Dwarkesh Podcast

Dwarkesh Patel
  • 4.5 (8)
  • TECHNOLOGY
  • UPDATED WEEKLY
Dwarkesh Podcast

Deeply researched interviews www.dwarkeshpatel.com

  1. 13 NOV

    Gwern Branwen - How an Anonymous Researcher Predicted AI's Trajectory

    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. Timestamps 00:00:00 - Anonymity 00:01:09 - Automating Steve Jobs 00:04:38 - Isaac Newton's theory of progress 00:06:36 - Grand theory of intelligence 00:10:39 - Seeing scaling early 00:21:04 - AGI Timelines 00:22:54 - What to do in remaining 3 years until AGI 00:26:29 - Influencing the shoggoth with writing 00:30:50 - Human vs artificial intelligence 00:33:52 - Rabbit holes 00:38:48 - Hearing impairment 00:43:00 - Wikipedia editing 00:47:43 - Gwern.net 00:50:20 - Counterfactual careers 00:54:30 - Borges & literature 01:01:32 - Gwern's intelligence and process 01:11:03 - A day in the life of Gwern 01:19:16 - Gwern's finances 01:25:05 - The diversity of AI minds 01:27:24 - GLP drugs and obesity 01:31:08 - Drug experimentation 01:33:40 - Parasocial relationships 01:35:23 - Open rabbit holes Get full access to Dwarkesh Podcast at www.dwarkeshpatel.com/subscribe

    1h 37m

  2. 2 OCT

    Dylan Patel & Jon (Asianometry) – How the Semiconductor Industry Actually Works

    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 decade 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: * 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. Timestamps 00:00:00 – Xi's path to AGI 00:04:20 – Liang Mong Song 00:08:25 – How semiconductors get better 00:11:16 – China can centralize compute 00:18:50 – Export controls & sanctions 00:32:51 – Huawei's intense culture 00:38:51 – Why the semiconductor industry is so stratified 00:40:58 – N2 should not exist 00:45:53 – Taiwan invasion hypothetical 00:49:21 – Mind-boggling complexity of semiconductors 00:59:13 – Chip architecture design 01:04:36 – Architectures lead to different AI models? China vs. US 01:10:12 – Being head of compute at an AI lab 01:16:24 – Scaling costs and power demand 01:37:05 – Are we financing an AI bubble? 01:50:20 – Starting Asianometry and SemiAnalysis 02:06:10 – Opportunities in the semiconductor stack Get full access to Dwarkesh Podcast at www.dwarkeshpatel.com/subscribe

    2h 10m
  3. Daniel Yergin – Oil Explains the Entire 20th Century

    18 SEPT

    Daniel Yergin – Oil Explains the Entire 20th Century

    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 dwarkesh@suno.com. If 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

    1h 28m
  4. David Reich - How One Small Tribe Conquered the World 70,000 Years Ago

    29 AUG

    David Reich - How One Small Tribe Conquered the World 70,000 Years Ago

    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. Sponsor 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) – 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

    1h 56m

  5. 22 AUG

    Joe Carlsmith - Otherness and control in the age of AGI

    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

    2h 31m

  6. 24 JULY

    Patrick McKenzie - How a Discord Server Saved Thousands of Lives

    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. Sponsor 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. 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

    2h 2m

  7. 26 JUNE

    Tony Blair - Life of a PM, The Deep State, Lee Kuan Yew, & AI's 1914 Moment

    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

    53 min

  8. 11 JUNE

    Francois Chollet, Mike Knoop - LLMs won’t lead to AGI - $1,000,000 Prize to find true solution

    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

    1h 34m
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4.5
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About

Deeply researched interviews www.dwarkeshpatel.com

Information

  • Creator
    Dwarkesh Patel
  • Years Active
    2020 - 2024
  • Episodes
    77
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © Dwarkesh Patel
  • Show Website
    Dwarkesh Podcast

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