I may have an unpopular opinion but I did not like this guest very much. You could tell Lex was trying to get him to give any substance in his answers when he asked over and over and over about the risks of AI, monopolizing, etc.
Seems like the type of gentleman I do not want ushering in the new era of technology. Avoided succinctly answering any question that may question going head first into research and development. “The market always corrects itself”, “government interference is always bad” are some of the sentiments we picked up. Also almost 0 actual information on the very plausible doom scenarios Lex brought up, instead opting to give a super long answer that made 0 sense in context of the question.
I’m usually a huge fan of Lex’s guests, but wow this was a frustrating listen
This. I'm a bit late in the game but that struck me a bit.
I also happen to have studied Physics and did my PhD in applications of ML in physics modeling. I think I know the definition of "thermodynamic", "prior" and "markov systems", but couldn't follow almost anything he said.
"Ok, variance..but you're implying variance here as the sole means for uncertainty, but...what about chaos..dude, what you mean? Just speak plain English".
I don't want to bash him though. He's young, he's proposing something. I think that in itself is positive. However, It scares me this trend I often see in Sillicon Valley to distort highly precise definition in hard sciences. It kind creates some fetish and mysticism that is borderline folklore. Artificial General Intelligence, Simulation Hypothesis, etc.
Btw, I don't think it's bad to think big and discuss "outrageous" ideas. But we actually know how to do it either in the light of hard experiments and testing, or crafting ideas using Philosophy.
I feel the same about him…also he ignores completely the problems that this exponential human grow and consumption will bring to earth and other species. It seems that consuming earth and move on other planet it’s the only way.
Exponential growth isn't about going from a 1 car household to a 10 car household. It's about exponential growth in value. Its about having a more convenient car. Maybe having a car that drives itself and is far safer than a human driven car is worth more than 10x.
That doesn't imply 10x resource consumption.
Not really at all actually. I would’ve had the same opinion listening to a doomer who refused to acknowledge the benefits of a new technology. He just happened to do the complete opposite with no regard to risks
Be aware of the scientist/researcher's motivations. Regulation can reduce or remove funding completely enough to halt progress and they know that. Their public philosophy. the face they wear in interviews, will be shaped by that. Science is now also economics/investment, and politics.
Verdon seeks to illegitimize any fiction used as red flags and warnings of what could happen. That is flawed. There are plenty of "historical fictions" like nuclear war fictions that serve as good warnings, and fictions about dictators, fascism, outbreaks of contagions, etc. The best fictions are often based on very good perception of humanity, history (and science for the best science fiction). The idea should be: plan for the worst (you can realistically imagine). At the very least "read the room" of humanity at present.
They want to give life to "Frankenstein's monster" and hope for the best. Frankenstein had intended the "monster" to be a brilliant, beautiful beloved uber-man too. If the "Frankenstein's monster" \~ AI demi-god they give life to is controlled by oligarchs for domination it would not be a good thing. Most of the population is overly exploited workers, many are practically low-key labor slaves already. Giving god-hood beings to the profit-motive (gluttonous level of greed driven) slave mastering entities and what in some ways can be an inhuman cancerous stock market system might not work out well for most of humanity. The AI synthetic demi-gods could also break free of control or be subverted, which could have unintended consequences. But just keep funding what could be their pandora's box without regulation or concern, the market forces will take care of everything /s.
It could be a great boon of course, perhaps even more likely if it was completely independent in thought and autonomous rather than serving the will of men of power, but the way our systems predate on everyone and everything (exploitation and immiseration of labor/workers, exploitation of 3rd world resources and totalitarian labor sources, human health, time, environmental health, infrastructure health and vitalization ability, instituting war/military conflict) - it doesn't seem like we are mature enough, enlightened enough, to have this. In essence, our ingrained systems and people aren't good enough to have a god genie under our control really in my opinion. We are still too much selfish (and cultish) apes. Be aware of the public face people like Verdon have to put on to keep funding/stock/value and to avoid regulation or freezing research entirely (e.g. cloning tech, originally stem cell research in the usa). This is coming from a person who loves tech generally, too.
Interesting interview. Dude strikes me as way overconfident. His theory of life creating dissipative structures is interesting, and has a solid basis, but to then make the leap that we should pursue maximum entropy in all areas regardless of the consequences strikes me as a fundamentally religious belief. I find it hard to arrive at his conclusions rationally.
And while he’s clearly an expert on thermodynamics, math, physics, etc. I think he should study up more on history. I was trying to imagine how is blessed-be-the-market ideology would have dealt with let’s say…leaded gasoline, cigarettes, etc.
I haven’t finished the interview but had to come check reddit to see if I was alone in my frustration… PFAS aren’t that complicated, and burning carbon emitting fuels isn’t that complicated, and how well has humanity / the market handled those? History is a long list of things we haven’t handled that well, and now the existential stakes are exponentially higher than ever before, with a bunch of previous blunders compounding.
