
Hosted by Spencer Greenberg · EN

Read the full transcript here. Is AI going to ruin everything? What kind of AI-related dangers should we be most worried about? What do good institutions look like? Should designing better institutions be a major priority for modern civilizations? What are the various ways institutions decay? How much should we blame social media for the current state of our institutions? Under what conditions, if any, should the flow of information be regulated? What are some of the lesser-known kinds of AI disalignment? What actions should we take in light of the lack of consensus about AI?Gabe Alfour has a background in theoretical computer science and has long been interested in understanding and tackling fundamental challenges of advancing and shaping technological progress. Fresh out of university, he developed a new programming language and founded a successful French crypto consultancy. Gabe has long had an interest in artificial intelligence, which he expected to be a major accelerator of technological progress. But after interacting with GPT-3, he became increasingly concerned with the catastrophic risks frontier AI systems pose, and decided to work on mitigating them. He studied up on AI and joined online open-source AI community EleutherAI, where he met Connor Leahy. In 2022, they co-founded Conjecture, an AI safety start-up. Gabe is also an advisor with ControlAI, an AI policy nonprofit. Email Gabe at ga@conjecture.dev, follow him on Twitter / X at @Gabe_cc, or read his writings on his blog at site.cognition.cafe. StaffSpencer Greenberg — Host / DirectorJosh Castle — ProducerRyan Kessler — Audio EngineerUri Bram — FactotumWeAmplify — TranscriptionistsIgor Scaldini — Marketing ConsultantMusicBroke for FreeJosh WoodwardLee RosevereQuiet Music for Tiny Robotswowamusiczapsplat.comAffiliatesClearer ThinkingGuidedTrackMind EasePositlyUpLift[Read more]

Read the full transcript here. What defines a cult? Is there such a thing as a good cult? Do Clearer Thinking's tools actually help people? Why does Clearer Thinking share its tools for free for everyone to use? How legitimate is the research Clearer Thinking does to create its tools? Is that research too reliant on self-report? Do Clearer Thinking's tools focus too much on the average person and fail to account for significant variance among people? Should AI companies be required to create and release text watermarking tools? Should smart, knowledgeable people speak out more? Would the average person think (without priming or knowledge of the discourse around it) that Elon Musk's gesture at the inauguration was a Nazi salute? Does Spencer sometimes coin new terms where useful terms already exist? Does Spencer think that everyone should adopt valuism, his life philosophy? Is magic real? What critiques have stuck with Spencer over the years and shaped his work? StaffSpencer Greenberg — Host / DirectorJosh Castle — ProducerRyan Kessler — Audio EngineerUri Bram — FactotumWeAmplify — TranscriptionistsIgor Scaldini — Marketing ConsultantMusicBroke for FreeJosh WoodwardLee RosevereQuiet Music for Tiny Robotswowamusiczapsplat.comAffiliatesClearer ThinkingGuidedTrackMind EasePositlyUpLift[Read more]

Read the full transcript here. NOTE: The video version of this conversation is available on YouTube: https://youtu.be/hWNknrc23FoIn light of the replication crisis, should social scientists try to replicate every major finding in the field's history? Why is human memory so faulty? And since human memory is so faulty, why do we take eyewitness testimony in legal contexts so seriously? How different are people's experiences of the world? What are the various failure modes in social science research? How much progress have the social sciences made implementing reforms and applying more rigorous standards? Why does peer review seem so susceptible to importance hacking? When is observation more important than interpretation, and vice versa? Do the top journals contain the least replicable papers? What value do Freud's ideas still provide today? How useful are neo-Freudian therapeutic methods? Should social scientists run studies on LLMs? Which of Paul's books does ChatGPT like the least?Paul Bloom is Professor of Psychology at the University of Toronto, and Brooks and Suzanne Ragen Professor Emeritus of Psychology at Yale University. Paul Bloom studies how children and adults make sense of the world, with special focus on pleasure, morality, religion, fiction, and art. He has won numerous awards for his research and teaching. He is past-president of the Society for Philosophy and Psychology, and co-editor of Behavioral and Brain Sciences. He has written for scientific journals such as Nature and Science, and for popular outlets such as The New York Times, The Guardian, The New Yorker, and The Atlantic Monthly. He is the author of seven books, including his most recent, Psych: The Story of the Human Mind. Find more about him at paulbloom.net, or follow his Substack. StaffSpencer Greenberg — Host / DirectorJosh Castle — ProducerRyan Kessler — Audio EngineerUri Bram — FactotumWeAmplify — TranscriptionistsIgor Scaldini — Marketing ConsultantMusicBroke for FreeJosh WoodwardLee RosevereQuiet Music for Tiny Robotswowamusiczapsplat.comAffiliatesClearer ThinkingGuidedTrackMind EasePositlyUpLift[Read more]

Read the full transcript here. What does it mean to bring your "A-game" to relationships? What is emotional "fitness"? What forces do relationships need to balance to remain stable and healthy? Are we attracted to a particular brand of heartbreak? What are "original attachment wounds"? Can Dark Triad traits be tamed? What emergent properties do relationships exhibit? What nourishes a relationship? When should relationships end? Why might people choose to maintain abusive relationships? How can trauma victims regain their sense of agency? What is self-care really about?As a cutting-edge Relationship Coach, Annie Lalla maps the emotional complexities of long-term romance. She helps clients & students build romantic esteem by cultivating collaboration skills that go beyond power struggles, shame, or blame. Annie stands for True Love and is world-class at supporting relational growth across a lifetime. Follow her on Instagram at @lallabird, email her at annie@annielalla.com, or learn more about her on her website, annielalla.com. StaffSpencer Greenberg — Host / DirectorJosh Castle — ProducerRyan Kessler — Audio EngineerUri Bram — FactotumWeAmplify — TranscriptionistsIgor Scaldini — Marketing ConsultantMusicBroke for FreeJosh WoodwardLee RosevereQuiet Music for Tiny Robotswowamusiczapsplat.comAffiliatesClearer ThinkingGuidedTrackMind EasePositlyUpLift[Read more]

