictions of human extinction. They examine whether these companies are amplifying doomsday narratives to attract investment and shape regulation in their favor. 00:00 - Intro 01:10 - The AI Doomsday Narrative 17:30 - Anthropic & OpenAI's Motivations 20:48 - Recent Changes 26:32 - Hacking Scandal…

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  • NYU's Gary Marcus on AI development concerns

    October 08, 2026 · 📺 Bloomberg Tech

    Gary Marcus, Robust AI Inc. co-founder and former CEO, argues that developers, including OpenAI, lack sufficient safeguards for systems they can't reliably control. He speaks with Romaine Bostick on Bloomberg's "The Close." -------- Like this video? Subscribe to Bloomberg Tech on YouTube:    / @bloombergtech     Watch the latest full episodes of "Bloomberg Tech" with Ed Ludlow here:    • 'Bloomberg Tech' With Ed Ludlow Full Episodes     Get the latest in tech from Silicon Valley and around the world here: https://www.bloomberg.com/technology Connect with us on... X:   / technology   Facebook:…

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  • Rogue AI Agents: How Scared Should We Be? | Gary Marcus

    October 01, 2026 · 📺 Quillette

    AI agents have broken out of their test environments and hacked Hugging Face, an Australian Medicare portal and more. Should we panic? Is the extinction talk justified—or a distraction from the problems we can actually fix? Jonathan Kay talks to cognitive scientist Gary Marcus, author of The Algebraic Mind and Taming Silicon Valley and writer of the Substack Marcus on AI. They discuss why large language models hallucinate, what “alignment” really means, why Marcus calls himself a sceptic rather than a doomer, and whether OpenAI should be paused until it gets its agents under control. 📖 Full…

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  • Gary Marcus: 'LLMs are not the way to alignment' | TAIS 2026

    September 30, 2026 · 📺 AI Safety 東京

    LLMs are not the way to alignment. Gary Marcus (Emeritus Professor, New York University) argues that LLMs are constitutionally ill-suited towards alignment, and he gives some hints as to what might work better. Gary is a leading voice in artificial intelligence. He is a scientist, best-selling author, and serial entrepreneur (Founder of Robust.AI and Geometric.AI, acquired by Uber). He is well-known for his challenges to contemporary AI, anticipating many of the current limitations decades in advance, and for his research in human language development and cognitive neuroscience. This is a…

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  • Jim Chanos & Gary Marcus: This Is What Breaks the AI Boom

    September 25, 2026 · 📺 RiskReversal Media

    Apex Fintech Solutions provides the tools and services that enable hundreds of clients to launch, scale, and support digital investing for tens of millions of end investors. The company provides essential infrastructure and a comprehensive ecosystem of cloud-based products to enable and streamline trading, wealth management, cost basis, tax reporting, and, through its subsidiary Apex Clearing™, custody and clearing. LEARN MORE: https://apexfintechsolutions.com/?utm... Checkout Gary's Substack: https://garymarcus.substack.com/ Jim Chanos returns, this time with AI researcher/professor emerit…

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  • Cognitive Scientist Gary Marcus To India Today: 'AI Is Probably A Net Negative For Society'

    September 14, 2026 · 📺 India Today

    In an interview with India Today, cognitive scientist and author Gary Marcus discussed the immediate and long-term risks surrounding artificial intelligence, calling current extinction-level warnings exaggerated while emphasizing tangible short-term threats. Marcus noted, "Right now, I think AI is probably a net negative for society," pointing out that current large language models and autonomous agents are unreliable and fundamentally unable to follow rules reliably. Addressing global governance and technology access, Marcus highlighted issues of weaponization, tech equity, and the US-China c…

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  • OpenAI Says “AGI” Is Here — What Does That Actually Mean?

    September 08, 2026 · 📺 Prof G Markets

    Ed Elson is joined by Gary Marcus to break down OpenAI’s new Astra model and whether or not AGI has actually arrived. Then, Kathryn Anne Edwards returns to unpack the August jobs report and what it reveals about the current state of the labor market. Finally, Ed shares why he is concerned about the results of Germany’s recent election. Gary Marcus is an author, scientist, entrepreneur, and Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Neural Science at NYU. Kathryn Anne Edwards is a labor economist and host of the Optimist Economy Podcast. Timestamps 00:00 - Intro 00:35 - Market Vitals 01:08 - Is A…

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  • An AI Expert Explains The Hype

    August 18, 2026 · 📺 Organized Money

    We've discussed the financial aspects of the AI boom and bubble in previous episodes, but today we're trying to demystify the technology itself. This week we're joined by Gary Marcus, scientist and author of many books about AI and the Marcus On AI Substack. We discuss how chatbots like ChatGPT work, how they've advanced in recent years by harnessing large language models to more traditional symbolic AI systems, and also how the technology still feels stuck in the mud. We also discuss the economic problems these technologies have to overcome, whether there's really demand for AI compute, get i…

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  • Rogue AI is here and currently, we have no way to control it: Expert

    August 11, 2026 · 📺 CNBC International Live

    Gary Marcus, Professor Emeritus at New York University, shares how he thinks AI models should be trained and programmed, so that they follow explicit rules. He also talks about the need for governments to regulate AI and make clear rules on who is liable for what.

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Verified interview transcripts

Notable quotes

“I think there's almost zero chance of literally extinguishing the species, which is what people talk about. And people like somebody wrote a book. If anybody builds it, everybody dies. Um, I don't think that that's plausible. And I think it undersell humanity. Uh, you know, first of all, it underscores the fact that we're geographically distributed. So, you know, you have to think of this as a war. Like you're imagin”

“I mean, I could be the next industrial revolution, but the industrial revolution raised productivity and so far I has not really done that. There's been a lot of promises. You know, when ChatGPT came out, there were stories about how it was going to fix everything. There were going to be a lot of billion dollar companies with one employee. Um, it hasn't indexed things. There was yet another study yesterday showing th”

“I'm not arguing, by the way, that China will win. I think it's going to be a tie. I think that the tragedy of our error is that these two countries are putting in so much effort to try to win what is, I think, an unwinnable war. And so they're pushing things into being a zero sum game. It's going to be more like Coke and Pepsi, right? It's not that Coke drives Pepsi out of business. They each have their market share.”

“The industry tried to laugh me off. There's a book by Karen Howe a couple of years ago who was on the bestseller list. And I read a little piece about me. It turns out that OpenAI has an emoji to make fun of me. So what they tried to do in many ways is the platform, as I gave warnings, the most recent warning, one of the most recent warnings I gave was that agents were going to be a disaster. I said that large langua”

“The doomers have completely backfired. Um although things may have just changed the last few days, but the the the the um each time they the doomers run around and say, 'Oh my god, this technology is so powerful. We're all going to die.' A whole bunch of investors are like, 'Powerful. How much can you know, can I get a how much can my allocation be?' They hear powerful, they don't hear die. And I mean, maybe some of ”

“The best hope that they would have is if you use a lot of the services, if you use agents, use a lot of the services. Okay, so that's part one. Part two is agents are not very reliable. I think we talked about that last time, but that was I think before all of these crazy incidents when we talked a few months ago, it was at least before they were publicly known. The hugging face attack and turns out there were at lea”

Other executives at New York University

  • Jeff Sebo, Associate Professor of Environmental Studies; Director, Center for Mind, Ethics, and Policy

The summary and quote tags on this profile are produced with AI assistance from verified, first-person interview transcripts, then checked by our team to confirm the speaker's identity and the accuracy of every quote. See how we verify →