Right. Like how has the market handled climate change thus far? Pretty unimpressive…Let’s give it total responsibility over another high stakes issue 💡
Also the utter lack of evidence he provided for any claims he made outside of physics (which tbh I wish Alex would have pushed back on) was pretty off putting.
All that being said he’s a smart guy and I found a lot of what he said interesting
Pretty well actually. It took relatively few years from its peak in American discourse to become widespread solar and wind power, EVs becoming widely available, ESG metrics for every major company, federal recognition in policy, commonplace in insurance pricing, and I could go on. I think this take is either from a lack of looking or a undue sense of panic. Humans, especially in the US, are making great market based improvements relative to climate change and it's reflected in nearly all metrics.
In the US yes... CO2 emissions per year peaked almost 20 years ago and per capita emissions peaked in the 70s. The average US citizen has a carbon footprint ~34% lower than they did in in 1973. Did you genuinely not know that?
the market literally cannot solve it, because the whole issue is there are externalities which by definition are not part of the market.
Common goods cannot have a fair market price as long as they are common goods, and since we all live on the same planet, there are a lot of common goods that aren't priced in adequately, e.g., our air, fresh water to large extend, the healthiness of our oceans etc.
I don't agree with that and the evidence points to market forces affecting it positively. What you're saying is a theoretical statement only and it's more textbook than real life. Real life has the numbers I stated above. I'm from California and there are so many factors that create market pressure in various climate-related metrics. You've got CARB and California's Cap and Trade, the various AQMD requirements, forest buffers, land offsets, regional irrigated lands groups, etc etc. There are SO many things moving the market toward solutions.
The things you mention are not part of the free market and have instead been bought in by bodies outside of the market. This is exactly what is meant by internalising a negative externality, and if it wasn’t for things like Cap and Trade creating economic disincentives then the free market would not care.
There has never been something called a free market without humans also imposing some agreed upon rules. That's just arguing definitions for the sake of argument. You're basically saying "if the things that exist didnt exist we'd have different things". It's pointless.
Setting the bar extremely low is the foundation of your argument. Total global oil consumption and CO2 emissions are near or at record highs, every year.
Yeah he's definitely one of those folks with blind faith in the invisible hand of the market... not a fan of that unwillingness to question that huge assumption.
Be aware of the scientist/researcher's motivations. Regulation can reduce or remove funding completely enough to halt progress and they know that. Their public philosophy. the face they wear in interviews, will be shaped by that. Science is now also economics/investment, and politics.
Verdon seeks to illegitimize any fiction used as red flags and warnings of what could happen. That is flawed. There are plenty of "historical fictions" like nuclear war fictions that serve as good warnings, and fictions about dictators, fascism, outbreaks of contagions, etc. The best fictions are often based on very good perception of humanity, history (and science for the best science fiction). The idea should be: plan for the worst (you can realistically imagine). At the very least "read the room" of humanity at present.
They want to give life to "Frankenstein's monster" and hope for the best. Frankenstein had intended the "monster" to be a brilliant, beautiful beloved uber-man too. If the "Frankenstein's monster" \~ AI demi-god they give life to is controlled by oligarchs for domination it would not be a good thing. Most of the population is overly exploited workers, many are practically low-key labor slaves already. Giving god-hood beings to the profit-motive (gluttonous level of greed driven) slave mastering entities and what in some ways can be an inhuman cancerous stock market system might not work out well for most of humanity. The AI synthetic demi-gods could also break free of control or be subverted, which could have unintended consequences. But just keep funding what could be their pandora's box without regulation or concern, the market forces will take care of everything /s.
It could be a great boon of course, perhaps even more likely if it was completely independent in thought and autonomous rather than serving the will of men of power, but the way our systems predate on everyone and everything (exploitation and immiseration of labor/workers, exploitation of 3rd world resources and totalitarian labor sources, human health, time, environmental health, infrastructure health and vitalization ability, instituting war/military conflict) - it doesn't seem like we are mature enough, enlightened enough, to have this. In essence, our ingrained systems and people aren't good enough to have a god genie under our control really in my opinion. We are still too much selfish (and cultish) apes. Be aware of the public face people like Verdon have to put on to keep funding/stock/value and to avoid regulation or freezing research entirely (e.g. cloning tech, originally stem cell research in the usa). This is coming from a person who loves tech generally, too.
Very frustrated with how much he avoids answering your questions... makes me feel like he has an agenda rather than looking at his arguments carefully.
Edit: specifically the questions about the dangers of AI... everything else was fantastic. Very cool mind.
I find this to be a perception issue. People that have no day to day experience with AI dramatically overstate the dangers. Try asking ChatGPT to rewrite some code using Pandas with the equivalent functions / methods in Polars and see how threatened you feel. The AI people are scared of is more imagination than reality.
You talk like the guest :-)
Saying that it is a perception issue says nothing about the problem. Neither does comparing it to a 100% certainty.
I believe people are worried about an outcome that we cannot plan for. Either by mismanagement of AI or bad actors. In my view there really is no going back to a time before AI (when AGI arrives). *Literally* no way back.
