Shows
Theo Jaffee PodcastLuke Drago - AGI, The Intelligence Curse, and Hip-HopLuke 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 - Intro0:54 - Overview of the intelligence curse2:10 - 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 wa...
2025-05-121h 47Theo Jaffee PodcastAlok Singh - AI, Math, Philosophy, and ErewhonAlok 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 - Intro1:12 - Typing8:45 - Elon’s demo day22:42 - Animation, discrete vs continuous29:04 - Number systems35:26 - Nonstandard analysis43:04 - Reasoning models and o350:45 - Fiction55:48 - o1 and Linguistics58:50 - Hyperfinite sets1:11:58 - AI for math1:16:01 - The field with one element1:23:17 - Lean1...
2025-04-302h 50
Concerts That Made UsSonOfOld's Nic Olsen Chat's About New Album Echoes From A Silent HillIn this episode of "Concerts That Made Us," Brian sits down with Nic Olsen from SonOfOld, who has recently released his critically acclaimed album "Echoes from a Silent Hill." Nic delves into the intricacies of his journey, starting with his bold move from South Africa to the culturally rich landscape of Germany. He opens up about the myriad challenges he encountered during this transition, from adapting to a new cultural environment to navigating the complexities of the European music industry.Nic provides an in-depth look at his creative process and the pivotal role played by his...
2024-09-2742 minTheo Jaffee Podcast#19: Samo Burja - Superintelligence and History, Ideology, and 21st Century PhilosophySamo 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.pa...
2024-09-221h 06Theo Jaffee Podcast#18: Alec Stapp - The Institute for Progress, American Dynamism, and Fixing GovernanceAlec 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...
2024-07-121h 03Theo Jaffee Podcast#17: Casey Handmer - Terraform, solar, space, Hyperloop, and how to thinkCasey 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...
2024-06-251h 00Theo Jaffee Podcast#16: Stephen Grugett and Austin Chen - Manifold, Manifund, Manifest, prediction markets, and EAStephen Grugett and Austin Chen are co-founders of Manifold Markets, an online play-money prediction market and competitive forecasting platform. Stephen currently serves on the company’s management, while Austin recently stepped down to start Manifund, a unique, open-source grant program. This video is not sponsored in any way by Manifold, Manifund, or Manifest - I just think they’re cool.
Chapters
0:00 - Intro
Part 1: Stephen Grugett
1:20 - Are prediction markets actually bad?
4:11 - Would Manifold use real money if allowed?
5:24 - How Manifold would use...
2024-06-131h 23Theo Jaffee Podcast#15: Perry Metzger - Extropians, Nanotech, AI Optimism, and the Alliance for the FuturePerry Metzger is an entrepreneur, technology manager, consultant, computer scientist, early proponent of extropianism and futurism, and co-founder and chairman of the Alliance for the Future.
0:00 - Intro
0:47 - How Perry got into extropianism
7:04 - Is extropianism the same as e/acc?
9:38 - Why extropianism died out
12:59 - Eliezer Yudkowsky
17:19 - Perry and Eliezer’s Twitter beef
19:46 - TESCREAL, Baptists and bootleggers
22:34 - Why Eliezer became a doomer
28:39 - Is singularitarianism eschatology?
37:51 - Will nanotech kill us...
2024-05-141h 44Theo Jaffee Podcast#14: Robin Hanson - Cultural Drift, Ems, Elephants, Institutions, and The FutureRobin Hanson is a professor of economics at George Mason University, the author of The Age of Em and The Elephant in the Brain, the writer of the blog Overcoming Bias, and one of the most interesting polymaths alive today.
0:00 - Intro
1:24 - Mathematical models and grabby aliens
9:11 - Will we run out of value in the future?12:23 - Kurzweil’s Law of Accelerating Returns
14:29 - Posadism
17:53 - Moral progress and Whig history
20:29 - Will there be a trad resurgence?
23:00 - Will Is...
