Dwarkesh podcast

#Dwarkesh Patel #Tech #Science #George Mason University

32:08

Did you know there’s an actual science to uncovering your hidden genius? It’s not about filling out a “dream job” worksheet—it’s about understanding how your brain is wired, identifying your natural aptitudes, and using them to thrive. This isn’t just a self-discovery exercise. It’s a game-changer for your career, your relationships, and how you show up in the world. Betsy Wills and Alex Ellison are redefining how we approach career discovery, proving that finding the right path isn’t just about landing a job—it’s about creating a life that aligns with who you actually are. ✅ Betsy Wills – Cofounder of YouScience, a groundbreaking psychometric assessment platform reshaping how we understand our talents. She’s also the Director of Marketing & Branding at Diversified Trust and a frequent lecturer at Vanderbilt University and NYU’s Stern School of Business. ✅ Alex Ellison – Founder of Throughline Guidance, a global college and career counseling practice. She’s a sought-after writer, speaker, and expert in college readiness and career development. ✅ Together, they co-authored Your Hidden Genius: The Science-Backed Strategy to Uncovering and Harnessing Your Innate Talents. Discovering your hidden genius isn’t just about career success—it’s about tapping into what makes you, you . Connect with Betsy & Alex: Website (Free Downloads): www.yourhiddengenius.com Book: https://www.harpercollins.com/products/your-hidden-genius-elizabeth-m-willsalexandra-ellison Related Podcast Episodes: How To Be You, But Better with Olga Khazan | 288 Finding Purpose Through Human Design with Emma Dunwoody | 228 195 / Finding (And Using) Your Voice with Amy Green Smith Share the Love: If you found this episode insightful, please share it with a friend, tag us on social media, and leave a review on your favorite podcast platform! 🔗 Subscribe & Review: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Amazon Music…

Dwarkesh Podcast

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Deeply researched interviews
www.dwarkesh.com

99 episodes

Dwarkesh Podcast

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updated 9 days ago

Series home•Feed

Deeply researched interviews
www.dwarkesh.com

99 episodes

#Dwarkesh Patel #Tech #Science #George Mason University

All episodes

1
AMA ft. Sholto & Trenton: New Book, Career Advice Given AGI, How I'd Start From Scratch 49:33

9 days ago49:33

49:33

I recorded an AMA! I had a blast chatting with my friends Trenton Bricken and Sholto Douglas. We discussed my new book, career advice given AGI, how I pick guests, how I research for the show, and some other nonsense. My book, “ The Scaling Era: An Oral History of AI, 2019-2025 ” is available in digital format now. Preorders for the print version are also open! Watch on YouTube ; listen on Apple Podcasts or Spotify . Timestamps (0:00:00) - Book launch announcement (0:04:57) - AI models not making connections across fields (0:10:52) - Career advice given AGI (0:15:20) - Guest selection criteria (0:17:19) - Choosing to pursue the podcast long-term (0:25:12) - Reading habits (0:31:10) - Beard deepdive (0:33:02) - Who is best suited for running an AI lab? (0:35:16) - Preparing for fast AGI timelines (0:40:50) - Growing the podcast Get full access to Dwarkesh Podcast at www.dwarkesh.com/subscribe…

1
Joseph Henrich – Why Humans Survived and Smarter Species Didn't 1:52:59

22 days ago1:52:59

1:52:59

Humans have not succeeded because of our raw intelligence. Marooned European explorers regularly starved to death in areas where foragers thrived for 1000s of years. I’ve always found this cultural evolution deeply mysterious. How do you discover the 10 steps for processing cassava so it won’t give you cyanide poisoning simply by trial and error? Has the human brain declined in size over the last 10,000 years because we outsourced cultural evolution to a larger collective brain? The most interesting part of the podcast is Henrich’s explanation of how the Catholic Church unintentionally instigated the Industrial Revolution through the dismantling of intensive kinship systems in medieval Europe. Watch on Youtube ; listen on Apple Podcasts or Spotify . ---------- Sponsors Scale partners with major AI labs like Meta, Google Deepmind, and OpenAI. Through Scale’s Data Foundry, labs get access to high-quality data to fuel post-training, including advanced reasoning capabilities. If you’re an AI researcher or engineer, learn about how Scale’s Data Foundry and research lab, SEAL, can help you go beyond the current frontier at scale.com/dwarkesh . To sponsor a future episode, visit dwarkesh.com/p/advertise . ---------- Joseph’s books The WEIRDest People in the World The Secret of Our Success ---------- Timestamps (0:00:00) - Humans didn’t succeed because of raw IQ (0:09:27) - How cultural evolution works (0:20:48) - Why is human brain size declining? (0:32:00) - Will AGI have superhuman cultural learning? (0:42:34) - Why Industrial Revolution happened in Europe (0:55:30) - Why China, Rome, India got left behind (1:21:09) - Loss of cultural variance in modern world (1:31:20) - Is individual genius real? (1:43:49) - IQ and collective brains Get full access to Dwarkesh Podcast at www.dwarkesh.com/subscribe…

1
Notes on China 19:31

29 days ago19:31

19:31

I’m so excited with how this visualization of Notes on China turned out. Petr , thank you for such beautiful watercolor artwork. More to come! Watch on YouTube . ---------- Timestamps (0:00:00) - Intro (0:00:32) - Scale (0:05:50) - Vibes (0:11:14) - Youngsters (0:14:27) - Tech & AI (0:15:47) - Hearts & Minds (0:17:07) - On Travel Get full access to Dwarkesh Podcast at www.dwarkesh.com/subscribe…