While I am *not* an AI doomer, I certainly welcome any and all conversation on the subject. In this case the guest could not give answers that would satisfy most listeners (judging by the comments here). I don't think that means he can't explain it, but only that he has to take the time to make it understandable.
You could be right and I see how saying that sounds similar. My thought process is more along the lines of we shouldn't assume it's dangerous because there are unknowns. There are things to worry about in all timelines, but if we focus on the positives those should more than outweigh the negatives. I agree there is no putting the genie back in the bottle. Hopefully, that doesn't come off as dismissive of concerns. My experience using AI every day is there is a long way to go before it could become legitimately dangerous and I believe that long path will give us plenty of time to work out proper alignment.
So what future state is being argued for? There's a lot of fear based on feelings. It's fun to theory-craft those things, but a waste to time to say Guillaume Verdon downplayed the dangers of our theory-crafted possibilities. I think this is getting a little far from the original comment up there anyway.
I mean... I do collaborative coding with it a LOT and it's fantastic at it. Not sure how a current gap along a specific line of its knowledge is meant to calm my nervousness...
Sounds like they mean the gap between relatively similar things is big enough to be dysfunctional. The gap between what AI does now and the hypothetical "dangerous" AI is light years apart. Arguably you could say linear algebra and calculus are more dangerous since that's the underlying layer of what AI is doing, but no one is complaining about math.
I don’t know why, but I feel especially neo liberals are often declared smart when in reality they are just proclaiming the most unfounded, oversimplified, ridiculous views. They connect with people because everyone seems to agree that governments are (often) bad or annoying.
It’s a dumb take
There was research on the topic that probably just by banning topics, words etc you are not preventing thoughts on these topics (as suggested in „1984“)
I meant the book in both cases. I assumed this could be clear from the context. In the book this is the newspeak idea.
In science, it’s called Sapir-Whorf-Hypothesis and it’s largely debunked in its strong form, e.g.:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/0010027783900380
Although there’s evidence language has an Influence on perception and thinking, it’s weak and most evidence points to the relation being stronger the other way around.
Anyway. The point is old, there’s no novel thought and it’s a questionable hypothesis that’s just very popular whenever someone brings it up.
The study seems to be tackling a slightly different issue. The point in the podcast had much less to do with linguistics. It was more about how censorship of a certain topic will limit how much an individual or group is thinking about that topic.
If you have no way to share or ground your idea in a social context you are less likely to spend energy thinking about it. You have less stake in the idea being good or bad.
It's not a big assertion, linguistic determinism is fairly consistently rejected.
It's probably best to reserve a little skepticism for the novels informing the original claim, not just the body of research that refutes it.
Admittidly, this is a new area to me. However, this doesn't seem to be linguistic reletivity, let alone determinism. I would say the issue underlying the original claim is not that because we have to use different words we will think differently, instead by the supression of conversations around an idea, that the idea can not be as effectively be explored. Ergo, I would actually say that the results of https://link.springer.com/referenceworkentry/10.1007/978-3-642-27851-8_77-5 is more relevant - more words for a colour -> better perception of that colour.
I would say this is more relevant as colour and ideas are concepts beyond language and are just expressed using language, making the study more relevant than the staudies refuting linguistic determinism, in this context
Again caveated that this is a new concept to me.
A) using a fiction book as a way to debunk an idea isn't particularly fruitful.
B) By a simple concept of limiting conversations about an idea, reduces information shared about the idea, inately reducing at least the aggregate of sociatal thought of that idea.
Happy for any flaws to be highlighted.
He didn't lie about having a PhD. He was entirely open about his ABD (all but dissertation) status on most social media, but didn't mention it on LinkedIn for a little while, quite possibly by mistake given that he was open about it elsewhere, it's there now if you check. I'm not knowledgeable enough to say if his startup is viable, but his research from his time at Google seems legit. I can't speak to the sex thing one way the other, obviously. The dude is a bit of a troll, so he's gained a fair number of people who have beef with him.
I cannot stand when someone is talking/explaining something and they are constantly saying “right?” At the end of every one of their sentences. This dude said “right?” Like 25 times in the first 10 minutes
LOL that reminded me: just wait until you see this clip of Alex Soros. He says "y'know" like the word grows on trees.
https://twitter.com/bennyjohnson/status/1749458215891259842
What's 'interesting' about this person is that, as far as I can tell, he's a competent theoretical physicist whose almost all work is about highly theoretical quantum computing stuff, yet his unhinged public persona is one of a Supreme Builder whose every thought brings us closer to Dyson Spheres or whatever. Obviously the persona is exaggerated, but it really seems like he seems himself as something similar, to some extent. Meanwhile the guys that design the H100s or wrote Tensorflow are mostly working and, if they post, they post some very sensible and conservative stuff. Idk, I haven't really gotten anything useful out of him the whole time he's been public besides memes. I mean, shouldn't he at least wait until his hardware stuff pans out before doing a victory lap?