2024-04-272h 03Theo Jaffee Podcast#13: Nick Simmons - All About UrbitNick Simmons is a founding partner at Octu Ventures, a member-driven venture DAO investing in teams building on Urbit. Urbit is a new computing paradigm that provides complete ownership of your digital world.
0:00 - Intro
1:19 - What actually is Urbit?
5:43 - Urbit ID and Schelling points
9:05 - Why Urbit?
10:23 - Roko Mijic on Urbit vs. TikTok and Crypto
17:32 - Urbit vs. Worldcoin
22:26 - Niche or growth model?
28:50 - Why haven’t Urbit star prices recovered since 2021?
33:13 - Intrinsic value of Urbit ad...
2024-04-141h 04Theo Jaffee Podcast#12: Paul Buchheit - Creating Gmail, Fixing Google, Narrative UnderstandingPaul Buchheit is a programmer and entrepreneur who joined Google as its 23rd employee. He created Gmail, developed the first prototype of Google AdSense, and suggested the company’s motto, “don’t be evil”. He later co-founded FriendFeed and served as a managing partner at Y Combinator.
0:00 - Intro
1:15 - Issues with Google
3:47 - AI risk
5:21 - AI centralization and decentralization
8:01 - Open-sourcing frontier AI
9:59 - Paul’s Predictions
14:28 - Centralization, free speech, and censorship
24:16 - Trends in ideology
32:00 - Freeing people of...
2024-03-2259 minTheo Jaffee Podcast#11: Bryan Caplan - You Will Not Stampede Me: Essays on Non-ConformismBryan Caplan is a professor of economics at George Mason University, research fellow at the Mercatus Center, adjunct scholar at the Cato Institute, writer at EconLib and Bet On It, and best-selling author of eight books, including You Will Not Stampede Me: Essays on Non-Conformism, the subject of this episode.
0:00 - Intro
2:04 - The Next Crusade
3:44 - Moderating X
6:11 - Inventing Slippery Slopes
8:04 - Right-Wing Antiwokes
10:20 - Nonconformism and Asperger’s
12:02 - Making society less conformist
16:44 - The rationality community...
2024-02-261h 03
For Humanity: An AI Risk Podcast"AI Risk Debate" For Humanity: An AI Safety Podcast Episode #12 Theo Jaffee InterviewIn Episode #12, we have our first For Humanity debate!! John talks with Theo Jaffee, a fast-rising AI podcaster who is a self described “techno-optimist.” The debate covers a wide range of topics in AI risk.This podcast is not journalism. But it’s not opinion either. This show simply strings together the existing facts and underscores the unthinkable probable outcome, the end of all life on earth. For Humanity: An AI Safety Podcast, is the accessible AI Safety Podcast for all humans, no tech background required. Our show focuses solely on the threat of huma...
2024-01-251h 40
For Humanity: An AI Risk Podcast"AI Risk Debate" For Humanity: An AI Safety Podcast Episode #12 Theo Jaffee Interview TRAILERIn Episode #12 TRAILER, we have our first For Humanity debate!! John talks with Theo Jaffee, a fast-rising AI podcaster who is a self described “techno-optimist.” The debate covers a wide range of topics in AI risk.This podcast is not journalism. But it’s not opinion either. This show simply strings together the existing facts and underscores the unthinkable probable outcome, the end of all life on earth. For Humanity: An AI Safety Podcast, is the accessible AI Safety Podcast for all humans, no tech background required. Our show focuses solely on the threat of human...
2024-01-2205 min
For Humanity: An AI Risk Podcast"Artist vs. AI Risk" For Humanity: An AI Safety Podcast Episode #11 Stephen Hanson InterviewIn Episode #11, we meet Stephen Hanson, a painter and digital artist from Northern England. Stephen first became aware of AI risk in December 2022, and has spent 12+ months carrying the weight of it all. John and Steve talk about what it's like to have a family and how to talk to them about AI risk, what the future holds, and what we the AI Risk Realists can do to change the future, while keeping our sanity at the same time.This podcast is not journalism. But it’s not opinion either. This show simply strings together the existing fa...
