Dwarkesh Podcast Dwarkesh Patel

A true honor to speak with Jung Chang.
She is the author of Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China (sold 15+ million copies worldwide) and Mao: The Unknown Story.
We discuss:
- what it was like growing up during the Cultural Revolution as the daughter of a denounced official
- why the CCP continues to worship the biggest mass murderer in human history.
- how exactly Communist totalitarianism was able to subjugate a billion people
- why Chinese leaders like Xi and Deng who suffered from the Cultural Revolution don't condemn Mao
- how Mao starved and killed 40 million people during The Great Leap Forward in order to exchange food for Soviet weapons
Wild Swans is the most moving book I've ever read. It was a real privilege to speak with its author.
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.
Timestamps
(00:00:00) - Growing up during Cultural Revolution
(00:15:58) - Could officials have overthrown Mao?
(00:34:09) - Great Leap Forward
(00:48:12) - Modern support of Mao
(01:03:24) - Life as peasant
(01:21:30) - Psychology of communist society


This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.dwarkeshpatel.com

Andrew Roberts is the world's best biographer and one of the leading historians of our time.
We discussed
* Churchill the applied historian,
* Napoleon the startup founder,
* why Nazi ideology cost Hitler WW2,
* drones, reconnaissance, and other aspects of the future of war,
* Iraq, Afghanistan, Korea, Ukraine, & Taiwan.
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.
Timestamps
(00:00:00) - Post WW2 conflicts
(00:10:57) - Ukraine
(00:16:33) - How Truman Prevented Nuclear War
(00:22:49) - Taiwan
(00:27:15) - Churchill
(00:35:11) - Gaza & future wars
(00:39:05) - Could Hitler have won WW2?
(00:48:00) - Surprise attacks
(00:59:33) - Napoleon and startup founders
(01:14:06) - Robert’s insane productivity


This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.dwarkeshpatel.com

Here is my interview with Dominic Cummings on why Western governments are so dangerously broken, and how to fix them before an even more catastrophic crisis.
Dominic was Chief Advisor to the Prime Minister during COVID, and before that, director of Vote Leave (which masterminded the 2016 Brexit referendum).
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.
Timestamps
(00:00:00) - One day in COVID…
(00:08:26) - Why is government broken?
(00:29:10) - Civil service
(00:38:27) - Opportunity wasted?
(00:49:35) - Rishi Sunak and Number 10 vs 11
(00:55:13) - Cyber, nuclear, bio risks
(01:02:04) - Intelligence & defense agencies
(01:23:32) - Bismarck & Lee Kuan Yew
(01:37:46) - How to fix the government?
(01:56:43) - Taiwan
(02:00:10) - Russia
(02:07:12) - Bismarck’s career as an example of AI (mis)alignment
(02:17:37) - Odyssean education


This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.dwarkeshpatel.com

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 modest timelines (40% by 2040, 15% by 2030),
- What do we want post-AGI world to look like (do we want to keep gods enslaved forever)?
- Why he’s leading the push to get to labs develop responsible scaling policies, and what it would take to prevent an AI coup or bioweapon,
- His current research into a new proof system, and how this could solve alignment by explaining model's behavior
- and much more.
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.

Open Philanthropy
Open Philanthropy is currently hiring for twenty-two different roles to reduce catastrophic risks from fast-moving advances in AI and biotechnology, including grantmaking, research, and operations.
For more information and to apply, please see the application: https://www.openphilanthropy.org/research/new-roles-on-our-gcr-team/
The deadline to apply is November 9th; make sure to check out those roles before they close.

Timestamps
(00:00:00) - What do we want post-AGI world to look like?
(00:24:25) - Timelines
(00:45:28) - Evolution vs gradient descent
(00:54:53) - Misalignment and takeover
(01:17:23) - Is alignment dual-use?
(01:31:38) - Responsible scaling policies
(01:58:25) - Paul’s alignment research
(02:35:01) - Will this revolutionize theoretical CS and math?
(02:46:11) - How Paul invented RLHF
(02:55:10) - Disagreements with Carl Shulman
(03:01:53) - Long TSMC but not NVIDIA


This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.dwarkeshpatel.com

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 needed for AGI
* Has Deepmind sped up capabilities or safety more?
* Why multimodality will be next big landmark
* and much more
Watch full episode on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or any other podcast platform. Read full transcript here.
Timestamps
(0:00:00) - Measuring AGI
(0:11:41) - Do we need new architectures?
(0:16:26) - Is search needed for creativity?
(0:19:19) - Superhuman alignment
(0:29:58) - Impact of Deepmind on safety vs capabilities
(0:34:03) - Timelines
(0:41:24) - Multimodality


This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.dwarkeshpatel.com

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 pursue
- Why Grant plans on doing a stint as a high school teacher
- Tips for self teaching
- Does Godel’s incompleteness theorem actually matter
- Why are good explanations so hard to find?
- And much more
Watch on YouTube. Listen on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or any other podcast platform. Full transcript here.
Timestamps
(0:00:00) - Does winning math competitions require AGI?
(0:08:24) - Where to allocate mathematical talent?
(0:17:34) - Grant’s miracle year
(0:26:44) - Prehistoric humans and math
(0:33:33) - Why is a lot of math so new?
(0:44:44) - Future of education
(0:56:28) - Math helped me realize I wasn’t that smart
(0:59:25) - Does Godel’s incompleteness theorem matter?
(1:05:12) - How Grant makes videos
(1:10:13) - Grant’s math exposition competition
(1:20:44) - Self teaching


This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.dwarkeshpatel.com