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Astral Codex Ten Podcast

Sep 29, 2022

https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/from-nostradamus-to-fukuyama

I.

Nostradamus was a 16th century French physician who claimed to be able to see the future.

(never trust doctors who dabble in futurology, that’s my advice)

His method was: read books of other people’s prophecies and calculate some astrological...


Sep 23, 2022

https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/highlights-from-the-comments-on-billionaire

[original post: Billionaires, Surplus, and Replaceability]


1: Lars Doucet (writes Progress and Poverty) writes:

Scott, the argument you're making rhymes a *lot* with the argument put forward by Anne Margrethe Brigham and Jonathon...


Sep 22, 2022

https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/why-is-the-central-valley-so-bad

I.

Here’s a topographic map of California (source):

You might notice it has a big valley in the center. This is called “The Central Valley”. Sometimes it also gets called the San Joaquin Valley in the south, or the the Sacramento Valley in...


Sep 20, 2022

https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/janus-gpt-wrangling

Janus (pseudonym by request) works at AI alignment startup Conjecture. Their hobby, which is suspiciously similar to their work, is getting GPT-3 to do interesting things.

For example, with the right prompts, you can get stories where the characters become...


Sep 17, 2022

https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/bay-area-meetups-this-weekend

We have three Bay Area meetups this weekend:

  • Berkeley, at 1 PM on Sunday 9/18, at the Rose Garden Inn (2740 Telegraph Ave)

  • San Francisco, at 11 AM on Sunday 9/18, “in the Panhandle, between Ashbury and Masonic, with an ACX sign”

  • San Jose,...