Robert Wright's Nonzero

0:33 Robin’s history of thinking about the future 2:48 Seeing AI as offspring, not adversary 14:54 Robin’s famous answer to a great cosmic mystery 25:21 Would evidence of aliens be good news or bad? 34:23 Is rationalist culture cultist? 44:19 LLMs: revolution or hype cycle? 55:57 Heading to Overtime

Robert Wright (Nonzero, The Evolution of God, Why Buddhism Is True) and Robin Hanson (George Mason University, The Elephant in the Brain, Overcoming Bias). Recorded April 02, 2024.

Robin's Substack: https://www.overcomingbias.com/

0:33 Ilia’s background 2:21 Things to know about the noosphere 8:43 Teilhard’s transgressive theological and scientific thought 14:57 Does AI suggest a “transcendent nature to nature”? 18:36 The Teilhardian solution to the mind-body problem 29:44 How Darwinian was Teilhard, really? 38:37 Teilhard on love 43:33 “Techno-sapiens,” redemption, and the Omega Point 55:06 Heading to Overtime

Robert Wright (Nonzero, The Evolution of God, Why Buddhism Is True) and Ilia Delio (Center for Christogenesis, The Unbearable Wholeness of Being, The Not-Yet God). Recorded January 10, 2024.

Twitter: https://twitter.com/NonzeroPods

Overtime titles:

0:00 Ilia: We’re a speeding world and no one’s at the wheel 13:20 Is becoming a global superorganism a good thing? 19:43 "God is more Omega than Alpha" and other cryptic Teilhard-isms 25:57 Did Teilhard believe in aliens?

Robert Wright and Andrew Day discuss items from the Earthling.

Read this edition of the Earthling: https://nonzero.substack.com/p/the-new-persuaders

Recorded March 29, 2024.

https://twitter.com/NonzeroNewshttps://twitter.com/NonzeroPods

0:33 Kati’s unusual niche 2:40 How Covid changed meditation 7:38 Kati: The optimal amount of meditation is… 15:10 Is focusing on the breath overblown? 23:06 AI as a spiritual challenge 33:03 Meditation and cognitive empathy 39:52 Using technology mindfully 46:24 Heading to Overtime

Robert Wright (Nonzero, The Evolution of God, Why Buddhism Is True) and Kathryn Devaney (The Berkeley Alembic). Recorded March 21, 2024.

Twitter: https://twitter.com/NonzeroPods

3:05 Are Nikolay and Kirill satisfied with the "special military operation"? 8:26 Why have Russians become more supportive of the war effort? 18:07 Kirill defends the RWA tweet that unsettled Bob 32:53 US policies that made the war more likely 41:15 How much of Ukraine does Putin want? 54:29 Heading to Overtime

RWA YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@RussiansWithAttitude/videos RWA podcast episodes: https://www.patreon.com/rwapodcast

Robert Wright (Bloggingheads.tv, The Evolution of God, Nonzero, Why Buddhism Is True) and Nikolay and Kirill (Russians with Attitude). Recorded March 21, 2024.

Twitter: https://twitter.com/NonzeroPods

Overtime titles:

0:00 Will Ukrainians blame Zelensky for the war? 10:16 Andrei Tarkovsky’s films and Burkean conservatism 21:40 The future of Russia’s political opposition 31:39 How are Russian nationalists processing the Gaza war?

0:33 Paul’s Substack: small potatoes or some pumpkins? 4:03 Elon sours on Lemon—is ketamine to blame? 10:00 The enduring enigma that is Elon Musk 21:25 Is Altman overdramatizing the AI #Resistance? 30:03 Paul cavalierly ignores Bob’s sage guidance 34:25 Oscars: The good, the bad, and the hammy 40:57 Heading to Overtime (plus: big Small Potatoes news!)

Robert Wright (Nonzero, The Evolution of God, Why Buddhism Is True) and Paul Bloom (https://smallpotatoes.paulbloom.net, University of Toronto, The Sweet Spot, Against Empathy). Recorded March 19, 2024.

Twitter: https://twitter.com/NonzeroPods

Discussed in Overtime: The knotty SSRI sexual side effect question. How woke is Barbie? How Will Smith’s Oscar slap is like Russia-Ukraine. Is AI Bob’s ticket to immortality? Jury Duty, acting, and human nature. What is the TikTok ban really about? Is Paul Pollyanna?

0:33 Nathan’s role as “AI scout” 4:07 What "open source" in AI really means 9:45 Why the secrecy around AI training data? 17:19 What’s actually “open” about OpenAI? 32:56 The case for and against open source AI 42:35 Is an open source crackdown coming?52:25 What Waymark, Nathan’s company, does with AI

Robert Wright (Nonzero, The Evolution of God, Why Buddhism Is True) and Nathan Labenz (Cognitive Revolution, Waymark AI). Recorded March 13, 2024.

Twitter: https://twitter.com/NonzeroPods

The Cognitive Revolution podcast: https://www.cognitiverevolution.ai/ Waymark AI: https://waymark.com/

Overtime titles:

0:00 Bob glimpses a Matrix-like future 4:34 Could (and should) we use AI to resolve human disputes? 9:47 Where Nathan falls on the AI doomer spectrum 22:50 Understanding how AI understands things 32:22 Is AI alignment overblown?

2:49 Should Biden pursue regime change in Israel? 11:09 How the White House mishandled Netanyahu's far-right government 22:32 Daniel: “Israel has lost this war” 31:57 What a ceasefire deal would look like 39:16 Biden’s immense, unused leverage over Netanyahu 46:54 Heading to Overtime

Robert Wright (Nonzero, The Evolution of God, Why Buddhism Is True) and Daniel Levy (Prospects for Peace, NAF, The Century Foundation). Recorded March 12, 2024.

Twitter: https://twitter.com/NonzeroPods

Overtime titles:

0:00 How the Gaza war makes Biden look weak 5:30 Has the Zionist project become more militant? 23:22 The Israel-Palestine one-state reality

Robert Wright and Andrew Day discuss items from the Earthling.

Read this edition of the Earthling at:https://nonzero.substack.com/p/the-real-problem-with-the-trump-biden

Recorded March 08, 2024.

https://twitter.com/NonzeroNews

https://twitter.com/NonzeroPods

0:31 The other Tim B. Lee 3:16 Unpacking the Elon v. OpenAI case 14:04 How did Google’s Gemini go wrong? 25:24 The unsung ingenious side of Gemini 34:39 Is AI a bubble? 38:53 Are some LLM issues insoluble? 44:39 How Sora changes the AI picture 51:12 Heading to Overtime

Robert Wright (Nonzero, The Evolution of God, Why Buddhism Is True) and Timothy B. Lee (Full Stack Economics, Understanding AI). Recorded March 6, 2024.

Tim's Understanding AI newsletter on Substack:

Twitter: https://twitter.com/NonzeroPods

Overtime titles:

0:00 Are LLMs general learning machines? Are human minds? 6:44 The Darwinian dynamics of machine learning 13:37 How to conceptualize how LLMs conceptualize 20:04 Is digital technology’s impact on society overstated?