Theo Jaffee Podcast

Luke Drago is the co-author of The Intelligence Curse and previously researched AI governance and economics at BlueDot Impact, served on the leadership team at Encode, and studied history and politics at Oxford.

0:00 - Intro
0:54 - Overview of the intelligence curse
2:10 - Why are the doomers wrong?
4:37 - Why are the optimists wrong?
7:00 - Do people really have power now?
13:33 - Why would powerful people’s values change?
18:31 - Why do we take care of dependents?
21:43 - Why should we want democracy in an AI future?
24:23 - Why fear rentier states?
32:45 - What powerful people should do right now
39:33 - Diffusion time and bottlenecks
44:20 - Why should we care if China achieves AGI first?
46:25 - The jagged frontier
49:16 - Why AGI society could be static
51:10 - Restricting AI rights
56:34 - What should we be excited for?
59:28 - Music
1:30:41 - Building God
1:32:46 - More music

The Intelligence Curse: https://intelligence-curse.ai/
Luke’s Twitter: https://x.com/luke_drago_
Luke’s Substack: https://lukedrago.substack.com/

Luke’s top 10 albums:
- A Fever You Can't Sweat Out by Panic! at the Disco (2005)
- Channel Orange by Frank Ocean (2012)
- Random Access Memories by Daft Punk (2013)
- Yeezus by Kanye West (2013)
- DAMN. by Kendrick Lamar (2017)
- DAYTONA by Pusha T (2018)
- IGOR by Tyler, the Creator (2019)
- I Didn't Mean to Haunt You by Quadeca (2022)
- College Park by Logic (2023)
- Atavista by Childish Gambino (2024)

More Episodes
YouTube: https://tinyurl.com/57jr42wk
Spotify: https://tinyurl.com/mrxkkhb4
Apple Podcasts: https://tinyurl.com/yck8pnmf

My Twitter: https://x.com/theojaffee
My Substack: https://www.theojaffee.com

Alok Singh researches provable AI safety via formal verification using Lean at Max Tegmark’s Beneficial AI Foundation, and writes about mathematics at alok.github.io.
0:00 - Intro
1:12 - Typing
8:45 - Elon’s demo day
22:42 - Animation, discrete vs continuous
29:04 - Number systems
35:26 - Nonstandard analysis
43:04 - Reasoning models and o3
50:45 - Fiction
55:48 - o1 and Linguistics
58:50 - Hyperfinite sets
1:11:58 - AI for math
1:16:01 - The field with one element
1:23:17 - Lean
1:31:53 - Lean for formally verifying superintelligence
1:36:03 - Ayn Rand
1:47:46 - Erewhon
1:57:56 - Proto-Indo-European
2:03:18 - More Erewhon
2:14:41 - Butler and Kaczynski
2:50:19 - Outro
Alok’s Website: https://alok.github.io/
Alok’s Twitter: https://x.com/TheRevAlokSingh
Beneficial AI Foundation: http://beneficialaifoundation.org/
Lean: https://lean-lang.org/
Transcript: https://www.theojaffee.com/p/podcast-alok-singh
More Episodes
YouTube: https://tinyurl.com/57jr42wk
Spotify: https://tinyurl.com/mrxkkhb4
Apple Podcasts: https://tinyurl.com/yck8pnmf
My Twitter: https://x.com/theojaffee
My Substack: https://www.theojaffee.com

Samo Burja is a writer, historian, and political scientist, the founder of civilizational consulting firm Bismarck Analysis, and the editor-in-chief of governance futurism magazine Palladium.

Chapters

0:00 - Intro

1:06 - Implications of OpenAI o1

10:21 - Implications of superintelligence on history

35:06 - Palladium, Chinese technocracy, ideology, and media

1:00:44 - Best ideas, philosophers, and works of the past 20-30 years

Links

Samo’s Website: https://samoburja.com/

Bismarck Analysis: https://www.bismarckanalysis.com/

Palladium: https://www.palladiummag.com/

Bismarck’s Twitter: https://x.com/bismarckanlys

Palladium’s Twitter: https://x.com/palladiummag

Samo’s Twitter: https://x.com/samoburja

Transcript: https://www.theojaffee.com/p/19-samo-burja

More Episodes

YouTube: https://tinyurl.com/57jr42wk

Spotify: https://tinyurl.com/mrxkkhb4

Apple Podcasts: https://tinyurl.com/yck8pnmf

My Twitter: https://x.com/theojaffee

My Substack: https://www.theojaffee.com

Alec Stapp is the co-founder and co-CEO of the Institute for Progress, a non-profit think tank dedicated to accelerating scientific, technological, and industrial progress.

Chapters

0:00 - Intro

1:13 - Why can’t smart people fix the Bay Area?

3:38 - How to get normal people on board with IFP

10:23 - How to get smart people into governance

15:55 - How IFP chose its priorities

21:56 - How will IFP avoid mission creep?

24:17 - How important is academia today?