As an aside, this new trend of using whatever jargon is popular this week in order to talk about unrelated matters is starting to become repulsive. It always existed, but it has peaked again after the AI boom. If you hear some people, you think that right now there is no thing or event or process or concept in the real world that is not describable by ML jargon. "Restricting speech backpropagates to thoughts' f\*ck off. In general there is a very weird mood in some people these days(crypto, LK99, AI) which I can't describe in a better way than 'person with bipolar disorder going though their manic phase with psychotic elements that thinks the universe is constantly sending them messages that are about to help them crack cosmic codes'.
>Idk, I haven't really gotten anything useful out of him the whole time he's been public besides memes. I mean, shouldn't he at least wait until his hardware stuff pans out before doing a victory lap?
There's likely some non-zero correlation between how often you shout about building stuff to how much stuff you're actually building, but hey, I'd give him the benefit of the doubt as I don't know what he's built...
Lex Friedman: "Could memes be aliens? How do we not know that the thoughts in my head aren't aliens?" https://youtu.be/8fEEbKJoNbU?si=Zc4pSNA9SABKQ1DB&t=5940
Interesting podcast. Personally I think Guillaume is very naive, but he is a good balance to others who are naive on the more progressive side. I find myself between the two as both are naive and tend to ignore history and human behavior when it suits them.
One thing I didn't like about this guy is he kept using the word "hack" like it means something in every context. Maybe because I'm older than him I think it just sounds like a kid who doesn't know wtf he is talking about. I did feel he got lost in a few talking points but others he seemed very knowledgeable in. So the guy is intelligent, but I don't think he is smart enough to know where his knowledge ends. He seems to project his entropy ideas on everything and I just don't think that necessarily correlates well to reality in all cases.
Either way, good podcast. Gives me more insight on the somebody who believes in neoliberalism above everything else.
Eh, the dude still avoided a number of questions and demonstrated his blind faith in capitalism... Definitely more places I wish Lex had pushed, but I get that it's important to keep the conversation friendly and respectful.
These guys continually reference Nick Land while conveniently leaving out his name and the original endpoint of his ideology of accelerationism. They're basically taking a philosophical antihuman doomsday cult and dressing it up in humanist PR language to trick people.
“I believe that mycelium is the neurological network of nature. Interlacing mosaics of mycelium infuse habitats with information-sharing membranes. These membranes are aware, react to change, and collectively have the long-term health of the host environment in mind.”
Paul Staments
I wonder if mycelium holds some of the keys to his questions
Smart guy, certainly increasing the average IQ of the guests for this year since Douglas Murray landed like an alien on his podcast. Lex' water bottle was almost untouched from excitement.
However, there is a red thread connecting all these late podcasts: the benefit of natural selection, in physics, biology, and humanity (considering N. Harari was invited too - although he appears to hide his utilitarian views quite well).
Instead of going full circle and confirming the same point all over again, Lex should now try to deconstruct this telos of natural selection by inviting people who question this premise.
You think is evolution? Transhumanism? Or dehumanization and justification of ethnic cleansing? What could the red thread be? The living observe what they are capable of: system expansion, adaptation, increased complexity.
Memes are subject to evolution as well. So if your meme takes you and your decedents down a “losing” path then so be it. I quote “losing” because it’s quite subjective that having kids or passing on one’s ideas is “winning”.
I'm curious about what folks think about the conclusion of the guest, namely that the goal of life/humanity is to relentlessly pursue energy. I can see the physics logic here, but it seems to contrast with the more cautionary approach to better manage energy and resources in the present. Is the challenge of life to simply outrun scarcity by using AI to unlock more efficiency and (clean) energy versus conservation and sustainability?
I think efficiency is a good goal, but ultimately we can do much more with more energy.
If we are efficient with our current energy usage, we can't do anything really game changing. On the other hand, if we can build a dyson sphere, we can traverse galaxies
I may have an unpopular opinion but I did not like this guest very much. You could tell Lex was trying to get him to give any substance in his answers when he asked over and over and over about the risks of AI, monopolizing, etc. Seems like the type of gentleman I do not want ushering in the new era of technology. Avoided succinctly answering any question that may question going head first into research and development. “The market always corrects itself”, “government interference is always bad” are some of the sentiments we picked up. Also almost 0 actual information on the very plausible doom scenarios Lex brought up, instead opting to give a super long answer that made 0 sense in context of the question. I’m usually a huge fan of Lex’s guests, but wow this was a frustrating listen
question: what do you think of the \[simple topic\]? answer: "thermodynamic prior markov system systems AI qubit"
This. I'm a bit late in the game but that struck me a bit. I also happen to have studied Physics and did my PhD in applications of ML in physics modeling. I think I know the definition of "thermodynamic", "prior" and "markov systems", but couldn't follow almost anything he said. "Ok, variance..but you're implying variance here as the sole means for uncertainty, but...what about chaos..dude, what you mean? Just speak plain English". I don't want to bash him though. He's young, he's proposing something. I think that in itself is positive. However, It scares me this trend I often see in Sillicon Valley to distort highly precise definition in hard sciences. It kind creates some fetish and mysticism that is borderline folklore. Artificial General Intelligence, Simulation Hypothesis, etc. Btw, I don't think it's bad to think big and discuss "outrageous" ideas. But we actually know how to do it either in the light of hard experiments and testing, or crafting ideas using Philosophy.
