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Description: Deeply researched interviews www.dwarkeshpatel.com
Category: Technology Science
Go to PodExtra AI's episode page (Gwern Branwen - How an Anonymous Researcher Predicted AI's Trajectory) to play and view complete AI-processed content: summary, mindmap, topics, takeaways, transcript, keywords and highlights.
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Author: Dwarkesh Patel
Duration: 01:36:43
Gwern is a pseudonymous researcher and writer. He was one of the first people to see LLM scaling coming. If you've read his blog, you know he's one of the most interesting polymathic thinkers alive.In order to protect Gwern's anonymity, I proposed interviewing him in person, and having my friend
Chris Painter voice over his words after. This amused him enough that he agreed.After the episode, I convinced Gwern to create a donation page where people can help sustain what he's up to. Please go here to contribute.Read the full transcript here.Sponsors:* Jane Street is looking to hire their next generation of leaders. Their deep learning team is looking for ML researchers, FPGA programmers, and CUDA programmers. Summer internships are open - if you want to stand out, take a crack at their new Kaggle competition. To learn more, go here: https://jane-st.co/dwarkesh* Turing provides complete post-training services for leading AI labs like OpenAI, Anthropic, Meta, and Gemini. They specialize in model evaluation, SFT, RLHF, and DPO to enhance models’ reasoning, coding, and multimodal capabilities. Learn more at turing.com/dwarkesh.* This episode is brought to you by Stripe, financial infrastructure for the internet. Millions of companies from Anthropic to Amazon use Stripe to accept payments, automate financial processes and grow their revenue.If you’re interested in advertising on the podcast, check out this page.Timestamps00:00:00 - Anonymity00:01:09 - Automating Steve Jobs00:04:38 - Isaac Newton's theory of progress00:06:36 - Grand theory of intelligence00:10:39 - Seeing scaling early00:21:04 - AGI Timelines00:22:54 - What to do in remaining 3 years until AGI00:26:29 - Influencing the shoggoth with writing00:30:50 - Human vs artificial intelligence00:33:52 - Rabbit holes00:38:48 - Hearing impairment00:43:00 - Wikipedia editing00:47:43 - Gwern.net00:50:20 - Counterfactual careers00:54:30 - Borges & literature01:01:32 - Gwern's intelligence and process01:11:03 - A day in the life of Gwern01:19:16 - Gwern's finances01:25:05 - The diversity of AI minds01:27:24 - GLP drugs and obesity01:31:08 - Drug experimentation01:33:40 - Parasocial relationships01:35:23 - Open rabbit holes Get full access to Dwarkesh Podcast at www.dwarkeshpatel.com/subscribe
00:00:00 Speaker_01
Today I'm interviewing Guern Branwen. Guern is an anonymous internet researcher and writer. He's deeply influenced by people who are building AGI. He was one of the first people to see LLM scaling coming.
00:00:13 Speaker_01
If you've read his blog, you know he's one of the most interesting polymathic thinkers alive. We recorded this conversation in person. In order to protect Guern's anonymity, we created this avatar. This isn't his voice. This isn't his face.
00:00:27 Speaker_01
But these are his words. Guern, what is the most underrated benefit of anonymity?
Go to PodExtra AI's episode page (Dylan Patel & Jon (Asianometry) – How the Semiconductor Industry Actually Works) to play and view complete AI-processed content: summary, mindmap, topics, takeaways, transcript, keywords and highlights.