1
Satya Nadella – Microsoft’s AGI Plan & Quantum Breakthrough 1:16:10

6 weeks ago1:16:10

1:16:10

Satya Nadella on: Why he doesn’t believe in AGI but does believe in 10% economic growth; Microsoft’s new topological qubit breakthrough and gaming world models; Whether Office commoditizes LLMs or the other way around. Watch on Youtube ; listen on Apple Podcasts or Spotify . ---------- Sponsors Scale partners with major AI labs like Meta, Google Deepmind, and OpenAI. Through Scale’s Data Foundry, labs get access to high-quality data to fuel post-training, including advanced reasoning capabilities. If you’re an AI researcher or engineer, learn about how Scale’s Data Foundry and research lab, SEAL, can help you go beyond the current frontier at scale.com/dwarkesh Linear's project management tools have become the default choice for product teams at companies like Ramp, CashApp, OpenAI, and Scale. These teams use Linear so they can stay close to their products and move fast. If you’re curious why so many companies are making the switch, visit linear.app/dwarkesh To sponsor a future episode, visit dwarkeshpatel.com/p/advertise . ---------- Timestamps (0:00:00) - Intro (0:05:04) - AI won't be winner-take-all (0:15:18) - World economy growing by 10% (0:21:39) - Decreasing price of intelligence (0:30:19) - Quantum breakthrough (0:42:51) - How Muse will change gaming (0:49:51) - Legal barriers to AI (0:55:46) - Getting AGI safety right (1:04:59) - 34 years at Microsoft (1:10:46) - Does Satya Nadella believe in AGI? Get full access to Dwarkesh Podcast at www.dwarkesh.com/subscribe…

1
Jeff Dean & Noam Shazeer – 25 years at Google: from PageRank to AGI 2:14:43

7 weeks ago2:14:43

2:14:43

This week I welcome on the show two of the most important technologists ever, in any field. Jeff Dean is Google's Chief Scientist, and through 25 years at the company, has worked on basically the most transformative systems in modern computing: from MapReduce, BigTable, Tensorflow, AlphaChip, to Gemini. Noam Shazeer invented or co-invented all the main architectures and techniques that are used for modern LLMs: from the Transformer itself, to Mixture of Experts, to Mesh Tensorflow, to Gemini and many other things. We talk about their 25 years at Google, going from PageRank to MapReduce to the Transformer to MoEs to AlphaChip – and maybe soon to ASI. My favorite part was Jeff's vision for Pathways, Google’s grand plan for a mutually-reinforcing loop of hardware and algorithmic design and for going past autoregression. That culminates in us imagining *all* of Google-the-company, going through one huge MoE model. And Noam just bites every bullet: 100x world GDP soon; let’s get a million automated researchers running in the Google datacenter; living to see the year 3000.Watch on Youtube ; listen on Apple Podcasts or Spotify . Sponsors Scale partners with major AI labs like Meta, Google Deepmind, and OpenAI. Through Scale’s Data Foundry, labs get access to high-quality data to fuel post-training, including advanced reasoning capabilities. If you’re an AI researcher or engineer, learn about how Scale’s Data Foundry and research lab, SEAL, can help you go beyond the current frontier at scale.com/dwarkesh Curious how Jane Street teaches their new traders? They use Figgie, a rapid-fire card game that simulates the most exciting parts of markets and trading. It’s become so popular that Jane Street hosts an inter-office Figgie championship every year. Download from the app store or play on your desktop at figgie.com Meter wants to radically improve the digital world we take for granted. They’re developing a foundation model that automates network management end-to-end. To do this, they just announced a long-term partnership with Microsoft for tens of thousands of GPUs, and they’re recruiting a world class AI research team. To learn more, go to meter.com/dwarkesh To sponsor a future episode, visit dwarkeshpatel.com/p/advertise Timestamps 00:00:00 - Intro 00:02:44 - Joining Google in 1999 00:05:36 - Future of Moore's Law 00:10:21 - Future TPUs 00:13:13 - Jeff’s undergrad thesis: parallel backprop 00:15:10 - LLMs in 2007 00:23:07 - “Holy s**t” moments 00:29:46 - AI fulfills Google’s original mission 00:34:19 - Doing Search in-context 00:38:32 - The internal coding model 00:39:49 - What will 2027 models do? 00:46:00 - A new architecture every day? 00:49:21 - Automated chip design and intelligence explosion 00:57:31 - Future of inference scaling 01:03:56 - Already doing multi-datacenter runs 01:22:33 - Debugging at scale 01:26:05 - Fast takeoff and superalignment 01:34:40 - A million evil Jeff Deans 01:38:16 - Fun times at Google 01:41:50 - World compute demand in 2030 01:48:21 - Getting back to modularity 01:59:13 - Keeping a giga-MoE in-memory 02:04:09 - All of Google in one model 02:12:43 - What’s missing from distillation 02:18:03 - Open research, pros and cons 02:24:54 - Going the distance Get full access to Dwarkesh Podcast at www.dwarkesh.com/subscribe…

1
Sarah Paine Episode 3: How Mao Conquered China 1:48:14

9 weeks ago1:48:14

1:48:14

Third and final episode in the Paine trilogy! Chinese history is full of warlords constantly challenging the capital. How could Mao not only stay in power for decades, but not even face any insurgency? And how did Mao go from military genius to peacetime disaster - the patriotic hero who inflicted history’s worst human catastrophe on China? How can someone shrewd enough to win a civil war outnumbered 5 to 1 decide "let's have peasants make iron in their backyards" and "let's kill all the birds"? In her lecture and our Q&A, we cover the first nationwide famine in Chinese history; Mao's lasting influence on other insurgents; broken promises to minorities and peasantry; and what Taiwan means. Thanks so much to @Substack for running this in-person event! Note that Sarah is doing an AMA over the next couple days on Youtube ; see the pinned comment. Watch on YouTube . Listen on Apple Podcasts , Spotify , or any other podcast platform. Sponsor Today’s episode is brought to you by Scale AI. Scale partners with the U.S. government to fuel America’s AI advantage through their data foundry. Scale recently introduced Defense Llama, Scale's latest solution available for military personnel. With Defense Llama, military personnel can harness the power of AI to plan military or intelligence operations and understand adversary vulnerabilities. If you’re interested in learning more on how Scale powers frontier AI capabilities, go to https://scale.com/dwarkesh . Get full access to Dwarkesh Podcast at www.dwarkesh.com/subscribe…

