Theo Jaffee Podcast Theo Jaffee
-
- Technology
Deep conversations with brilliant people.
-
#14: Robin Hanson - Cultural Drift, Ems, Elephants, Institutions, and The Future
Robin Hanson is a professor of economics at George Mason University, the author of The Age of Em and The Elephant in the Brain, the writer of the blog Overcoming Bias, and one of the most interesting polymaths alive today.
0:00 - Intro
1:24 - Mathematical models and grabby aliens
9:11 - Will we run out of value in the future?12:23 - Kurzweil’s Law of Accelerating Returns
14:29 - Posadism
17:53 - Moral progress and Whig history
20:29 - Will there be a trad resurgence?
23:00 - Will Israel’s ultra-Orthodox problem globalize?
25:39 - Why will fertility rate keep dropping?
30:14 - Is declining fertility solvable technologically?
32:20 - What is wokeness? Has it peaked?
35:02 - Will virtualization make society more multicultural?
39:30 - How do institutions coordinate so well?
42:50 - Will ems care about death?
46:16 - Personal identity and death
49:30 - How much of Age of Em is applicable to LLMs?
51:09 - Why we shouldn’t worry about AI risk
55:40 - What if people don’t see AIs as their descendants?
1:00:41 - Other future tech deep dives
1:02:43 - Our very long-run descendants
1:06:08 - Time and risk preferences
1:08:34 - Wouldn’t ems be selected for docility?
1:11:24 - How Robin got involved in rationalism
1:13:22 - Girls getting the “ick”
1:16:56 - Have humans evolved since forager times?
1:18:28 - Cultural evolution
1:20:30 - Culture and prestige
1:22:49 - Why medicine in the US is bad
1:25:54 - Is academia the best truth-seeking institution in society?
1:28:52 - Peer review
1:31:13 - Which institutions are actually good?
1:32:33 - Why universities are all the same
1:37:40 - Bitcoin and speculation
1:46:44 - Demarchy
1:50:03 - Futarchy
1:53:56 - Applying prediction markets to dating apps
1:57:38 - The broadest thinkers and books in the world
2:00:59 - How Robin balances his many interests
2:01:58 - Teaching
2:03:12 - Outro
Robin’s Homepage: https://mason.gmu.edu/~rhanson/home.html
Overcoming Bias: https://www.overcomingbias.com/
Robin’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/robinhansonGrabby Aliens: https://grabbyaliens.com/
Age of Em: https://archive.is/LMrr9The Elephant in the Brain: https://www.elephantinthebrain.com/
Beware Cultural Drift: https://quillette.com/2024/04/11/beware-cultural-drift/
More Episodes
Playlist: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sdJRQ6924HY&list=PLVN8-zhbMh9YnOGVRT9m0xzqTNGD_sujj
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1IJRtB8FP4Cnq8lWuuCdvW?si=b4001cf2e8a5453f
Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/theo-jaffee-podcast/id1699912677
My Twitter: https://x.com/theojaffee
My Substack: https://www.theojaffee.com -
#13: Nick Simmons - All About Urbit
Nick Simmons is a founding partner at Octu Ventures, a member-driven venture DAO investing in teams building on Urbit. Urbit is a new computing paradigm that provides complete ownership of your digital world.
0:00 - Intro
1:19 - What actually is Urbit?
5:43 - Urbit ID and Schelling points
9:05 - Why Urbit?
10:23 - Roko Mijic on Urbit vs. TikTok and Crypto
17:32 - Urbit vs. Worldcoin
22:26 - Niche or growth model?
28:50 - Why haven’t Urbit star prices recovered since 2021?