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Author: Dwarkesh Patel
Duration: 02:09:57
A bonanza on the semiconductor industry and hardware scaling to AGI by the end of the decade.Dylan Patel runs Semianalysis, the leading publication and research firm on AI hardware. Jon Y runs Asianometry, the world’s best YouTube channel on semiconductors and business history.* What Xi would do if he became
scaling pilled* $ 1T+ in datacenter buildout by end of decadeWatch on YouTube. Listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or any other podcast platform. Read the full transcript here. Follow me on Twitter for updates on future episodes.Sponsors:* Jane Street is looking to hire their next generation of leaders. Their deep learning team is looking for FPGA programmers, CUDA programmers, and ML researchers. To learn more about their full time roles, internship, tech podcast, and upcoming Kaggle competition, go here.* This episode is brought to you by Stripe, financial infrastructure for the internet. Millions of companies from Anthropic to Amazon use Stripe to accept payments, automate financial processes and grow their revenue.If you’re interested in advertising on the podcast, check out this page.Timestamps00:00:00 – Xi's path to AGI00:04:20 – Liang Mong Song00:08:25 – How semiconductors get better00:11:16 – China can centralize compute00:18:50 – Export controls & sanctions00:32:51 – Huawei's intense culture00:38:51 – Why the semiconductor industry is so stratified00:40:58 – N2 should not exist00:45:53 – Taiwan invasion hypothetical00:49:21 – Mind-boggling complexity of semiconductors00:59:13 – Chip architecture design01:04:36 – Architectures lead to different AI models? China vs. US01:10:12 – Being head of compute at an AI lab01:16:24 – Scaling costs and power demand01:37:05 – Are we financing an AI bubble?01:50:20 – Starting Asianometry and SemiAnalysis02:06:10 – Opportunities in the semiconductor stack Get full access to Dwarkesh Podcast at www.dwarkeshpatel.com/subscribe
00:00:00 Speaker_06
Today, I'm chatting with Dylan Patel, who runs Semianalysis, and John, who runs the Asianometry YouTube channel. Does he have a last name? No, I do not.
00:00:09 Speaker_03
No, I'm just kidding. I'm John Y. That's right, is it? I'm John Y. Wait, why is it only one letter?
00:00:15 Speaker_00
Because Y is the best letter.
Go to PodExtra AI's episode page (Daniel Yergin – Oil Explains the Entire 20th Century) to play and view complete AI-processed content: summary, mindmap, topics, takeaways, transcript, keywords and highlights.
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Author: Dwarkesh Patel
Duration: 01:27:37
Unless you understand the history of oil, you cannot understand the rise of America, WW1, WW2, secular stagnation, the Middle East, Ukraine, how Xi and Putin think, and basically anything else that's happened since 1860.It was a great honor to interview Daniel Yergin, the Pulitzer Prize winning author of The
Prize - the best history of oil ever written (which makes it the best history of the 20th century ever written).Watch on YouTube. Listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or any other podcast platform. Read the full transcript here. Follow me on Twitter for updates on future episodes.Sponsors:This episode is brought to you by Stripe, financial infrastructure for the internet. Millions of companies from Anthropic to Amazon use Stripe to accept payments, automate financial processes and grow their revenue.This episode is brought to you by Suno, pioneers in AI-generated music. Suno's technology allows artists to experiment with melodic forms and structures in unprecedented ways. From chart-toppers to avant-garde compositions, Suno is redefining musical creativity. If you're an ML researcher passionate about shaping the future of music, email your resume to [email protected] you’re interested in advertising on the podcast, check out this page.Timestamps(00:00:00) – Beginning of the oil industry(00:13:37) – World War I & II(00:25:06) – The Middle East(00:47:04) – Yergin’s conversations with Putin & Modi(01:04:36) – Writing through stories(01:10:26) – The renewable energy transition Get full access to Dwarkesh Podcast at www.dwarkeshpatel.com/subscribe
00:00:00 Speaker_02
Today I have the pleasure to chat with Daniel Yergin. He is literally the world's leading authority on energy. His book, The Prize One, the Pulitzer Prize, about the entire history of oil.
00:00:11 Speaker_02
His most recent book is The New Map, Energy, Climate, and the Clash of Nations. Welcome to the podcast, Dr. Yergin. Glad to be with you. My first question is, a book like The Prize, it's literally a history of the entire 20th century, right?
00:00:26 Speaker_02
Because everything in the last 150 years involves oil. That's happened since then. How does one begin to write a book like that?
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Author: Dwarkesh Patel
Duration: 01:56:06
I had no idea how wild human history was before chatting with the geneticist of ancient DNA David Reich.Human history has been again and again a story of one group figuring ‘something’ out, and then basically wiping everyone else out.From the tribe of 1k-10k modern humans who killed off all
the other human species 70,000 years ago; to the Yamnaya horse nomads 5,000 years ago who killed off 90+% of (then) Europeans and also destroyed the Indus Valley.So much of what we thought we knew about human history is turning out to be wrong, from the ‘Out of Africa’ theory to the evolution of language, and this is all thanks to the research from David Reich’s lab.Buy David Reich’s fascinating book, Who We Are How We Got Here.Watch on YouTube. Listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or any other podcast platform. Read the full transcript here.Follow me on Twitter for updates on future episodes.SponsorThis episode is brought to you by Stripe, financial infrastructure for the internet. Millions of companies from Anthropic to Amazon use Stripe to accept payments, automate financial processes and grow their revenue.If you’re interested in advertising on the podcast, check out this page.Timestamps(00:00:00) – Archaic and modern humans gene flow(00:20:24) – How early modern humans dominated the world(00:39:59) – How bubonic plague rewrote history(00:50:03) – Was agriculture terrible for humans?(00:59:28) – Yamnaya expansion and how populations collide(01:15:39) – “Lost civilizations” and our Neanderthal ancestry(01:31:32) – The DNA Challenge(01:41:38) – David’s career: the genetic vocation Get full access to Dwarkesh Podcast at www.dwarkeshpatel.com/subscribe
00:00:00 Speaker_00
Today I have the pleasure of speaking with David Reich, who is a geneticist of ancient DNA at Harvard.
