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Is the AI “Revolution” Overblown? (Robert Wright & Timothy B. Lee)
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Is the AI “Revolution” Overblown? (Robert Wright & Timothy B. Lee)

This episode includes an Overtime segment that’s available to paid subscribers. If you’re not a paid subscriber, we of course encourage you to become one. If you are a paid subscriber, you can access the complete conversation either via the audio and video on this post or by setting up the paid-subscriber podcast feed, which includes all exclusive audio content. To set that up, simply grab the RSS feed from this page (by first clicking the “...” icon on the audio player) and paste it into your favorite podcast app.

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0:00 Tim’s got a new podcast, and NonZero is hiring
3:07 Is large language model progress reaching a plateau?
14:56 Some shortcomings of AI today
25:18 Human cognition compared to AI
33:03 The impressive progress of "multimodal" AI
41:09 Heading to Overtime

Robert Wright (Nonzero, The Evolution of God, Why Buddhism Is True) and Timothy B. Lee (Full Stack Economics, Understanding AI). Recorded January 14, 2025.

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Twitter: https://twitter.com/NonzeroPods

Overtime titles:

0:00 Elon’s “Colossus” supercomputer
4:55 How soon will AI transform the world?
16:16 AI personal assistants and other “agents”
24:19 Do techies overestimate AI’s near-term impact?
35:25 China hawkism in the AI community

This post is for paid subscribers