33:13 - Intrinsic value of Urbit address space
36:37 - Urbit as digital land
42:51 - Urbit and DeFi
45:42 - Personal AI on Urbit
51:35 - Urbit-native hardware
55:58 - Urbit design and aesthetics
1:02:15 - Outro
Urbit: https://urbit.org/
Octu: https://octu.ventures/
Urbit Blog: https://urbit.org/blog
“Creating Sigils”: https://urbit.org/blog/creating-sigils
“On Christopher Alexander”: https://urbit.org/blog/on-christopher-alexander
Nick’s Twitter: https://x.com/Halikaarn1an
More Episodes
Playlist: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sdJRQ6924HY&list=PLVN8-zhbMh9YnOGVRT9m0xzqTNGD_sujj
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1IJRtB8FP4Cnq8lWuuCdvW?si=b4001cf2e8a5453f
Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/theo-jaffee-podcast/id1699912677
My Twitter: https://x.com/theojaffeeMy Substack: https://www.theojaffee.com/ -
#12: Paul Buchheit - Creating Gmail, Fixing Google, Narrative Understanding
Paul Buchheit is a programmer and entrepreneur who joined Google as its 23rd employee. He created Gmail, developed the first prototype of Google AdSense, and suggested the company’s motto, “don’t be evil”. He later co-founded FriendFeed and served as a managing partner at Y Combinator.
0:00 - Intro
1:15 - Issues with Google
3:47 - AI risk
5:21 - AI centralization and decentralization
8:01 - Open-sourcing frontier AI
9:59 - Paul’s Predictions
14:28 - Centralization, free speech, and censorship
24:16 - Trends in ideology
32:00 - Freeing people of narratives
35:49 - Alignment
39:06 - Startups and YC in 2024
50:30 - Email and communication interfaces
Paul’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/paultoo
Paul’s Blog: https://paulbuchheit.blogspot.com/
More Episodes
Playlist: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sdJRQ6924HY&list=PLVN8-zhbMh9YnOGVRT9m0xzqTNGD_sujj
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1IJRtB8FP4Cnq8lWuuCdvW?si=b4001cf2e8a5453f
Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/theo-jaffee-podcast/id1699912677
My Twitter: https://twitter.com/theojaffee
My Substack: https://www.theojaffee.com/ -
#11: Bryan Caplan - You Will Not Stampede Me: Essays on Non-Conformism
Bryan Caplan is a professor of economics at George Mason University, research fellow at the Mercatus Center, adjunct scholar at the Cato Institute, writer at EconLib and Bet On It, and best-selling author of eight books, including You Will Not Stampede Me: Essays on Non-Conformism, the subject of this episode.
0:00 - Intro
2:04 - The Next Crusade
3:44 - Moderating X
6:11 - Inventing Slippery Slopes
8:04 - Right-Wing Antiwokes
10:20 - Nonconformism and Asperger’s
12:02 - Making society less conformist
16:44 - The rationality community
20:30 - Polyamory
23:28 - Caplan vs. Yudkowsky on methods of rationality
26:40 - Updating on AI risk
29:35 - Checking your nonconformity
31:10 - Making LinkedIn not suck
33:53 - The George Mason economics department
38:35 - Does tenure still matter?
40:03 - Improving education
46:50 - Should people living under totalitarianism conform?
49:30 - Natalism and birth rates in Israel
51:19 - Hedonic adaptation in the age of AI
53:52 - Should we abolish the FDA?
57:15 - Being a prolific writer
1:00:30 - Bryan’s writing advice
1:02:35 - Outro
Bryan’s Twitter: https://x.com/bryan_caplan
Bryan’s Blog, Bet On It: https://www.betonit.ai/
Buy You Will Not Stampede Me: https://www.amazon.com/You-Will-Not-Stampede-Non-Conformism/dp/B0CQPJ6DCT/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&dib_tag=se&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.95bGnREBhOREb8kL8JeVpjT4w1MPCEfRYcUNZuMAEHVdVGJYv9Ns80cVoAGLtZJPOA6b5DTvnMfO6tF6ZAfRybM2TL7EtaHQlsvbOZVOZro.EzrhsuVDhljbtjiqE_YqD9_RP0YXHFyVHMYEu9GOviI&qid=1708877990&sr=8-1
More Episodes
Playlist: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sdJRQ6924HY&list=PLVN8-zhbMh9YnOGVRT9m0xzqTNGD_sujj
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1IJRtB8FP4Cnq8lWuuCdvW?si=b4001cf2e8a5453f
Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/theo-jaffee-podcast/id1699912677
My Twitter: https://twitter.com/theojaffee
My Substack: https://www.theojaffee.com/ -
#10: Liron Shapira - AI doom, FOOM, rationalism, and crypto
Liron Shapira is an entrepreneur, angel investor, and CEO of counseling startup Relationship Hero. He’s also a rationalist, advisor for the Machine Intelligence Research Institute and Center for Applied Rationality, and a consistently candid AI doom pointer-outer.