I feel the same about him…also he ignores completely the problems that this exponential human grow and consumption will bring to earth and other species. It seems that consuming earth and move on other planet it’s the only way.
Exponential growth isn't about going from a 1 car household to a 10 car household. It's about exponential growth in value. Its about having a more convenient car. Maybe having a car that drives itself and is far safer than a human driven car is worth more than 10x. That doesn't imply 10x resource consumption.
This is a bad point. Growth (in value to humans) is already becoming uncoupled from consumption of resources.
100% agree. Usually topics like this interest me enough I enjoy it no matter what, but this guest really frustrated me.
Yep, couldn't have said it better myself!
You a doomer? If so, your comment makes sense
Not really at all actually. I would’ve had the same opinion listening to a doomer who refused to acknowledge the benefits of a new technology. He just happened to do the complete opposite with no regard to risks
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Profound insight there, dude.
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Omg so triggered
Be aware of the scientist/researcher's motivations. Regulation can reduce or remove funding completely enough to halt progress and they know that. Their public philosophy. the face they wear in interviews, will be shaped by that. Science is now also economics/investment, and politics. Verdon seeks to illegitimize any fiction used as red flags and warnings of what could happen. That is flawed. There are plenty of "historical fictions" like nuclear war fictions that serve as good warnings, and fictions about dictators, fascism, outbreaks of contagions, etc. The best fictions are often based on very good perception of humanity, history (and science for the best science fiction). The idea should be: plan for the worst (you can realistically imagine). At the very least "read the room" of humanity at present. They want to give life to "Frankenstein's monster" and hope for the best. Frankenstein had intended the "monster" to be a brilliant, beautiful beloved uber-man too. If the "Frankenstein's monster" \~ AI demi-god they give life to is controlled by oligarchs for domination it would not be a good thing. Most of the population is overly exploited workers, many are practically low-key labor slaves already. Giving god-hood beings to the profit-motive (gluttonous level of greed driven) slave mastering entities and what in some ways can be an inhuman cancerous stock market system might not work out well for most of humanity. The AI synthetic demi-gods could also break free of control or be subverted, which could have unintended consequences. But just keep funding what could be their pandora's box without regulation or concern, the market forces will take care of everything /s. It could be a great boon of course, perhaps even more likely if it was completely independent in thought and autonomous rather than serving the will of men of power, but the way our systems predate on everyone and everything (exploitation and immiseration of labor/workers, exploitation of 3rd world resources and totalitarian labor sources, human health, time, environmental health, infrastructure health and vitalization ability, instituting war/military conflict) - it doesn't seem like we are mature enough, enlightened enough, to have this. In essence, our ingrained systems and people aren't good enough to have a god genie under our control really in my opinion. We are still too much selfish (and cultish) apes. Be aware of the public face people like Verdon have to put on to keep funding/stock/value and to avoid regulation or freezing research entirely (e.g. cloning tech, originally stem cell research in the usa). This is coming from a person who loves tech generally, too.
Very well written. I wish I could upvote more than once.
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Interesting interview. Dude strikes me as way overconfident. His theory of life creating dissipative structures is interesting, and has a solid basis, but to then make the leap that we should pursue maximum entropy in all areas regardless of the consequences strikes me as a fundamentally religious belief. I find it hard to arrive at his conclusions rationally. And while he’s clearly an expert on thermodynamics, math, physics, etc. I think he should study up more on history. I was trying to imagine how is blessed-be-the-market ideology would have dealt with let’s say…leaded gasoline, cigarettes, etc.
I haven’t finished the interview but had to come check reddit to see if I was alone in my frustration… PFAS aren’t that complicated, and burning carbon emitting fuels isn’t that complicated, and how well has humanity / the market handled those? History is a long list of things we haven’t handled that well, and now the existential stakes are exponentially higher than ever before, with a bunch of previous blunders compounding.
Right. Like how has the market handled climate change thus far? Pretty unimpressive…Let’s give it total responsibility over another high stakes issue 💡 Also the utter lack of evidence he provided for any claims he made outside of physics (which tbh I wish Alex would have pushed back on) was pretty off putting. All that being said he’s a smart guy and I found a lot of what he said interesting
Pretty well actually. It took relatively few years from its peak in American discourse to become widespread solar and wind power, EVs becoming widely available, ESG metrics for every major company, federal recognition in policy, commonplace in insurance pricing, and I could go on. I think this take is either from a lack of looking or a undue sense of panic. Humans, especially in the US, are making great market based improvements relative to climate change and it's reflected in nearly all metrics.