2024-01-171h 19Theo Jaffee Podcast#10: Liron Shapira - AI doom, FOOM, rationalism, and cryptoLiron Shapira is an entrepreneur, angel investor, and CEO of counseling startup Relationship Hero. He’s also a rationalist, advisor for the Machine Intelligence Research Institute and Center for Applied Rationality, and a consistently candid AI doom pointer-outer.
Liron’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/liron
Liron’s Substack: https://lironshapira.substack.com/
Liron’s old blog, Bloated MVP: https://www.bloatedmvp.com
TJP LINKS:
TRANSCRIPT: https://www.theojaffee.com/p/10-liron-shapira
YouTube: https://youtu.be/YfEcAtHExFM
Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/theo-jaffee-podcast/id1699912677
RSS: h...
2023-12-261h 25Theo Jaffee Podcast#9: Dwarkesh Patel - Podcasting, AI, Talent, and Fixing GovernmentDwarkesh Patel is the host of the Dwarkesh Podcast, where he interviews intellectuals, scientists, historians, economists, and founders about their big ideas. He does deep research and asks great questions. Past podcast guests include billionaire entrepreneur and investor Marc Andreessen, economist and polymath Tyler Cowen, and OpenAI Chief Scientist Ilya Sutskever. Dwarkesh has been recommended by Jeff Bezos, Paul Graham, and me.
Dwarkesh Podcast (and transcripts): https://www.dwarkeshpatel.com/podcast
Dwarkesh Podcast on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@DwarkeshPatel
Dwarkesh Podcast on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4JH4tybY1zX6e5...
2023-12-031h 48Theo Jaffee Podcast#8: Scott Aaronson - Quantum computing, AI watermarking, Superalignment, complexity, and rationalismScott Aaronson is the Schlumberger Chair of Computer Science and Director of the Quantum Information Center at the University of Texas at Austin. Previously, he got his bachelor’s in CS from Cornell, his PhD in complexity theory at UC Berkeley, held postdocs at Princeton and Waterloo, and taught at MIT. Currently, he’s on leave to work on OpenAI’s Superalignment team.
Scott’s blog, Shtetl-Optimized: https://www.scottaaronson.blog
Scott’s website: https://www.scottaaronson.com
PODCAST LINKS:
Video Transcript: https://www.theojaffee.com/p/8-scott-aaronson
Spotify: https://op...
2023-11-131h 29Theo Jaffee Podcast#7: Nora Belrose - EleutherAI, Interpretability, Linguistics, and ELKNora Belrose is the Head of Interpretability at EleutherAI, and a noted AI optimist.
Nora’s Twitter: https://x.com/norabelrose
EleutherAI Website: https://www.eleuther.ai/
EleutherAI Discord: https://discord.gg/zBGx3azzUn
PODCAST LINKS:
Video Transcript: https://www.theojaffee.com/p/7-nora-belrose
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1IJRtB8FP4Cnq8lWuuCdvW?si=eba62a72e6234efb
Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/theo-jaffee-podcast/id1699912677
RSS: https://api.substack.com/feed/podcast/989123/s/75569/private/129f6344-c459-4581-a9da-dc331677c2...
2023-11-082h 24Theo Jaffee Podcast#6: Razib Khan - Genetics, ancient history, rationalism, IQRazib Khan is a geneticist, the CXO and CSO of a biotech startup, and a writer and podcaster with interests in genetics, genomics, evolution, history, and politics.
Razib’s Twitter: https://x.com/razibkhan
Razib’s Website: https://www.razib.com
Razib’s Substack (Unsupervised Learning): https://www.razibkhan.com
PODCAST LINKS:
Video Transcript: https://www.theojaffee.com/p/5-quintin-pope
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1IJRtB8FP4Cnq8lWuuCdvW?si=eba62a72e6234efb
Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/theo-jaffee-podcast/id1699912677
...
