How easily would it be for a future superintelligence to persuade humans to do its bidding? The most persuasive humans give us a lower bound.
The best human politicians have been able to convince huge numbers of smart and shrewd people that they're on their side, even if their
Dwarkesh Patel uses elite human politicians as a lower bound for how persuasive a future superintelligence might be, arguing that even merely human persuasion can convince sophisticated people they are acting in their own interest. Useful as a compact AI-risk framing around persuasion, manipulation, and governance rather than raw capability.