Liron’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/liron
Liron’s Substack: https://lironshapira.substack.com/
Liron’s old blog, Bloated MVP: https://www.bloatedmvp.com
TJP LINKS:
TRANSCRIPT: https://www.theojaffee.com/p/10-liron-shapira
YouTube: https://youtu.be/YfEcAtHExFM
Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/theo-jaffee-podcast/id1699912677
RSS: https://api.substack.com/feed/podcast/989123/s/75569/private/129f6344-c459-4581-a9da-dc331677c2f6.rss
Playlist of all episodes: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLVN8-zhbMh9YnOGVRT9m0xzqTNGD_sujj
My Twitter: https://x.com/theojaffee
My Substack: https://www.theojaffee.com
CHAPTERS:
Intro (0:00)
Non-AI x-risks (0:53)
AI non-x-risks (3:00)
p(doom) (5:21)
Liron vs. Eliezer (12:18)
Why might doom not happen? (15:42)
Elon Musk and AGI (17:12)
Alignment vs. Governance (20:24)
Scott Alexander lowering p(doom) (22:32)
Human minds vs ASI minds (28:01)
Vitalik Buterin and d/acc (33:30)
Carefully bootstrapped alignment (35:22)
GPT vs AlphaZero (41:55)
Belrose & Pope AI Optimism (43:17)
AI doom meets daily life (57:57)
Israel vs. Hamas (1:02:17)
Rationalism (1:06:15)
Crypto (1:14:50)
Charlie Munger and Richard Feynman (1:22:12) -
#9: Dwarkesh Patel - Podcasting, AI, Talent, and Fixing Government
Dwarkesh Patel is the host of the Dwarkesh Podcast, where he interviews intellectuals, scientists, historians, economists, and founders about their big ideas. He does deep research and asks great questions. Past podcast guests include billionaire entrepreneur and investor Marc Andreessen, economist and polymath Tyler Cowen, and OpenAI Chief Scientist Ilya Sutskever. Dwarkesh has been recommended by Jeff Bezos, Paul Graham, and me.
Dwarkesh Podcast (and transcripts): https://www.dwarkeshpatel.com/podcast
Dwarkesh Podcast on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@DwarkeshPatel
Dwarkesh Podcast on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4JH4tybY1zX6e5hjCwU6gF
Dwarkesh Podcast on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/dwarkesh-podcast/id1516093381
Dwarkesh’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/dwarkesh_sp
Dwarkesh’s Blog: https://www.dwarkeshpatel.com/s/writing
PODCAST LINKS:
Video Transcript: https://www.theojaffee.com/p/9-dwarkesh-patel
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1IJRtB8FP4Cnq8lWuuCdvW?si=eba62a72e6234efb
Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/theo-jaffee-podcast/id1699912677
RSS: https://api.substack.com/feed/podcast/989123/s/75569/private/129f6344-c459-4581-a9da-dc331677c2f6.rss
Playlist of all episodes: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLVN8-zhbMh9YnOGVRT9m0xzqTNGD_sujj
My Twitter: https://x.com/theojaffee
My Substack: https://www.theojaffee.com
CHAPTERS:
Intro (0:00)
OpenAI drama (0:50)
Learning methods (4:10)
Growing the podcast (7:38)
Improving the podcast (17:03)
Contra Marc Andreessen on AI risk (24:18)
How will AI affect podcasts? (26:31)
AI alignment (32:08)
Dwarkesh’s guests (38:04)
Is Eliezer Yudkowsky right? (41:58)
More on the Dwarkesh Podcast (46:01)
Other great podcasts (50:06)
Nanobots, foom, and doom (56:01)
Great Twitter poasters (1:01:59)
Rationalism and other factions (1:05:44)
Why hasn’t Marxism died? (1:15:27)
Where to allocate talent (1:18:51)
Sam Bankman-Fried (1:22:22)
Why is Elon Musk so successful? (1:29:07)
How relevant is human talent with AGI soon? (1:35:07)
Is government actually broken? (1:36:35)
How should we fix Congress? (1:40:50)
Dwarkesh’s favorite part of podcasting (1:46:46)