service / recommends
3Blue1Brown
“One takeaway I had from reading and watching your stuff on the cosmic distance ladder… By the way, I highly recommend people watch your series with 3Blue1Brown on the cosmic distance ladder.”
Public evidence record
Dwarkesh Patel
Host · Dwarkesh Podcast
- Claims
- 500
- Episodes
- 86
- Shows
- 1
- Named items
- 5
Books, apps, and tools
The evidenced stack.
book / uses
The Prize
“The thing I find wild when I'm reading The Prize is just how much economic development is ultimately contingent on the laws of physics.”
book / recommends
The Storm of War
“You have this really interesting book, I think probably my favorite book about World War II, The Storm of War, which I highly recommend.”
book / recommends
The Power Broker
“Yeah, I totally agree. I don't want to repeat myself, because I talked about this on my Byrne episode but we were talking about Robert Caro's books and one interesting thing is this guy was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize before he wrote The Power Broker. He was a top tier investigative journalist. Can you imagine crunching the numbers as a top tier investigative journalist at the peak of your career and you're like, “You know what would be a good use of my time? I'm going to spend the next seven years, in almost poverty, writing about this one guy who had a lot of influence in New York. I'm going to talk to any person who had conceivably even been in the same room as him or had been indirectly affected by his policies in any way. And I'm gonna do that obsessively for the next seven years.” There's no way the number crunching would get you there but it's probably been one of the most influential books in terms of how urban governance is done. Presidents have praised and read the book and said it changed how they think about politics. It is the kind of thing where you wouldn't have gone to that conclusion just from thinking about it beforehand and this is the most effective thing I could do.”
book / recommends
Triumph of the City
“Your most recent book is Survival of the City. And before that Triumph of the City, both of which I highly recommend to readers.”
Claim ledger
What Dwarkesh said.
18 transcript-backed records
01 / observation
However, the problem is you spend most of training in this regime, in the low pass rate regime.
“However, the problem is you spend most of training in this regime, in the low pass rate regime.”
- Speaker
- Dwarkesh Patel
- Publisher
- Dwarkesh Podcast
02 / observation
We’ve seen the valuations of a bunch of software companies crash because people are expecting AI to commoditize software.
“We’ve seen the valuations of a bunch of software companies crash because people are expecting AI to commoditize software.”
- Speaker
- Dwarkesh Patel
- Episode
- Jensen Huang – TPU competition, why we should sell chips to China, & Nvidia’s supply chain moat
- Publisher
- Dwarkesh Podcast
03 / observation
If I understand that, I have some good understanding. The problem is with almost every other field, there’s not this curriculum.
“If I understand that, I have some good understanding. The problem is with almost every other field, there’s not this curriculum.”
- Speaker
- Dwarkesh Patel
- Publisher
- Dwarkesh Podcast
04 / observation
For this interview, I went through three lectures of the Susskind special relativity book. The problem is that there’s almost no practice problems in it.
“For this interview, I went through three lectures of the Susskind special relativity book. The problem is that there’s almost no practice problems in it.”
- Speaker
- Dwarkesh Patel
- Publisher
- Dwarkesh Podcast
05 / observation
The ancient Athenians were like, “This can’t be because if the earth is going around the sun, we should see the relative position of the stars change as we’re going around the sun, and the only way that wouldn’t be the case is if they’re so far away that you don’t notice any parallax,” which is actually the correct implication.
“The ancient Athenians were like, “This can’t be because if the earth is going around the sun, we should see the relative position of the stars change as we’re going around the sun, and the only way that wouldn’t be the case is if they’re so far away that you don’t notice any parallax,” which is actually the correct implication.”
- Speaker
- Dwarkesh Patel
- Publisher
- Dwarkesh Podcast
06 / observation
I heard a theory that the reason is that Nvidia’s scale-ups have just not had that much memory capacity.
“I heard a theory that the reason is that Nvidia’s scale-ups have just not had that much memory capacity.”
- Speaker
- Dwarkesh Patel
- Publisher
- Dwarkesh Podcast
07 / observation
Based on your statements about Tesla and being public, I wouldn’t have guessed that you thought the way to move fast is to be public.
“Based on your statements about Tesla and being public, I wouldn’t have guessed that you thought the way to move fast is to be public.”
- Speaker
- Dwarkesh Patel
- Publisher
- Dwarkesh Podcast
08 / observation
If you buy the Sutton perspective that the crux of intelligence is animal intelligence… The quote he said is “If you got to the squirrel, you’d be most of the way to AGI.
“If you buy the Sutton perspective that the crux of intelligence is animal intelligence… The quote he said is “If you got to the squirrel, you’d be most of the way to AGI.”
- Speaker
- Dwarkesh Patel
- Publisher
- Dwarkesh Podcast
09 / observation
It’ll say, “Okay, I’m going to approach this problem using this approach first.” It’ll write this out and be like, “Oh wait, I just realized this is the wrong conceptual way to approach the problem.