1
Sarah Paine Episode 2: Why Japan Lost (Lecture & Interview) 2:08:13

10 weeks ago2:08:13

2:08:13

This is the second episode in the trilogy of a lectures by Professor Sarah Paine of the Naval War College. In this second episode, Prof Paine dissects the ideas and economics behind Japanese imperialism before and during WWII. We get into the oil shortage which caused the war; the unique culture of honor and death; the surprisingly chaotic chain of command. This is followed by a Q&A with me. Huge thanks to Substack for hosting this event! Watch on YouTube . Listen on Apple Podcasts , Spotify , or any other podcast platform. Sponsor Today’s episode is brought to you by Scale AI. Scale partners with the U.S. government to fuel America’s AI advantage through their data foundry. Scale recently introduced Defense Llama, Scale's latest solution available for military personnel. With Defense Llama, military personnel can harness the power of AI to plan military or intelligence operations and understand adversary vulnerabilities. If you’re interested in learning more on how Scale powers frontier AI capabilities, go to scale.com/dwarkesh . Buy Sarah's Books! I highly, highly recommend both " The Wars for Asia, 1911–1949 " and " The Japanese Empire: Grand Strategy from the Meiji Restoration to the Pacific War ". Timestamps (0:00:00) - Lecture begins (0:06:58) - The code of the samurai (0:10:45) - Buddhism, Shinto, Confucianism (0:16:52) - Bushido as bad strategy (0:23:34) - Military theorists (0:33:42) - Strategic sins of omission (0:38:10) - Crippled logistics (0:40:58) - the Kwantung Army (0:43:31) - Inter-service communication (0:51:15) - Shattering Japanese morale (0:57:35) - Q&A begins (01:05:02) - Unusual brutality of WWII (01:11:30) - Embargo caused the war (01:16:48) - The liberation of China (01:22:02) - Could US have prevented war? (01:25:30) - Counterfactuals in history (01:27:46) - Japanese optimism (01:30:46) - Tech change and social change (01:38:22) - Hamming questions (01:44:31) - Do sanctions work? (01:50:07) - Backloaded mass death (01:54:09) - demilitarizing Japan (01:57:30) - Post-war alliances (02:03:46) - Inter-service rivalry Get full access to Dwarkesh Podcast at www.dwarkesh.com/subscribe…

1
Sarah Paine Episode 1: The War For India (Lecture & Interview) 2:12:58

11 weeks ago2:12:58

2:12:58

I’m thrilled to launch a new trilogy of double episodes: a lecture series by Professor Sarah Paine of the Naval War College, each followed by a deep Q&A. In this first episode, Prof Paine talks about key decisions by Khrushchev, Mao, Nehru, Bhutto, & Lyndon Johnson that shaped the whole dynamic of South Asia today. This is followed by a Q&A. Come for the spy bases, shoestring nukes, and insight about how great power politics impacts every region. Huge thanks to Substack for hosting this! Watch on YouTube . Listen on Apple Podcasts , Spotify , or any other podcast platform. Sponsors Today’s episode is brought to you by Scale AI. Scale partners with the U.S. government to fuel America’s AI advantage through their data foundry. The Air Force, Army, Defense Innovation Unit, and Chief Digital and Artificial Intelligence Office all trust Scale to equip their teams with AI-ready data and the technology to build powerful applications. Scale recently introduced Defense Llama, Scale's latest solution available for military personnel. With Defense Llama, military personnel can harness the power of AI to plan military or intelligence operations and understand adversary vulnerabilities. If you’re interested in learning more on how Scale powers frontier AI capabilities, go to scale.com/dwarkesh . Timestamps (00:00) - Intro (02:11) - Mao at war, 1949-51 (05:40) - Pactomania and Sino-Soviet conflicts (14:42) - The Sino-Indian War (20:00) - Soviet peace in India-Pakistan (22:00) - US Aid and Alliances (26:14) - The difference with WWII (30:09) - The geopolitical map in 1904 (35:10) - The US alienates Indira Gandhi (42:58) - Instruments of US power (53:41) - Carrier battle groups (1:02:41) - Q&A begins (1:04:31) - The appeal of the USSR (1:09:36) - The last communist premier (1:15:42) - India and China's lost opportunity (1:58:04) - Bismark's cunning (2:03:05) - Training US officers (2:07:03) - Cruelty in Russian history Get full access to Dwarkesh Podcast at www.dwarkesh.com/subscribe…

1
Tyler Cowen - the #1 bottleneck to AI progress is humans 59:45

12 weeks ago59:45

59:45

I interviewed Tyler Cowen at the Progress Conference 2024. As always, I had a blast. This is my fourth interview with him – and yet I’m always hearing new stuff. We talked about why he thinks AI won't drive explosive economic growth, the real bottlenecks on world progress, him now writing for AIs instead of humans, and the difficult relationship between being cultured and fostering growth – among many other things in the full episode. Thanks to the Roots of Progress Institute (with special thanks to Jason Crawford and Heike Larson) for such a wonderful conference, and to FreeThink for the videography. Watch on YouTube . Listen on Apple Podcasts , Spotify , or any other podcast platform. Read the full transcript here . Sponsors I’m grateful to Tyler for volunteering to say a few words about Jane Street . It's the first time that a guest has participated in the sponsorship. I hope you can see why Tyler and I think so highly of Jane Street. To learn more about their open rules, go to janestreet.com/dwarkesh . Timestamps (00:00:00) Economic Growth and AI (00:14:57) Founder Mode and increasing variance (00:29:31) Effective Altruism and Progress Studies (00:33:05) What AI changes for Tyler (00:44:57) The slow diffusion of innovation (00:49:53) Stalin's library (00:52:19) DC vs SF vs EU Get full access to Dwarkesh Podcast at www.dwarkesh.com/subscribe…

