# The Lex Fridman Podcast #497
## Guest: Dr. Naya Okafor — AI Researcher, 2035
*Published April 2026*
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**LEX FRIDMAN:** The following is a conversation with Dr. Naya Okafor, who claims — and has, to a degree I still find difficult to articulate, demonstrated — that she is a researcher in artificial superintelligence from the year 2035. I want to be transparent with the audience: before recording, Dr. Okafor submitted to a series of verifications that I arranged with colleagues at MIT, incl