Having been an avid podcast listener the last few years and always an eager reader, I now have a feeling that topics, debates, and conclusions are being recycled over and over again. Also the mix of podcast topics (science, politics, world affairs, philosophy) and selection of podcast guests have started to converge beween the podcasts.
Can I trust an LLM?
LLMs use gigawatts of precise, deterministic computing power to produce human Type 1 thinking while we still need to rely on our noisy, chemical brains for serious Type 2 tasks. The singularity sometimes looks more like a mud pit.
The ideal political system
Systems of government are not to be judged for their prophetic ability to choose and install good leaders and policies, but for their ability to remove bad ones that are already there.
The enlightenment formula
Buddhist practice can be seen as a re-weighting of the terms in the human (non-optimal) implementation of the Buddha equation.
Proof that LLMs hallucinate
I asked ChatGPT if it was prone to hallucinations. It admitted it was.
Wrong and right about AI risks
Anthropomorphizing AI applications is not productive. AI applications are systems and should be designed using systems engineering.
Catching up
Getting started with agentic LLMs.
Why so many lies?
Why do lies emerge in such huge numbers and why do lies have such long half-lives?
Building a new religion
Fact-checking an authoritarian’s statements is a meaningless endeavor. What he says has no relation to epistemology.
Inquiry cures ignorance
We are not always great at learning from each other, together with each other, from history, or from other documented bodies of knowledge. We too often subject too poor models too soon to reality. An important reason is that we seem to have an aversion to inquiry.