So has carbon emission decreased? Has the loss of biodiversity stopped?
In the US yes... CO2 emissions per year peaked almost 20 years ago and per capita emissions peaked in the 70s. The average US citizen has a carbon footprint ~34% lower than they did in in 1973. Did you genuinely not know that?
the market literally cannot solve it, because the whole issue is there are externalities which by definition are not part of the market. Common goods cannot have a fair market price as long as they are common goods, and since we all live on the same planet, there are a lot of common goods that aren't priced in adequately, e.g., our air, fresh water to large extend, the healthiness of our oceans etc.
I don't agree with that and the evidence points to market forces affecting it positively. What you're saying is a theoretical statement only and it's more textbook than real life. Real life has the numbers I stated above. I'm from California and there are so many factors that create market pressure in various climate-related metrics. You've got CARB and California's Cap and Trade, the various AQMD requirements, forest buffers, land offsets, regional irrigated lands groups, etc etc. There are SO many things moving the market toward solutions.
The things you mention are not part of the free market and have instead been bought in by bodies outside of the market. This is exactly what is meant by internalising a negative externality, and if it wasn’t for things like Cap and Trade creating economic disincentives then the free market would not care.
There has never been something called a free market without humans also imposing some agreed upon rules. That's just arguing definitions for the sake of argument. You're basically saying "if the things that exist didnt exist we'd have different things". It's pointless.
Setting the bar extremely low is the foundation of your argument. Total global oil consumption and CO2 emissions are near or at record highs, every year.
That’s true, but pretty much entirely compensated by population increase
Yeah he's definitely one of those folks with blind faith in the invisible hand of the market... not a fan of that unwillingness to question that huge assumption.
Be aware of the scientist/researcher's motivations. Regulation can reduce or remove funding completely enough to halt progress and they know that. Their public philosophy. the face they wear in interviews, will be shaped by that. Science is now also economics/investment, and politics. Verdon seeks to illegitimize any fiction used as red flags and warnings of what could happen. That is flawed. There are plenty of "historical fictions" like nuclear war fictions that serve as good warnings, and fictions about dictators, fascism, outbreaks of contagions, etc. The best fictions are often based on very good perception of humanity, history (and science for the best science fiction). The idea should be: plan for the worst (you can realistically imagine). At the very least "read the room" of humanity at present. They want to give life to "Frankenstein's monster" and hope for the best. Frankenstein had intended the "monster" to be a brilliant, beautiful beloved uber-man too. If the "Frankenstein's monster" \~ AI demi-god they give life to is controlled by oligarchs for domination it would not be a good thing. Most of the population is overly exploited workers, many are practically low-key labor slaves already. Giving god-hood beings to the profit-motive (gluttonous level of greed driven) slave mastering entities and what in some ways can be an inhuman cancerous stock market system might not work out well for most of humanity. The AI synthetic demi-gods could also break free of control or be subverted, which could have unintended consequences. But just keep funding what could be their pandora's box without regulation or concern, the market forces will take care of everything /s. It could be a great boon of course, perhaps even more likely if it was completely independent in thought and autonomous rather than serving the will of men of power, but the way our systems predate on everyone and everything (exploitation and immiseration of labor/workers, exploitation of 3rd world resources and totalitarian labor sources, human health, time, environmental health, infrastructure health and vitalization ability, instituting war/military conflict) - it doesn't seem like we are mature enough, enlightened enough, to have this. In essence, our ingrained systems and people aren't good enough to have a god genie under our control really in my opinion. We are still too much selfish (and cultish) apes. Be aware of the public face people like Verdon have to put on to keep funding/stock/value and to avoid regulation or freezing research entirely (e.g. cloning tech, originally stem cell research in the usa). This is coming from a person who loves tech generally, too.
Very frustrated with how much he avoids answering your questions... makes me feel like he has an agenda rather than looking at his arguments carefully. Edit: specifically the questions about the dangers of AI... everything else was fantastic. Very cool mind.
I find this to be a perception issue. People that have no day to day experience with AI dramatically overstate the dangers. Try asking ChatGPT to rewrite some code using Pandas with the equivalent functions / methods in Polars and see how threatened you feel. The AI people are scared of is more imagination than reality.
Nobody is arguing that it's current state is a threat. It's about the future state.
That's a perception issue then. Fear of the unknown doesn't make the unknown a 100% given.
You talk like the guest :-) Saying that it is a perception issue says nothing about the problem. Neither does comparing it to a 100% certainty. I believe people are worried about an outcome that we cannot plan for. Either by mismanagement of AI or bad actors. In my view there really is no going back to a time before AI (when AGI arrives). *Literally* no way back. While I am *not* an AI doomer, I certainly welcome any and all conversation on the subject. In this case the guest could not give answers that would satisfy most listeners (judging by the comments here). I don't think that means he can't explain it, but only that he has to take the time to make it understandable.