Read the full transcript here. Do we still have a lot to learn from ancient Greco-Roman philosophies? What is telos? What is ataraxia? What is "dark" Stoicism? What is the "resilient asshole" problem? What is (or what has) value according to Stoicism? What are the similarities and differences between Stoicism and Buddhism? Why might someone prefer a life "philosophy" over a set of life "hacks"? What is good? And how do you know? How could you know if you potentially adopted the wrong life philosophy? What value can modern humans find in Stoicism, Epicureanism, Pyrrhonism, and Cyrenaicism?Gregory Lopez has been practicing Stoicism for over a decade and Buddhism a bit longer. He is co-author of A Handbook for New Stoics and Beyond Stoicism. He is also the founder of the New York City Stoics, co-founder of The Stoic Fellowship, a member of the Modern Stoicism team, and a faculty member of Stoa Nova. Additionally, he co-facilitates Stoic Camp New York annually with Massimo Pigliucci. You can find out more and contact him at his website, greglopez.me. StaffSpencer Greenberg — Host / DirectorJosh Castle — ProducerRyan Kessler — Audio EngineerUri Bram — FactotumWeAmplify — TranscriptionistsIgor Scaldini — Marketing ConsultantMusicBroke for FreeJosh WoodwardLee RosevereQuiet Music for Tiny Robotswowamusiczapsplat.comAffiliatesClearer ThinkingGuidedTrackMind EasePositlyUpLift[Read more]

Read the full transcript here. In times of such extreme political polarization, where can we find common ground? Should we require disclosure of AI authorship? Should AI companies be required to provide fingerprinting tools that can identify when something has been generated by one of their models? Should movie theaters be required to report when movies actually start? Should members of Congress be prohibited from insider trading? Should gerrymandering be outlawed? Should there be age limits on political office? Should we provide free school meals nation-wide? What roadblocks stand in the way of people being able to vote on their phones? What's Spencer's formula for productivity? Which of the productivity factors do most people fail to take into account? What are some "doubly-rewarding" activities? Is altruism a harmful idea? What are people worst at predicting?Bradley Tusk is a venture capitalist, political strategist, philanthropist, and writer. He is the CEO and co-founder of Tusk Ventures, the world's first venture capital fund that invests solely in early stage startups in highly regulated industries, and the founder of political consulting firm Tusk Strategies. Bradley's family foundation is funding and leading the national campaign to bring mobile voting to U.S. elections and also has run anti-hunger campaigns in 24 different states, helping to feed over 13 million people. He is also an adjunct professor at Columbia Business School. Before Vote With Your Phone, Bradley authored The Fixer: My Adventures Saving Startups From Death by Politics and Obvious in Hindsight. He hosts a podcast called Firewall about the intersection of tech and politics, and recently opened an independent bookstore, P&T Knitwear, on Manhattan's Lower East Side. In his earlier career, Bradley served as campaign manager for Mike Bloomberg's 2009 mayoral race, as Deputy Governor of Illinois, overseeing the state's budget, operations, legislation, policy, and communications, as communications director for US Senator Chuck Schumer, and as Uber's first political advisor. Connect with Bradley on Substack and LinkedIn.Further readingEpisode 230: Who really controls US elections? (with Bradley Tusk) StaffSpencer Greenberg — Host / DirectorJosh Castle — ProducerRyan Kessler — Audio EngineerUri Bram — FactotumWeAmplify — TranscriptionistsIgor Scaldini — Marketing ConsultantMusicBroke for FreeJosh WoodwardLee RosevereQuiet Music for Tiny Robotswowamusiczapsplat.comAffiliatesClearer ThinkingGuidedTrackMind EasePositlyUpLift[Read more]

Read the full transcript here. What interesting things can we learn by studying pre-humans? How many different species of pre-humans were there? Why is there only a single species of human now? If pre-human species wiped each other out for various reasons, why might the ancestors of chimps and bonobos (who are very closely related to humans) have been spared? What roles did language, racism / speciesism, and disease likely play in the shaping of the human evolutionary tree? How is AI development like and unlike human development? What can we learn about AI development from human development and vice versa? What is an "AI firm"? What are some advantages AI firms would have over human companies in addition to intelligence and speed? How can we learn faster and retain knowledge better? Is writing the best way to learn something deeply? Dwarkesh Patel is the host of the Dwarkesh Podcast. Listen to his podcast, read his writings on Substack, or learn more about him at his website, dwarkeshpatel.com. Staff Spencer Greenberg — Host / Director Josh Castle — Producer Ryan Kessler — Audio Engineer Uri Bram — Factotum WeAmplify — Transcriptionists Music Broke for Free Josh Woodward Lee Rosevere Quiet Music for Tiny Robots wowamusic zapsplat.com Affiliates Clearer Thinking GuidedTrack Mind Ease Positly UpLift [Read more]