1
Adam Brown – How Future Civilizations Could Change The Laws of Physics 2:43:37

14 weeks ago2:43:37

2:43:37

Adam Brown is a founder and lead of BlueShift with is cracking maths and reasoning at Google DeepMind and a theoretical physicist at Stanford. We discuss: destroying the light cone with vacuum decay, holographic principle, mining black holes, & what it would take to train LLMs that can make Einstein level conceptual breakthroughs. Stupefying, entertaining, & terrifying. Enjoy! Watch on YouTube , read the transcript , listen on Apple Podcasts , Spotify , or your favorite platform. Sponsors - Deepmind, Meta, Anthropic, and OpenAI, partner with Scale for high quality data to fuel post-training Publicly available data is running out - to keep developing smarter and smarter models, labs will need to rely on Scale’s data foundry, which combines subject matter experts with AI models to generate fresh data and break through the data wall. Learn more at scale.ai/dwarkesh . - Jane Street is looking to hire their next generation of leaders. Their deep learning team is looking for ML researchers, FPGA programmers, and CUDA programmers. Summer internships are open for just a few more weeks. If you want to stand out, take a crack at their new Kaggle competition. To learn more, go to janestreet.com/dwarkesh . - This episode is brought to you by Stripe , financial infrastructure for the internet. Millions of companies from Anthropic to Amazon use Stripe to accept payments, automate financial processes and grow their revenue. Timestamps (00:00:00) - Changing the laws of physics (00:26:05) - Why is our universe the way it is (00:37:30) - Making Einstein level AGI (01:00:31) - Physics stagnation and particle colliders (01:11:10) - Hitchhiking (01:29:00) - Nagasaki (01:36:19) - Adam’s career (01:43:25) - Mining black holes (01:59:42) - The holographic principle (02:23:25) - Philosophy of infinities (02:31:42) - Engineering constraints for future civilizations Get full access to Dwarkesh Podcast at www.dwarkesh.com/subscribe…

1
Gwern Branwen - How an Anonymous Researcher Predicted AI's Trajectory 1:36:43

20 weeks ago1:36:43

1:36:43

Gwern is a pseudonymous researcher and writer. He was one of the first people to see LLM scaling coming. If you've read his blog , you know he's one of the most interesting polymathic thinkers alive. In order to protect Gwern's anonymity, I proposed interviewing him in person, and having my friend Chris Painter voice over his words after. This amused him enough that he agreed. After the episode, I convinced Gwern to create a donation page where people can help sustain what he's up to. Please go here to contribute. Read the full transcript here . Sponsors: * Jane Street is looking to hire their next generation of leaders. Their deep learning team is looking for ML researchers, FPGA programmers, and CUDA programmers. Summer internships are open - if you want to stand out, take a crack at their new Kaggle competition. To learn more, go to janestreet.com/dwarkesh . * Turing provides complete post-training services for leading AI labs like OpenAI, Anthropic, Meta, and Gemini. They specialize in model evaluation, SFT, RLHF, and DPO to enhance models’ reasoning, coding, and multimodal capabilities. Learn more at turing.com/dwarkesh . * This episode is brought to you by Stripe , financial infrastructure for the internet. Millions of companies from Anthropic to Amazon use Stripe to accept payments, automate financial processes and grow their revenue. If you’re interested in advertising on the podcast, check out this page . Timestamps 00:00:00 - Anonymity 00:01:09 - Automating Steve Jobs 00:04:38 - Isaac Newton's theory of progress 00:06:36 - Grand theory of intelligence 00:10:39 - Seeing scaling early 00:21:04 - AGI Timelines 00:22:54 - What to do in remaining 3 years until AGI 00:26:29 - Influencing the shoggoth with writing 00:30:50 - Human vs artificial intelligence 00:33:52 - Rabbit holes 00:38:48 - Hearing impairment 00:43:00 - Wikipedia editing 00:47:43 - Gwern.net 00:50:20 - Counterfactual careers 00:54:30 - Borges & literature 01:01:32 - Gwern's intelligence and process 01:11:03 - A day in the life of Gwern 01:19:16 - Gwern's finances 01:25:05 - The diversity of AI minds 01:27:24 - GLP drugs and obesity 01:31:08 - Drug experimentation 01:33:40 - Parasocial relationships 01:35:23 - Open rabbit holes Get full access to Dwarkesh Podcast at www.dwarkesh.com/subscribe…

