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.
17 transcript-backed records
01 / preference
I think there’s a more general version of this principle, which is that the dual-use nature of intelligence does mean that if we want to restrict AIs from helping people do things we don’t consider pro-social or beneficial, we just have to limit broad democratic access to a lot of AI capabilities.
“I think there’s a more general version of this principle, which is that the dual-use nature of intelligence does mean that if we want to restrict AIs from helping people do things we don’t consider pro-social or beneficial, we just have to limit broad democratic access to a lot of AI capabilities.”
- Speaker
- Dwarkesh Patel
- Publisher
- Dwarkesh Podcast
02 / preference
I really like this because even though it seems like a totally random skill… It’s just like, people are talking about recursive self-improvement in a year, and we can’t get these things to write good flashcards.
“I really like this because even though it seems like a totally random skill… It’s just like, people are talking about recursive self-improvement in a year, and we can’t get these things to write good flashcards.”
- Speaker
- Dwarkesh Patel
- Publisher
- Dwarkesh Podcast
03 / preference
The humans who are wealthiest—and growing wealthier because their wealth is compounding—just have this almost Nick Landian preference for accelerating capital.
“The humans who are wealthiest—and growing wealthier because their wealth is compounding—just have this almost Nick Landian preference for accelerating capital.”
- Speaker
- Dwarkesh Patel
- Publisher
- Dwarkesh Podcast
04 / preference
We’ve talked about how it seems obvious that you should try to maximize compute relative to communication.
“We’ve talked about how it seems obvious that you should try to maximize compute relative to communication.”
- Speaker
- Dwarkesh Patel
- Publisher
- Dwarkesh Podcast
05 / preference
I actually don’t know what I think about whether it’s good to sell chips to China or not, but I like to play devil’s advocate against my guests.
“I actually don’t know what I think about whether it’s good to sell chips to China or not, but I like to play devil’s advocate against my guests.”
- Speaker
- Dwarkesh Patel
- Episode
- Jensen Huang – TPU competition, why we should sell chips to China, & Nvidia’s supply chain moat
- Publisher
- Dwarkesh Podcast
06 / preference
Because when I think of actual human geniuses, an actual country of human geniuses in a data center, I would happily buy $5 trillion worth of compute to run an actual country of human geniuses in a data center.
“Because when I think of actual human geniuses, an actual country of human geniuses in a data center, I would happily buy $5 trillion worth of compute to run an actual country of human geniuses in a data center.”
- Speaker
- Dwarkesh Patel
- Publisher
- Dwarkesh Podcast
07 / preference
I like this idea that the real reward hacking is the human researchers who are too focused on the evals.
“I like this idea that the real reward hacking is the human researchers who are too focused on the evals.”
- Speaker
- Dwarkesh Patel
- Publisher
- Dwarkesh Podcast
08 / preference
Could we make chickens or pigs with no brains? Because it’s the suffering we care about.
“Could we make chickens or pigs with no brains? Because it’s the suffering we care about.”
- Speaker
- Dwarkesh Patel
- Publisher
- Dwarkesh Podcast
09 / preference
If we take that perspective seriously, was life before human population exploded and we had agriculture just much more pleasant, at least in comparison?
“If we take that perspective seriously, was life before human population exploded and we had agriculture just much more pleasant, at least in comparison?”
- Speaker
- Dwarkesh Patel
- Publisher
- Dwarkesh Podcast
10 / preference
I don't think about the hour that I'll spend with you. I think about the two weeks, because this is my life, right?
“I don't think about the hour that I'll spend with you. I think about the two weeks, because this is my life, right?”
- Speaker
- Dwarkesh Patel
- Publisher
- Dwarkesh Podcast
11 / preference
I don't know if you've seen me do this, but every time I encounter a young person who's like, "What should I do with my life?
“I don't know if you've seen me do this, but every time I encounter a young person who's like, "What should I do with my life?”
- Speaker
- Dwarkesh Patel
- Publisher
- Dwarkesh Podcast
12 / preference
One of my favorite blog posts of yours is “Evolution as Backstop for RL,” where you talk about evolution as basically a mechanism to learn a better learning process.
“One of my favorite blog posts of yours is “Evolution as Backstop for RL,” where you talk about evolution as basically a mechanism to learn a better learning process.”
- Speaker
- Dwarkesh Patel
- Publisher
- Dwarkesh Podcast
13 / preference
Potentially, if the takeoff is slower than anticipated, I prefer the private companies in that world.
“Potentially, if the takeoff is slower than anticipated, I prefer the private companies in that world.”
- Speaker
- Dwarkesh Patel
- Publisher
- Dwarkesh Podcast
14 / preference
On the other hand, I think I heard you make the point that a lot of our preferences and values are very subtle, so they might be best represented through pairwise preferences.
“On the other hand, I think I heard you make the point that a lot of our preferences and values are very subtle, so they might be best represented through pairwise preferences.”
- Speaker
- Dwarkesh Patel
- Publisher
- Dwarkesh Podcast
15 / preference
There's a case in which you don't want to open source the architecture because China can use it to catch up to America's AIs and there is an intelligence explosion and they win that.
“There's a case in which you don't want to open source the architecture because China can use it to catch up to America's AIs and there is an intelligence explosion and they win that.”
- Speaker
- Dwarkesh Patel
- Publisher
- Dwarkesh Podcast
16 / preference
I think 40,000 words is perfect because it’ll actually fit in context. So when you do the GPT-4.
“I think 40,000 words is perfect because it’ll actually fit in context. So when you do the GPT-4.”
- Speaker
- Dwarkesh Patel
- Publisher
- Dwarkesh Podcast
17 / preference
co and the way I would describe Byrne is — every time I have a question about a concept or an event in finance, I google the name of that event or concept into Google and put in ‘Byrne Hobart’ at the end of that search query and 9 times out of 10, it's the best thing I've read about that topic.
“co and the way I would describe Byrne is — every time I have a question about a concept or an event in finance, I google the name of that event or concept into Google and put in ‘Byrne Hobart’ at the end of that search query and 9 times out of 10, it's the best thing I've read about that topic.”
- Speaker
- Dwarkesh Patel
- Publisher
- Dwarkesh Podcast