“It’ll say, “Okay, I’m going to approach this problem using this approach first.” It’ll write this out and be like, “Oh wait, I just realized this is the wrong conceptual way to approach the problem.”
- Speaker
- Dwarkesh Patel
- Publisher
- Dwarkesh Podcast
10 / observation
The reason why that’s so shocking…On its face it's shocking. But in other areas where you're trying to do global health or something, first, the problem is improving on its own.
“The reason why that’s so shocking…On its face it's shocking. But in other areas where you're trying to do global health or something, first, the problem is improving on its own.”
- Speaker
- Dwarkesh Patel
- Publisher
- Dwarkesh Podcast
11 / observation
Then the problem is not that if there were accurate labeling, you'd think there might be consumer demand to make this a viable, much larger industry.
“Then the problem is not that if there were accurate labeling, you'd think there might be consumer demand to make this a viable, much larger industry.”
- Speaker
- Dwarkesh Patel
- Publisher
- Dwarkesh Podcast
12 / observation
In many of these cases, there's this period in between when they're a dead man walking—because Stalin has started putting the feelers out that this person is a Trotskyite or something—but they're still in their positions of power.
“In many of these cases, there's this period in between when they're a dead man walking—because Stalin has started putting the feelers out that this person is a Trotskyite or something—but they're still in their positions of power.”
- Speaker
- Dwarkesh Patel
- Publisher
- Dwarkesh Podcast
13 / observation
Why is China such a powerful country or America such a powerful country? A big part of the reason is we just have more people.
“Why is China such a powerful country or America such a powerful country? A big part of the reason is we just have more people.”
- Speaker
- Dwarkesh Patel
- Publisher
- Dwarkesh Podcast
14 / observation
On that point in particular, many people who have longer timelines have come on the podcast and made the point that the way to train this long horizon RL, it's not… Earlier we were talking about how they can think for five minutes, but not for longer.
“On that point in particular, many people who have longer timelines have come on the podcast and made the point that the way to train this long horizon RL, it's not… Earlier we were talking about how they can think for five minutes, but not for longer.”
- Speaker
- Dwarkesh Patel
- Publisher
- Dwarkesh Podcast
15 / observation
I was told by people advancing this idea — because they know I’m a libertarian-type person and the way they approached me was like this — that the way to think about it was that it's fundamentally a way to protect market-based development of AGI.
“I was told by people advancing this idea — because they know I’m a libertarian-type person and the way they approached me was like this — that the way to think about it was that it's fundamentally a way to protect market-based development of AGI.”
- Speaker
- Dwarkesh Patel
- Publisher
- Dwarkesh Podcast
16 / observation
” Now, it’s a fascinating idea that investment is irrational, or most investment throughout history has been irrational. But when we think today about the fact that active investing exists for winners’ curse like reasons, VCs probably make, on average, less returns than the market, there’s a whole bunch of different examples you can go through, right?
“” Now, it’s a fascinating idea that investment is irrational, or most investment throughout history has been irrational. But when we think today about the fact that active investing exists for winners’ curse like reasons, VCs probably make, on average, less returns than the market, there’s a whole bunch of different examples you can go through, right?”
- Speaker
- Dwarkesh Patel
- Publisher
- Dwarkesh Podcast
17 / observation
Tell me why I should be less amazed by it or maybe put it in a different context but the reason I would be very impressed is… With chess, obviously this is not all the chess programs are doing, but there's a level of research you can do to narrow down the possibilities. And more importantly, in the math example, it seems that with some of the examples you've listed on your channel, the ability to solve the problem is so dependent on coming up with the right abstraction to think about it, coming up with ways of thinking about it that are not evident in the problem itself or in any other problem in any other test, that seems different from just a chess game where you don't have to think about what is the largest structure of this chess game in the same way as you do with the IMO problem.
“Tell me why I should be less amazed by it or maybe put it in a different context but the reason I would be very impressed is… With chess, obviously this is not all the chess programs are doing, but there's a level of research you can do to narrow down the possibilities. And more importantly, in the math example, it seems that with some of the examples you've listed on your channel, the ability to solve the problem is so dependent on coming up with the right abstraction to think about it, coming up with ways of thinking about it that are not evident in the problem itself or in any other problem in any other test, that seems different from just a chess game where you don't have to think about what is the largest structure of this chess game in the same way as you do with the IMO problem.”
- Speaker
- Dwarkesh Patel
- Publisher
- Dwarkesh Podcast
18 / observation
Something that makes you think the problem is twice as hard, you go from like 99% to like 99.
“Something that makes you think the problem is twice as hard, you go from like 99% to like 99.”
- Speaker
- Dwarkesh Patel
- Episode
- Eliezer Yudkowsky — Why AI will kill us, aligning LLMs, nature of intelligence, SciFi, & rationality
- Publisher
- Dwarkesh Podcast