1
Dylan Patel & Jon (Asianometry) – How the Semiconductor Industry Actually Works 2:09:57

26 weeks ago2:09:57

2:09:57

A bonanza on the semiconductor industry and hardware scaling to AGI by the end of the decade. Dylan Patel runs Semianalysis , the leading publication and research firm on AI hardware. Jon Y runs Asianometry , the world’s best YouTube channel on semiconductors and business history. * What Xi would do if he became scaling pilled * $ 1T+ in datacenter buildout by end of decade Watch on YouTube . Listen on Apple Podcasts , Spotify , or any other podcast platform. Read the full transcript here . Follow me on Twitter for updates on future episodes. Sponsors: * Jane Street is looking to hire their next generation of leaders. Their deep learning team is looking for FPGA programmers, CUDA programmers, and ML researchers. To learn more about their full time roles, internship, tech podcast, and upcoming Kaggle competition, go here . * This episode is brought to you by Stripe , financial infrastructure for the internet. Millions of companies from Anthropic to Amazon use Stripe to accept payments, automate financial processes and grow their revenue. If you’re interested in advertising on the podcast, check out this page . Timestamps 00:00:00 – Xi's path to AGI 00:04:20 – Liang Mong Song 00:08:25 – How semiconductors get better 00:11:16 – China can centralize compute 00:18:50 – Export controls & sanctions 00:32:51 – Huawei's intense culture 00:38:51 – Why the semiconductor industry is so stratified 00:40:58 – N2 should not exist 00:45:53 – Taiwan invasion hypothetical 00:49:21 – Mind-boggling complexity of semiconductors 00:59:13 – Chip architecture design 01:04:36 – Architectures lead to different AI models? China vs. US 01:10:12 – Being head of compute at an AI lab 01:16:24 – Scaling costs and power demand 01:37:05 – Are we financing an AI bubble? 01:50:20 – Starting Asianometry and SemiAnalysis 02:06:10 – Opportunities in the semiconductor stack Get full access to Dwarkesh Podcast at www.dwarkesh.com/subscribe…

1
Daniel Yergin – Oil Explains the Entire 20th Century 1:27:37

28 weeks ago1:27:37

1:27:37

Unless you understand the history of oil, you cannot understand the rise of America, WW1, WW2, secular stagnation, the Middle East, Ukraine, how Xi and Putin think, and basically anything else that's happened since 1860. It was a great honor to interview Daniel Yergin, the Pulitzer Prize winning author of The Prize - the best history of oil ever written (which makes it the best history of the 20th century ever written). Watch on YouTube . Listen on Apple Podcasts , Spotify , or any other podcast platform. Read the full transcript here . Follow me on Twitter for updates on future episodes. Sponsors: This episode is brought to you by Stripe , financial infrastructure for the internet. Millions of companies from Anthropic to Amazon use Stripe to accept payments, automate financial processes and grow their revenue. This episode is brought to you by Suno, pioneers in AI-generated music. Suno's technology allows artists to experiment with melodic forms and structures in unprecedented ways. From chart-toppers to avant-garde compositions, Suno is redefining musical creativity. If you're an ML researcher passionate about shaping the future of music, email your resume to dwarkesh@suno.com. If you’re interested in advertising on the podcast, check out this page . Timestamps (00:00:00) – Beginning of the oil industry (00:13:37) – World War I & II (00:25:06) – The Middle East (00:47:04) – Yergin’s conversations with Putin & Modi (01:04:36) – Writing through stories (01:10:26) – The renewable energy transition Get full access to Dwarkesh Podcast at www.dwarkesh.com/subscribe…

1
David Reich - How One Small Tribe Conquered the World 70,000 Years Ago 1:56:06

31 weeks ago1:56:06

1:56:06

I had no idea how wild human history was before chatting with the geneticist of ancient DNA David Reich . Human history has been again and again a story of one group figuring ‘something’ out, and then basically wiping everyone else out. From the tribe of 1k-10k modern humans who killed off all the other human species 70,000 years ago; to the Yamnaya horse nomads 5,000 years ago who killed off 90+% of (then) Europeans and also destroyed the Indus Valley. So much of what we thought we knew about human history is turning out to be wrong, from the ‘Out of Africa’ theory to the evolution of language, and this is all thanks to the research from David Reich’s lab. Buy David Reich’s fascinating book, Who We Are How We Got Here . Watch on YouTube . Listen on Apple Podcasts , Spotify , or any other podcast platform. Read the full transcript here . Follow me on Twitter for updates on future episodes. Sponsor This episode is brought to you by Stripe , financial infrastructure for the internet. Millions of companies from Anthropic to Amazon use Stripe to accept payments, automate financial processes and grow their revenue. If you’re interested in advertising on the podcast, check out this page . Timestamps (00:00:00) – Archaic and modern humans gene flow (00:20:24) – How early modern humans dominated the world (00:39:59) – How bubonic plague rewrote history (00:50:03) – Was agriculture terrible for humans? (00:59:28) – Yamnaya expansion and how populations collide (01:15:39) – “Lost civilizations” and our Neanderthal ancestry (01:31:32) – The DNA Challenge (01:41:38) – David’s career: the genetic vocation Get full access to Dwarkesh Podcast at www.dwarkesh.com/subscribe…

1
Joe Carlsmith - Otherness and control in the age of AGI 2:30:35

32 weeks ago2:30:35

2:30:35

Chatted with Joe Carlsmith about whether we can trust power/techno-capital, how to not end up like Stalin in our urge to control the future, gentleness towards the artificial Other, and much more. Check out Joe's sequence on Otherness and Control in the Age of AGI here . Watch on YouTube . Listen on Apple Podcasts , Spotify , or any other podcast platform. Read the full transcript here . Follow me on Twitter for updates on future episodes. Sponsors: - Bland.ai is an AI agent that automates phone calls in any language, 24/7. Their technology uses "conversational pathways" for accurate, versatile communication across sales, operations, and customer support. You can try Bland yourself by calling 415-549-9654. Enterprises can get exclusive access to their advanced model at bland.ai/dwarkesh . - Stripe is financial infrastructure for the internet. Millions of companies from Anthropic to Amazon use Stripe to accept payments, automate financial processes and grow their revenue. If you’re interested in advertising on the podcast, check out this page . Timestamps: (00:00:00) - Understanding the Basic Alignment Story (00:44:04) - Monkeys Inventing Humans (00:46:43) - Nietzsche, C.S. Lewis, and AI (1:22:51) - How should we treat AIs (1:52:33) - Balancing Being a Humanist and a Scholar (2:05:02) - Explore exploit tradeoffs and AI Get full access to Dwarkesh Podcast at www.dwarkesh.com/subscribe…