00:00:07 Speaker_00
And David's work and his lab's work and his field's work has transformed, like really transformed, our understanding of human history and human evolution. It's very fascinating stuff for many perspectives. In its own light, it's very interesting.
00:00:22 Speaker_00
From the perspective of AI, which I plan on asking you about, it's interesting to understand human evolution and what that implies about what the future of AI might look like. Anyways, I'll stop doing the introduction.
Go to PodExtra AI's episode page (Joe Carlsmith - Otherness and control in the age of AGI) to play and view complete AI-processed content: summary, mindmap, topics, takeaways, transcript, keywords and highlights.
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Author: Dwarkesh Patel
Duration: 02:30:35
Chatted with Joe Carlsmith about whether we can trust power/techno-capital, how to not end up like Stalin in our urge to control the future, gentleness towards the artificial Other, and much more.Check out Joe's sequence on Otherness and Control in the Age of AGI here.Watch on YouTube. Listen on Apple
Podcasts, Spotify, or any other podcast platform. Read the full transcript here. Follow me on Twitter for updates on future episodes.Sponsors:- Bland.ai is an AI agent that automates phone calls in any language, 24/7. Their technology uses "conversational pathways" for accurate, versatile communication across sales, operations, and customer support. You can try Bland yourself by calling 415-549-9654. Enterprises can get exclusive access to their advanced model at bland.ai/dwarkesh.- Stripe is financial infrastructure for the internet. Millions of companies from Anthropic to Amazon use Stripe to accept payments, automate financial processes and grow their revenue.If you’re interested in advertising on the podcast, check out this page.Timestamps:(00:00:00) - Understanding the Basic Alignment Story(00:44:04) - Monkeys Inventing Humans(00:46:43) - Nietzsche, C.S. Lewis, and AI(1:22:51) - How should we treat AIs(1:52:33) - Balancing Being a Humanist and a Scholar(2:05:02) - Explore exploit tradeoffs and AI Get full access to Dwarkesh Podcast at www.dwarkeshpatel.com/subscribe
00:00:00 Speaker_01
Today, I'm chatting with Joe Carl Smith. He's a philosopher, in my opinion, a capital G great philosopher, and you can find his essays at joecarlsmith.com. So we have a GPT-4, and it doesn't seem like a paper clipper kind of thing.
00:00:15 Speaker_01
It understands human values. In fact, if you could help have it explain, like, why is being a paper clipper bad? Or like, just tell me your opinions about being a paper clipper. Like, explain why the galaxy shouldn't be turned into paper clips.
00:00:28 Speaker_01
Okay, so what is happening such that we have a system that takes over and converts the world into something valueless?
Go to PodExtra AI's episode page (Patrick McKenzie - How a Discord Server Saved Thousands of Lives) to play and view complete AI-processed content: summary, mindmap, topics, takeaways, transcript, keywords and highlights.