26:03 - Would Alec press a button to fully open borders?

29:45 - How prepared are we for another pandemic?

33:16 - Why don’t easy wins happen?

36:17 - Is Biden’s spending good?

40:51 - How important is the repeal of Chevron deference?

43:23 - Are land value taxes good?

45:01 - “The Project” for AGI and AI Alignment

48:19 - Is globalism dying?

50:32 - Overrated or Underrated?

59:28 - The most overrated issue

1:00:26 - The most underrated issue

Links

Institute for Progress: ifp.org

“Progress Is A Policy Choice” founding essay by Alec Stapp and Caleb Watney: https://ifp.org/progress-is-a-policy-choice/

“How to Reuse the Operation Warp Speed Model” by Arielle D’Souza: https://ifp.org/how-to-reuse-the-operation-warp-speed-model/

“How to Be a Policy Entrepreneur in the American Vetocracy” by Alec Stapp: https://ifp.org/how-to-be-a-policy-entrepreneur-in-the-american-vetocracy/

“To Speed Up Scientific Progress, We Need to Understand Science Policy”: https://ifp.org/to-speed-up-scientific-progress-we-need-to-understand-science-policy/

“But Seriously, How Do We Make an Entrepreneurial State?” by Caleb Watney: https://ifp.org/how-do-we-make-an-entrepreneurial-state/

Construction Physics newsletter by Brian Potter: https://constructionphysics.substack.com/

Macroscience newsletter by Tim Hwang: https://www.macroscience.org/

Statecraft newsletter by Santi Ruiz: https://www.statecraft.pub/

IFP’s Twitter: x.com/IFP

Alec’s Twitter: x.com/AlecStapp

Transcript: https://www.theojaffee.com/p/18-alec-stapp

More Episodes

YouTube: https://tinyurl.com/57jr42wk

Spotify: https://tinyurl.com/mrxkkhb4

Apple Podcasts: https://tinyurl.com/yck8pnmf

My Twitter: https://x.com/theojaffee

My Substack: https://www.theojaffee.com

Casey Handmer is the founder and CEO of Terraform Industries and a physicist, immigrant, pilot, dad, solar enthusiast, Caltech physics PhD and former Hyperloop One levitation engineer and NASA JPL software system architect.

0:00 - Intro

1:40 - Why don’t other people do what Terraform does?

2:51 - Why is solar better than nuclear fusion?

5:27 - Could carbon emissions actually be good?

8:38 - Why isn’t anyone stopping global warming with sulfur?

13:20 - Can America build something like Terraform?

20:53 - Solar and nuclear

23:10 - Why not terraform Venus instead of Mars?

30:47 - Why did Casey work at NASA instead of SpaceX?

37:18 - Why is Elon the only person with multiple huge companies?

39:59 - Why didn’t the Hyperloop work?

42:26 - Tile the desert with solar

46:03 - How does solar change geopolitics?

48:30 - How does Casey manage his time?

53:24 - How do you develop first principles thinking?

56:28 - Favorite place Casey has traveled to

59:21 - Outro

Casey’s Blog: https://caseyhandmer.wordpress.com/

- You Should Be Working On Hardware: https://caseyhandmer.wordpress.com/2023/08/25/you-should-be-working-on-hardware/

- The solar industrial revolution is the biggest investment opportunity in history: https://caseyhandmer.wordpress.com/2024/05/22/the-solar-industrial-revolution-is-the-biggest-investment-opportunity-in-history/

- Future of Energy Reading List: https://caseyhandmer.wordpress.com/2023/10/19/future-of-energy-reading-list/

- Elon Musk Is Not Understood: https://caseyhandmer.wordpress.com/2024/01/02/elon-musk-is-not-understood/

- Why High Speed Rail Hasn’t Caught On: https://caseyhandmer.wordpress.com/2022/10/11/why-high-speed-rail-hasnt-caught-on/

Casey’s Website: http://caseyhandmer.com/

Casey’s Twitter: https://x.com/cjhandmer

Terraform Industries: https://terraformindustries.com/

Terraform Blog: https://terraformindustries.wordpress.com/

- Scaling Carbon Capture: https://terraformindustries.wordpress.com/2022/07/24/scaling-carbon-capture/

- Terraform Industries Whitepaper: https://terraformindustries.wordpress.com/2022/07/24/terraform-industries-whitepaper/

- Terraform Industries Whitepaper 2.0: https://terraformindustries.wordpress.com/2023/01/09/terraform-industries-whitepaper-2-0/

- Permitting Reform or Death: https://terraformindustries.wordpress.com/2023/11/10/permitting-reform-or-death/

Transcript: https://www.theojaffee.com/p/17-casey-handmer

More Episodes

YouTube: https://tinyurl.com/57jr42wk

Spotify: https://tinyurl.com/mrxkkhb4

Apple Podcasts: https://tinyurl.com/yck8pnmf

My Twitter: https://x.com/theojaffee

My Substack: https://www.theojaffee.com