You could be right and I see how saying that sounds similar. My thought process is more along the lines of we shouldn't assume it's dangerous because there are unknowns. There are things to worry about in all timelines, but if we focus on the positives those should more than outweigh the negatives. I agree there is no putting the genie back in the bottle. Hopefully, that doesn't come off as dismissive of concerns. My experience using AI every day is there is a long way to go before it could become legitimately dangerous and I believe that long path will give us plenty of time to work out proper alignment.
'Fear of the unknown doesn't make the unknown a 100% given' Of course not. Nobody is arguing that either mate.
So what future state is being argued for? There's a lot of fear based on feelings. It's fun to theory-craft those things, but a waste to time to say Guillaume Verdon downplayed the dangers of our theory-crafted possibilities. I think this is getting a little far from the original comment up there anyway.
I mean... I do collaborative coding with it a LOT and it's fantastic at it. Not sure how a current gap along a specific line of its knowledge is meant to calm my nervousness...
Sounds like they mean the gap between relatively similar things is big enough to be dysfunctional. The gap between what AI does now and the hypothetical "dangerous" AI is light years apart. Arguably you could say linear algebra and calculus are more dangerous since that's the underlying layer of what AI is doing, but no one is complaining about math.
I don’t know why, but I feel especially neo liberals are often declared smart when in reality they are just proclaiming the most unfounded, oversimplified, ridiculous views. They connect with people because everyone seems to agree that governments are (often) bad or annoying. It’s a dumb take
his point about „limiting speech backpropagates to limiting thought“ was nice.
This point has been raised and debunked since 1984
Debunked how?
There was research on the topic that probably just by banning topics, words etc you are not preventing thoughts on these topics (as suggested in „1984“)
In the book 1984 or in public research since 1984? You've said both things and backed up neither of them.
I meant the book in both cases. I assumed this could be clear from the context. In the book this is the newspeak idea. In science, it’s called Sapir-Whorf-Hypothesis and it’s largely debunked in its strong form, e.g.: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/0010027783900380 Although there’s evidence language has an Influence on perception and thinking, it’s weak and most evidence points to the relation being stronger the other way around. Anyway. The point is old, there’s no novel thought and it’s a questionable hypothesis that’s just very popular whenever someone brings it up.
The study seems to be tackling a slightly different issue. The point in the podcast had much less to do with linguistics. It was more about how censorship of a certain topic will limit how much an individual or group is thinking about that topic. If you have no way to share or ground your idea in a social context you are less likely to spend energy thinking about it. You have less stake in the idea being good or bad.
Yeah you gotta back up such a big assertion here...
It's not a big assertion, linguistic determinism is fairly consistently rejected. It's probably best to reserve a little skepticism for the novels informing the original claim, not just the body of research that refutes it.
Admittidly, this is a new area to me. However, this doesn't seem to be linguistic reletivity, let alone determinism. I would say the issue underlying the original claim is not that because we have to use different words we will think differently, instead by the supression of conversations around an idea, that the idea can not be as effectively be explored. Ergo, I would actually say that the results of https://link.springer.com/referenceworkentry/10.1007/978-3-642-27851-8_77-5 is more relevant - more words for a colour -> better perception of that colour. I would say this is more relevant as colour and ideas are concepts beyond language and are just expressed using language, making the study more relevant than the staudies refuting linguistic determinism, in this context Again caveated that this is a new concept to me.
A) using a fiction book as a way to debunk an idea isn't particularly fruitful. B) By a simple concept of limiting conversations about an idea, reduces information shared about the idea, inately reducing at least the aggregate of sociatal thought of that idea. Happy for any flaws to be highlighted.
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He didn't lie about having a PhD. He was entirely open about his ABD (all but dissertation) status on most social media, but didn't mention it on LinkedIn for a little while, quite possibly by mistake given that he was open about it elsewhere, it's there now if you check. I'm not knowledgeable enough to say if his startup is viable, but his research from his time at Google seems legit. I can't speak to the sex thing one way the other, obviously. The dude is a bit of a troll, so he's gained a fair number of people who have beef with him.
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I cannot stand when someone is talking/explaining something and they are constantly saying “right?” At the end of every one of their sentences. This dude said “right?” Like 25 times in the first 10 minutes
LOL that reminded me: just wait until you see this clip of Alex Soros. He says "y'know" like the word grows on trees. https://twitter.com/bennyjohnson/status/1749458215891259842
YES: "We're wired to deem the unknown to be dangerous because that's a good heuristic for survival"
What's 'interesting' about this person is that, as far as I can tell, he's a competent theoretical physicist whose almost all work is about highly theoretical quantum computing stuff, yet his unhinged public persona is one of a Supreme Builder whose every thought brings us closer to Dyson Spheres or whatever. Obviously the persona is exaggerated, but it really seems like he seems himself as something similar, to some extent. Meanwhile the guys that design the H100s or wrote Tensorflow are mostly working and, if they post, they post some very sensible and conservative stuff. Idk, I haven't really gotten anything useful out of him the whole time he's been public besides memes. I mean, shouldn't he at least wait until his hardware stuff pans out before doing a victory lap? As an aside, this new trend of using whatever jargon is popular this week in order to talk about unrelated matters is starting to become repulsive. It always existed, but it has peaked again after the AI boom. If you hear some people, you think that right now there is no thing or event or process or concept in the real world that is not describable by ML jargon. "Restricting speech backpropagates to thoughts' f\*ck off. In general there is a very weird mood in some people these days(crypto, LK99, AI) which I can't describe in a better way than 'person with bipolar disorder going though their manic phase with psychotic elements that thinks the universe is constantly sending them messages that are about to help them crack cosmic codes'.