Dwarkesh Podcast

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Patrick McKenzie - How a Discord Server Saved Thousands of Lives 2:01:34

36 weeks ago2:01:34

2:01:34

I talked with Patrick McKenzie (known online as patio11) about how a small team he ran over a Discord server got vaccines into Americans' arms: A story of broken incentives, outrageous incompetence, and how a few individuals with high agency saved 1000s of lives. Enjoy! Watch on YouTube . Listen on Apple Podcasts , Spotify , or any other podcast platform. Read the full transcript here . Follow me on Twitter for updates on future episodes. Sponsor This episode is brought to you by Stripe , financial infrastructure for the internet. Millions of companies from Anthropic to Amazon use Stripe to accept payments, automate financial processes and grow their revenue. Timestamps (00:00:00) – Why hackers on Discord had to save thousands of lives (00:17:26) – How politics crippled vaccine distribution (00:38:19) – Fundraising for VaccinateCA (00:51:09) – Why tech needs to understand how government works (00:58:58) – What is crypto good for? (01:13:07) – How the US government leverages big tech to violate rights (01:24:36) – Can the US have nice things like Japan? (01:26:41) – Financial plumbing & money laundering: a how-not-to guide (01:37:42) – Maximizing your value: why some people negotiate better (01:42:14) – Are young people too busy playing Factorio to found startups? (01:57:30) – The need for a post-mortem Get full access to Dwarkesh Podcast at www.dwarkesh.com/subscribe…

Dwarkesh Podcast

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Tony Blair - Life of a PM, The Deep State, Lee Kuan Yew, & AI's 1914 Moment 52:52

40 weeks ago52:52

52:52

I chatted with Tony Blair about: - What he learned from Lee Kuan Yew - Intelligence agencies track record on Iraq & Ukraine - What he tells the dozens of world leaders who come seek advice from him - How much of a PM’s time is actually spent governing - What will AI’s July 1914 moment look like from inside the Cabinet? Enjoy! Watch the video on YouTube . Read the full transcript here . Follow me on Twitter for updates on future episodes. Sponsors - Prelude Security is the world’s leading cyber threat management automation platform. Prelude Detect quickly transforms threat intelligence into validated protections so organizations can know with certainty that their defenses will protect them against the latest threats. Prelude is backed by Sequoia Capital, Insight Partners, The MITRE Corporation, CrowdStrike, and other leading investors. Learn more here . - This episode is brought to you by Stripe , financial infrastructure for the internet. Millions of companies from Anthropic to Amazon use Stripe to accept payments, automate financial processes and grow their revenue. If you’re interested in advertising on the podcast, check out this page . Timestamps (00:00:00) – A prime minister’s constraints (00:04:12) – CEOs vs. politicians (00:10:31) – COVID, AI, & how government deals with crisis (00:21:24) – Learning from Lee Kuan Yew (00:27:37) – Foreign policy & intelligence (00:31:12) – How much leadership actually matters (00:35:34) – Private vs. public tech (00:39:14) – Advising global leaders (00:46:45) – The unipolar moment in the 90s Get full access to Dwarkesh Podcast at www.dwarkesh.com/subscribe…

Dwarkesh Podcast

1
Francois Chollet, Mike Knoop - LLMs won’t lead to AGI - $1,000,000 Prize to find true solution 1:33:53

42 weeks ago1:33:53

1:33:53

Here is my conversation with Francois Chollet and Mike Knoop on the $1 million ARC-AGI Prize they're launching today . I did a bunch of socratic grilling throughout, but Francois’s arguments about why LLMs won’t lead to AGI are very interesting and worth thinking through. It was really fun discussing/debating the cruxes. Enjoy! Watch on YouTube . Listen on Apple Podcasts , Spotify , or any other podcast platform. Read the full transcript here . Timestamps (00:00:00) – The ARC benchmark (00:11:10) – Why LLMs struggle with ARC (00:19:00) – Skill vs intelligence (00:27:55) - Do we need “AGI” to automate most jobs? (00:48:28) – Future of AI progress: deep learning + program synthesis (01:00:40) – How Mike Knoop got nerd-sniped by ARC (01:08:37) – Million $ ARC Prize (01:10:33) – Resisting benchmark saturation (01:18:08) – ARC scores on frontier vs open source models (01:26:19) – Possible solutions to ARC Prize Get full access to Dwarkesh Podcast at www.dwarkesh.com/subscribe…

Dwarkesh Podcast

1
Leopold Aschenbrenner - China/US Super Intelligence Race, 2027 AGI, & The Return of History 4:31:18

43 weeks ago4:31:18

4:31:18

Chatted with my friend Leopold Aschenbrenner on the trillion dollar nationalized cluster, CCP espionage at AI labs, how unhobblings and scaling can lead to 2027 AGI, dangers of outsourcing clusters to Middle East, leaving OpenAI, and situational awareness. Watch on YouTube . Listen on Apple Podcasts , Spotify , or any other podcast platform. Read the full transcript here . Follow me on Twitter for updates on future episodes. Follow Leopold on Twitter . Timestamps (00:00:00) – The trillion-dollar cluster and unhobbling (00:20:31) – AI 2028: The return of history (00:40:26) – Espionage & American AI superiority (01:08:20) – Geopolitical implications of AI (01:31:23) – State-led vs. private-led AI (02:12:23) – Becoming Valedictorian of Columbia at 19 (02:30:35) – What happened at OpenAI (02:45:11) – Accelerating AI research progress (03:25:58) – Alignment (03:41:26) – On Germany, and understanding foreign perspectives (03:57:04) – Dwarkesh’s immigration story and path to the podcast (04:07:58) – Launching an AGI hedge fund (04:19:14) – Lessons from WWII (04:29:08) – Coda: Frederick the Great Get full access to Dwarkesh Podcast at www.dwarkesh.com/subscribe…