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Author: Dwarkesh Patel
Duration: 02:01:34
I talked with Patrick McKenzie (known online as patio11) about how a small team he ran over a Discord server got vaccines into Americans' arms: A story of broken incentives, outrageous incompetence, and how a few individuals with high agency saved 1000s of lives.Enjoy!Watch on YouTube. Listen on Apple Podcasts,
Spotify, or any other podcast platform. Read the full transcript here.Follow me on Twitter for updates on future episodes.SponsorThis episode is brought to you by Stripe, financial infrastructure for the internet. Millions of companies from Anthropic to Amazon use Stripe to accept payments, automate financial processes and grow their revenue.Timestamps(00:00:00) – Why hackers on Discord had to save thousands of lives(00:17:26) – How politics crippled vaccine distribution(00:38:19) – Fundraising for VaccinateCA(00:51:09) – Why tech needs to understand how government works(00:58:58) – What is crypto good for?(01:13:07) – How the US government leverages big tech to violate rights(01:24:36) – Can the US have nice things like Japan?(01:26:41) – Financial plumbing & money laundering: a how-not-to guide(01:37:42) – Maximizing your value: why some people negotiate better(01:42:14) – Are young people too busy playing Factorio to found startups?(01:57:30) – The need for a post-mortem Get full access to Dwarkesh Podcast at www.dwarkeshpatel.com/subscribe
00:00:00 Speaker_00
Today I'm chatting with Patrick McKenzie. He is known for many things on the internet. He's known as Patio11. Most recently, he ran VaccinateCA, which probably saved on the order of high four-figure number of lives during COVID.
Go to PodExtra AI's episode page (Tony Blair - Life of a PM, The Deep State, Lee Kuan Yew, & AI's 1914 Moment) to play and view complete AI-processed content: summary, mindmap, topics, takeaways, transcript, keywords and highlights.
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Author: Dwarkesh Patel
Duration: 00:52:52
I chatted with Tony Blair about:- What he learned from Lee Kuan Yew- Intelligence agencies track record on Iraq & Ukraine- What he tells the dozens of world leaders who come seek advice from him- How much of a PM’s time is actually spent governing- What will AI’s July 1914
moment look like from inside the Cabinet?Enjoy!Watch the video on YouTube. Read the full transcript here.Follow me on Twitter for updates on future episodes.Sponsors- Prelude Security is the world’s leading cyber threat management automation platform. Prelude Detect quickly transforms threat intelligence into validated protections so organizations can know with certainty that their defenses will protect them against the latest threats. Prelude is backed by Sequoia Capital, Insight Partners, The MITRE Corporation, CrowdStrike, and other leading investors. Learn more here.- This episode is brought to you by Stripe, financial infrastructure for the internet. Millions of companies from Anthropic to Amazon use Stripe to accept payments, automate financial processes and grow their revenue.If you’re interested in advertising on the podcast, check out this page.Timestamps(00:00:00) – A prime minister’s constraints(00:04:12) – CEOs vs. politicians(00:10:31) – COVID, AI, & how government deals with crisis(00:21:24) – Learning from Lee Kuan Yew(00:27:37) – Foreign policy & intelligence(00:31:12) – How much leadership actually matters(00:35:34) – Private vs. public tech(00:39:14) – Advising global leaders(00:46:45) – The unipolar moment in the 90s Get full access to Dwarkesh Podcast at www.dwarkeshpatel.com/subscribe
00:00:00 Speaker_01
Today, I have the pleasure of speaking with Tony Blair, who was, of course, Prime Minister of the UK from 1997 to 2007, and now leads the Tony Blair Institute, which advises dozens of governments on improving governance, reform, adding technology.
Go to PodExtra AI's episode page (Francois Chollet, Mike Knoop - LLMs won’t lead to AGI - $1,000,000 Prize to find true solution) to play and view complete AI-processed content: summary, mindmap, topics, takeaways, transcript, keywords and highlights.
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Author: Dwarkesh Patel
Duration: 01:33:53
Here is my conversation with Francois Chollet and Mike Knoop on the $1 million ARC-AGI Prize they're launching today.I did a bunch of socratic grilling throughout, but Francois’s arguments about why LLMs won’t lead to AGI are very interesting and worth thinking through.It was really fun discussing/debating the cruxes. Enjoy!Watch
on YouTube. Listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or any other podcast platform. Read the full transcript here. Timestamps(00:00:00) – The ARC benchmark(00:11:10) – Why LLMs struggle with ARC(00:19:00) – Skill vs intelligence(00:27:55) - Do we need “AGI” to automate most jobs?(00:48:28) – Future of AI progress: deep learning + program synthesis(01:00:40) – How Mike Knoop got nerd-sniped by ARC(01:08:37) – Million $ ARC Prize(01:10:33) – Resisting benchmark saturation(01:18:08) – ARC scores on frontier vs open source models(01:26:19) – Possible solutions to ARC Prize Get full access to Dwarkesh Podcast at www.dwarkeshpatel.com/subscribe
00:00:00 Speaker_02
Okay, today I have the pleasure to speak with Francois Chollet, who is a AI researcher at Google and creator of Keras.