Podcast Episodes

Paul Christiano — Preventing an AI takeover

Paul Christiano is the world’s leading AI safety researcher. My full episode with him is out!

We discuss:

- Does he regret inventing RLHF, and is alignment necessarily dual-use?

- Why he has relatively …

Published on 2 years, 1 month ago

Shane Legg (DeepMind Founder) — 2028 AGI, superhuman alignment, new architectures

I had a lot of fun chatting with Shane Legg - Founder and Chief AGI Scientist, Google DeepMind!

We discuss:

* Why he expects AGI around 2028

* How to align superhuman models

* What new architectures need…

Published on 2 years, 2 months ago

Grant Sanderson (@3blue1brown) — Past, present, & future of mathematics

I had a lot of fun chatting with Grant Sanderson (who runs the excellent 3Blue1Brown YouTube channel) about:

- Whether advanced math requires AGI

- What careers should mathematically talented students …

Published on 2 years, 2 months ago

Sarah C. M. Paine — Why dictators keep making the same fatal mistake

I learned so much from Sarah Paine, Professor of History and Strategy at the Naval War College.

We discuss:

- how continental vs maritime powers think and how this explains Xi & Putin's decisions

- how …

Published on 2 years, 2 months ago

George Hotz vs Eliezer Yudkowsky AI Safety Debate

George Hotz and Eliezer Yudkowsky hashed out their positions on AI safety.

It was a really fun debate. No promises but there might be a round 2 where we better hone in on the cruxes that we began to i…

Published on 2 years, 4 months ago

Dario Amodei (Anthropic CEO) — The hidden pattern behind every AI breakthrough

Here is my conversation with Dario Amodei, CEO of Anthropic.

Dario is hilarious and has fascinating takes on what these models are doing, why they scale so well, and what it will take to align them.

Wa…

Published on 2 years, 4 months ago

Andy Matuschak — The reason most learning tools fail

A few weeks ago, I sat beside Andy Matuschak to record how he reads a textbook.

Even though my own job is to learn things, I was shocked with how much more intense, painstaking, and effective his lear…

Published on 2 years, 5 months ago

Carl Shulman (Pt 2) — AI Takeover, bio & cyber attacks, detecting deception, & humanity's far future

The second half of my 7 hour conversation with Carl Shulman is out!

My favorite part! And the one that had the biggest impact on my worldview.

Here, Carl lays out how an AI takeover might happen:

* AI c…

Published on 2 years, 6 months ago

Carl Shulman (Pt 1) — Intelligence explosion, primate evolution, robot doublings, & alignment

In terms of the depth and range of topics, this episode is the best I’ve done.

No part of my worldview is the same after talking with Carl Shulman. He's the most interesting intellectual you've never …

Published on 2 years, 6 months ago

Richard Rhodes — The making of the atomic bomb

It was a tremendous honor & pleasure to interview Richard Rhodes, Pulitzer Prize winning author of The Making of the Atomic Bomb

We discuss

- similarities between AI progress & Manhattan Project (devel…

Published on 2 years, 7 months ago