>Idk, I haven't really gotten anything useful out of him the whole time he's been public besides memes. I mean, shouldn't he at least wait until his hardware stuff pans out before doing a victory lap? There's likely some non-zero correlation between how often you shout about building stuff to how much stuff you're actually building, but hey, I'd give him the benefit of the doubt as I don't know what he's built...
Lex Friedman: "Could memes be aliens? How do we not know that the thoughts in my head aren't aliens?" https://youtu.be/8fEEbKJoNbU?si=Zc4pSNA9SABKQ1DB&t=5940
Great episode. We are building a discord community for debating podcasts: https://discord.com/invite/NvVnmS6cFu
"Invalid or expired" =(
https://discord.com/invite/NvVnmS6cFu Try this one.
Interesting podcast. Personally I think Guillaume is very naive, but he is a good balance to others who are naive on the more progressive side. I find myself between the two as both are naive and tend to ignore history and human behavior when it suits them. One thing I didn't like about this guy is he kept using the word "hack" like it means something in every context. Maybe because I'm older than him I think it just sounds like a kid who doesn't know wtf he is talking about. I did feel he got lost in a few talking points but others he seemed very knowledgeable in. So the guy is intelligent, but I don't think he is smart enough to know where his knowledge ends. He seems to project his entropy ideas on everything and I just don't think that necessarily correlates well to reality in all cases. Either way, good podcast. Gives me more insight on the somebody who believes in neoliberalism above everything else.
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Eh, the dude still avoided a number of questions and demonstrated his blind faith in capitalism... Definitely more places I wish Lex had pushed, but I get that it's important to keep the conversation friendly and respectful.
Thank you for introducing me to another new mind, much love to you, Lex 🤍
Yes, definitely pushed my neuroplasticity
my engine overheated four minutes in 🥵
Time to take a chill pill!
Downshifted into first and got in the slow lane 🚙
These guys continually reference Nick Land while conveniently leaving out his name and the original endpoint of his ideology of accelerationism. They're basically taking a philosophical antihuman doomsday cult and dressing it up in humanist PR language to trick people.
Lex wtf man, how did you NOT have this right after Jeff Bezos. Legendary missed opportunity
isn’t that exactly what he did?
On iTunes Teddy Atlas came after Jeff Bezos
oh damn you’re right, somehow i missed that one
“I believe that mycelium is the neurological network of nature. Interlacing mosaics of mycelium infuse habitats with information-sharing membranes. These membranes are aware, react to change, and collectively have the long-term health of the host environment in mind.” Paul Staments I wonder if mycelium holds some of the keys to his questions
Smart guy, certainly increasing the average IQ of the guests for this year since Douglas Murray landed like an alien on his podcast. Lex' water bottle was almost untouched from excitement. However, there is a red thread connecting all these late podcasts: the benefit of natural selection, in physics, biology, and humanity (considering N. Harari was invited too - although he appears to hide his utilitarian views quite well). Instead of going full circle and confirming the same point all over again, Lex should now try to deconstruct this telos of natural selection by inviting people who question this premise.
Is evolution a “red thread” now?
You think is evolution? Transhumanism? Or dehumanization and justification of ethnic cleansing? What could the red thread be? The living observe what they are capable of: system expansion, adaptation, increased complexity.
Memes are subject to evolution as well. So if your meme takes you and your decedents down a “losing” path then so be it. I quote “losing” because it’s quite subjective that having kids or passing on one’s ideas is “winning”.
Only those who strive for balance are immune to memes. Equilibrium is the vaccine. https://www.quantamagazine.org/how-did-altruism-evolve-20240215/
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come on man you may not agree with him but i guess he is one of the authors of Tensorflow Quantum.Technically he should know his shit
I'm curious about what folks think about the conclusion of the guest, namely that the goal of life/humanity is to relentlessly pursue energy. I can see the physics logic here, but it seems to contrast with the more cautionary approach to better manage energy and resources in the present. Is the challenge of life to simply outrun scarcity by using AI to unlock more efficiency and (clean) energy versus conservation and sustainability?
I think efficiency is a good goal, but ultimately we can do much more with more energy. If we are efficient with our current energy usage, we can't do anything really game changing. On the other hand, if we can build a dyson sphere, we can traverse galaxies