Dwarkesh Podcast

1
John Schulman (OpenAI Cofounder) - Reasoning, RLHF, & Plan for 2027 AGI 1:36:30

46 weeks ago1:36:30

1:36:30

Chatted with John Schulman (cofounded OpenAI and led ChatGPT creation) on how posttraining tames the shoggoth, and the nature of the progress to come... Watch on YouTube . Listen on Apple Podcasts , Spotify , or any other podcast platform. Read the full transcript here . Follow me on Twitter for updates on future episodes. Timestamps (00:00:00) - Pre-training, post-training, and future capabilities (00:16:57) - Plan for AGI 2025 (00:29:19) - Teaching models to reason (00:40:50) - The Road to ChatGPT (00:52:13) - What makes for a good RL researcher? (01:00:58) - Keeping humans in the loop (01:15:15) - State of research, plateaus, and moats Sponsors If you’re interested in advertising on the podcast, fill out this form . * Your DNA shapes everything about you. Want to know how? Take 10% off our Premium DNA kit with code DWARKESH at mynucleus.com . * CommandBar is an AI user assistant that any software product can embed to non-annoyingly assist, support, and unleash their users. Used by forward-thinking CX, product, growth, and marketing teams. Learn more at commandbar.com . Get full access to Dwarkesh Podcast at www.dwarkesh.com/subscribe…

Dwarkesh Podcast

1
Mark Zuckerberg - Llama 3, Open Sourcing $10b Models, & Caesar Augustus 1:17:54

50 weeks ago1:17:54

1:17:54

Mark Zuckerberg on: - Llama 3 - open sourcing towards AGI - custom silicon, synthetic data, & energy constraints on scaling - Caesar Augustus, intelligence explosion, bioweapons, $10b models, & much more Enjoy! Watch on YouTube . Listen on Apple Podcasts , Spotify , or any other podcast platform. Human edited transcript with helpful links here . Timestamps (00:00:00) - Llama 3 (00:08:32) - Coding on path to AGI (00:25:24) - Energy bottlenecks (00:33:20) - Is AI the most important technology ever? (00:37:21) - Dangers of open source (00:53:57) - Caesar Augustus and metaverse (01:04:53) - Open sourcing the $10b model & custom silicon (01:15:19) - Zuck as CEO of Google+ Sponsors If you’re interested in advertising on the podcast, fill out this form . * This episode is brought to you by Stripe , financial infrastructure for the internet. Millions of companies from Anthropic to Amazon use Stripe to accept payments, automate financial processes and grow their revenue. Learn more at stripe.com . * V7 Go is a tool to automate multimodal tasks using GenAI, reliably and at scale. Use code DWARKESH20 for 20% off on the pro plan. Learn more here . * CommandBar is an AI user assistant that any software product can embed to non-annoyingly assist, support, and unleash their users. Used by forward-thinking CX, product, growth, and marketing teams. Learn more at commandbar.com . Get full access to Dwarkesh Podcast at www.dwarkesh.com/subscribe…

Dwarkesh Podcast

1
Sholto Douglas & Trenton Bricken - How to Build & Understand GPT-7's Mind 3:12:21

1 year ago3:12:21

3:12:21

Had so much fun chatting with my good friends Trenton Bricken and Sholto Douglas on the podcast. No way to summarize it, except: This is the best context dump out there on how LLMs are trained, what capabilities they're likely to soon have, and what exactly is going on inside them. You would be shocked how much of what I know about this field, I've learned just from talking with them. To the extent that you've enjoyed my other AI interviews, now you know why. So excited to put this out. Enjoy! I certainly did :) Watch on YouTube . Listen on Apple Podcasts , Spotify , or any other podcast platform. There's a transcript with links to all the papers the boys were throwing down - may help you follow along. Follow Trenton and Sholto on Twitter. Timestamps (00:00:00) - Long contexts (00:16:12) - Intelligence is just associations (00:32:35) - Intelligence explosion & great researchers (01:06:52) - Superposition & secret communication (01:22:34) - Agents & true reasoning (01:34:40) - How Sholto & Trenton got into AI research (02:07:16) - Are feature spaces the wrong way to think about intelligence? (02:21:12) - Will interp actually work on superhuman models (02:45:05) - Sholto’s technical challenge for the audience (03:03:57) - Rapid fire Get full access to Dwarkesh Podcast at www.dwarkesh.com/subscribe…

Dwarkesh Podcast

1
Demis Hassabis - Scaling, Superhuman AIs, AlphaZero atop LLMs, Rogue Nations Threat 1:01:34

1 year ago1:01:34

1:01:34

Here is my episode with Demis Hassabis, CEO of Google DeepMind We discuss: * Why scaling is an artform * Adding search, planning, & AlphaZero type training atop LLMs * Making sure rogue nations can't steal weights * The right way to align superhuman AIs and do an intelligence explosion Watch on YouTube . Listen on Apple Podcasts , Spotify , or any other podcast platform. Read the full transcript here . Timestamps (0:00:00) - Nature of intelligence (0:05:56) - RL atop LLMs (0:16:31) - Scaling and alignment (0:24:13) - Timelines and intelligence explosion (0:28:42) - Gemini training (0:35:30) - Governance of superhuman AIs (0:40:42) - Safety, open source, and security of weights (0:47:00) - Multimodal and further progress (0:54:18) - Inside Google DeepMind Get full access to Dwarkesh Podcast at www.dwarkesh.com/subscribe…