2023-10-151h 16Theo Jaffee Podcast#5: Quintin Pope - AI alignment, machine learning, failure modes, and reasons for optimismQuintin Pope is a machine learning researcher focusing on natural language modeling and AI alignment. Among alignment researchers, Quintin stands out for his optimism. He believes that AI alignment is far more tractable than it seems, and that we appear to be on a good path to making the future great. On LessWrong, he's written one of the most popular posts of the last year, “My Objections To ‘We're All Gonna Die with Eliezer Yudkowsky’”, as well as many other highly upvoted posts on various alignment papers, and on his own theory of alignment, shard theory.
Quintin’s Twitter...
2023-10-012h 36Theo Jaffee Podcast#4: Rohit Krishnan - Developing Genius, Investing, AI Optimism, and the FutureRohit Krishnan is a venture capitalist, economist, engineer, former hedge fund manager, and essayist. On Twitter @krishnanrohit, and on his Substack, Strange Loop Canon, at strangeloopcanon.com, he writes about AI, business, investing, complex systems, and more.
CHAPTERS:
Intro (0:00)
Comparing Countries (0:33)
Reading (6:50)
Developing Genius (12:36)
Investing (24:08)
Contra AI Doom (34:27)
The Future of AI (46:26)
PODCAST LINKS:
Video Transcript: https://www.theojaffee.com/p/4-rohit-krishnan
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1IJRtB8FP4Cnq8lWuuCdvW?si=eba62a72e6234efb
2023-09-091h 05Theo Jaffee Podcast#3: Zvi Mowshowitz - Rationality, Writing, Public Policy, and AIZvi Mowshowitz is a former professional Magic: The Gathering player who is a Pro Tour and Grand Prix winner, and member of the MTG Hall of Fame. He’s also been a professional trader and market maker, and a startup founder. He’s been involved in the rationalist movement for many years, and today, he writes about AI, rationality, game design and theory, philosophy, and more on his blog, Don’t Worry About the Vase.
PODCAST LINKS:
Video Transcript: https://www.theojaffee.com/p/3-zvi-mowshowitz
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1IJRtB8FP4Cnq8lW...
2023-08-192h 21Theo Jaffee Podcast#2: Carlos de la Guardia - AGI, Deutsch, Popper, knowledge, and progressCarlos de la Guardia is an independent AGI researcher inspired by the work of Karl Popper, David Deutsch, and Richard Dawkins. In his research, he seeks answers to some of humanity’s biggest questions: how humans create knowledge, how AIs can one day do the same, and how we can use knowledge to figure out how to speed up our minds and even end death. Carlos is currently working on a book about AGI, which will be published on his Substack, Making Minds and Making Progress.
PODCAST LINKS:
Video Transcript: https://www.theojaffee.com/p/2-c...
2023-08-121h 38
Theo Jaffee Podcast#1: Greg Fodor - AI, knowledge acceleration, aliens, & VRGreg Fodor is a software engineer who’s been involved in augmented and virtual reality for over a decade. He co-founded Altspace VR, a virtual events company acquired by Microsoft, worked on Mozilla Hubs, a browser-based VR community platform; built Jel, a virtual environment video game for working, and is currently working on a new extended reality hardware stealth startup. On his Twitter account, @gfodor, he tweets about AI, VR and AR, unidentified aerial phenomena, aliens, and the philosophy of knowledge.
CHAPTERS:
(00:00) - Intro
(00:46) - Superconductors
(03:51) - The Turing test
(16:21) - AI risks, alignment, and knowledge acceleration
(33:22) - What is...
2023-07-292h 26
Talk 2 TrevPodcast #52 with SOUTHERN WILD!I chat to Alex and Dylan of SOUTHERN WILD about Time On Your Hands (single out now), Rami Jaffee (Foo Fighters) playing the keys on the track, Theo Crous, Genre, being versatile, tours, rig rundown, opening for The Cure and Incubus and so much more.
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Shout out to Warren at PLUG MUSIC AGENCY for the hookup for this chat.
Huge shout out to our main sponsors RSA ROCK 'N METAL FANS...
2021-01-1338 min