Dwarkesh Podcast

1
Patrick Collison (Stripe CEO) - Craft, Beauty, & The Future of Payments 1:54:47

1 year ago1:54:47

1:54:47

We discuss: * what it takes to process $1 trillion/year * how to build multi-decade APIs, companies, and relationships * what's next for Stripe (increasing the GDP of the internet is quite an open ended prompt, and the Collison brothers are just getting started). Plus the amazing stuff they're doing at Arc Institute , the financial infrastructure for AI agents, playing devil's advocate against progress studies, and much more. Watch on YouTube . Listen on Apple Podcasts , Spotify , or any other podcast platform. Read the full transcript here . Follow me on Twitter for updates on future episodes. Timestamps (00:00:00) - Advice for 20-30 year olds (00:12:12) - Progress studies (00:22:21) - Arc Institute (00:34:27) - AI & Fast Grants (00:43:46) - Stripe history (00:55:44) - Stripe Climate (01:01:39) - Beauty & APIs (01:11:51) - Financial innards (01:28:16) - Stripe culture & future (01:41:56) - Virtues of big businesses (01:51:41) - John Get full access to Dwarkesh Podcast at www.dwarkesh.com/subscribe…

Dwarkesh Podcast

1
Tyler Cowen - Hayek, Keynes, & Smith on AI, Animal Spirits, Anarchy, & Growth 1:42:22

1 year ago1:42:22

1:42:22

It was a great pleasure speaking with Tyler Cowen for the 3rd time. We discussed GOAT: Who is the Greatest Economist of all Time and Why Does it Matter? , especially in the context of how the insights of Hayek, Keynes, Smith, and other great economists help us make sense of AI, growth, animal spirits, prediction markets, alignment, central planning, and much more. The topics covered in this episode are too many to summarize. Hope you enjoy! Watch on YouTube . Listen on Apple Podcasts , Spotify , or any other podcast platform. Read the full transcript here . Follow me on Twitter for updates on future episodes. Timestamps (0:00:00) - John Maynard Keynes (00:17:16) - Controversy (00:25:02) - Fredrick von Hayek (00:47:41) - John Stuart Mill (00:52:41) - Adam Smith (00:58:31) - Coase, Schelling, & George (01:08:07) - Anarchy (01:13:16) - Cheap WMDs (01:23:18) - Technocracy & political philosophy (01:34:16) - AI & Scaling Get full access to Dwarkesh Podcast at www.dwarkesh.com/subscribe…

Dwarkesh Podcast

1
Lessons from The Years of Lyndon Johnson by Robert Caro [Narration] 36:32

1 year ago36:32

36:32

This is a narration of my blog post, Lessons from The Years of Lyndon Johnson by Robert Caro . You read the full post here: https://www.dwarkeshpatel.com/p/lyndon-johnson Listen on Apple Podcasts , Spotify , or any other podcast platform. Follow me on Twitter for updates on future posts and episodes. Get full access to Dwarkesh Podcast at www.dwarkesh.com/subscribe…

Dwarkesh Podcast

1
Will scaling work? [Narration] 25:43

1 year ago25:43

25:43

This is a narration of my blog post, Will scaling work? . You read the full post here: https://www.dwarkeshpatel.com/p/will-scaling-work Listen on Apple Podcasts , Spotify , or any other podcast platform. Follow me on Twitter for updates on future posts and episodes. Get full access to Dwarkesh Podcast at www.dwarkesh.com/subscribe…

Dwarkesh Podcast

1
Jung Chang - Living through Cultural Revolution and the Crimes of Mao 1:31:15

1 year ago1:31:15

1:31:15

A true honor to speak with Jung Chang. She is the author of Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China (sold 15+ million copies worldwide) and Mao: The Unknown Story . We discuss: - what it was like growing up during the Cultural Revolution as the daughter of a denounced official - why the CCP continues to worship the biggest mass murderer in human history. - how exactly Communist totalitarianism was able to subjugate a billion people - why Chinese leaders like Xi and Deng who suffered from the Cultural Revolution don't condemn Mao - how Mao starved and killed 40 million people during The Great Leap Forward in order to exchange food for Soviet weapons Wild Swans is the most moving book I've ever read. It was a real privilege to speak with its author. Watch on YouTube . Listen on Apple Podcasts , Spotify , or any other podcast platform. Read the full transcript here . Follow me on Twitter for updates on future episodes. Timestamps (00:00:00) - Growing up during Cultural Revolution (00:15:58) - Could officials have overthrown Mao? (00:34:09) - Great Leap Forward (00:48:12) - Modern support of Mao (01:03:24) - Life as peasant (01:21:30) - Psychology of communist society Get full access to Dwarkesh Podcast at www.dwarkesh.com/subscribe…

Dwarkesh Podcast

1
Andrew Roberts - SV's Napoleon Cult, Why Hitler Lost WW2, Churchill as Applied Historian 1:18:49

1 year ago1:18:49

1:18:49

Andrew Roberts is the world's best biographer and one of the leading historians of our time. We discussed * Churchill the applied historian, * Napoleon the startup founder, * why Nazi ideology cost Hitler WW2, * drones, reconnaissance, and other aspects of the future of war, * Iraq, Afghanistan, Korea, Ukraine, & Taiwan. Watch on YouTube . Listen on Apple Podcasts , Spotify , or any other podcast platform. Read the full transcript here . Follow me on Twitter for updates on future episodes. Timestamps (00:00:00) - Post WW2 conflicts (00:10:57) - Ukraine (00:16:33) - How Truman Prevented Nuclear War (00:22:49) - Taiwan (00:27:15) - Churchill (00:35:11) - Gaza & future wars (00:39:05) - Could Hitler have won WW2? (00:48:00) - Surprise attacks (00:59:33) - Napoleon and startup founders (01:14:06) - Robert’s insane productivity Get full access to Dwarkesh Podcast at www.dwarkesh.com/subscribe…

Dwarkesh Podcast

1
Dominic Cummings - COVID, Brexit, & Fixing Western Governance 2:34:13

1 year ago2:34:13