Mutual Understanding

Michael Vassar and I had this exchange on Twitter, and this podcast is a followup discussion. I think we mostly didn’t find a huge disagreement, but did cover some interesting ground. Transcript: Divia (00:02) Hey, I'm here today with Michael Vassar because we had a disagreement on Twitter that was actually from many years ago that I recently circled back to. And Michael, which is totally in chara...

In this episode, Daniel Filan and I talk about Elliot Thornley’s LessWrong post There are no coherence theorems . Some other LessWrong posts we reference include: * A stylized dialogue on John Wentworth's claims about markets and optimization * Why Not Subagents Transcript: Divia (00:03) I'm here today with Elliot Thornley, who goes by EJT on less wrong and Daniel Phylin and Elliot is currently a...

You can find JC Cassis at jccassis.com , and can check out her own podcast, Risk . We cover a bunch of topics, including friendship in adulthood, what we owe each other, and a little about parenting. Divia (00:01.721) Hey, so I'm here today with my friend, JC. And I like to say that we went to school together and if people are like, like you mean like what? And I'm like, no, all the school we went...

Jessica Ocean is on X , as is her husband Malcolm Ocean . This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit mutualunderstanding.substack.com

Divia Eden and Ben Goldhaber of Mutuals interviewed me about what I’ve been thinking about over the last 5 years. Below is a lightly edited transcript of our conversation. ( Link to audio on Youtube with clickable timestamps .) Topics discussed include: * what religion and spirituality might have to offer moral philosophy, AI alignment, and AI coordination * Christopher Langan's theory-of-everythi...

Sarah is a director at Nanotronics and writes on Twitter and on Substack . Timestamps [00:01:00] Why AI is probably a good thing [00:08:00] The limits of current robotics [00:13:00] Nanotronics and process improvements with AI [00:23:00] Predictions on AI [00:26:00] Input output limitations on AI models [00:35:00] Drug discovery [00:45:00] Instrumental convergence [01:05:00] Progress studies [1:13...

Coordination among 8 billion people is very tough. We're very far away from doing that with the intelligence that we have now, it's incredibly costly to send information to different people and for different people to learn about each other in order to trust each other…  we should kind of expect that people will have a lot of trouble coordinating on a big scale. But if we could then we’d grow a lo...

This episode may make more sense after reading Quintin’s LessWrong post about evolution and the sharp left turn, but I think we end up talking through most of it. Our conversation appeared as two Twitter Spaces: https://twitter.com/diviacaroline/status/1649925920529223680?s=20 and https://twitter.com/diviacaroline/status/1649957263535394821?s=20 This is a public episode. If you would like to discu...

Robin talks about why he thinks developments in AI will be on a continuum with civilizational progress in general, and Ronny, who is mostly trying to understand Robin, talks some about why he thinks many of the things he values about humanity aren't on track to being preserved, and that he cares about that. Video version available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G-fBdPnwFrI This is a public ep...

In this episode we discuss several ‘frames’ - ways of processing and orienting to information - that are appearing in public discussions around AI, and in particular reflect on how grounded they are in longstanding debates within the AI X-Risk community. "It’s sort of like the democratic ideal where everybody's sort of out there at the public square arguing with each other, talking about the thing...

No transcript for this episode yet, but I wanted to get it out there anyway, since it can be hard to listen on Twitter Spaces. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit mutualunderstanding.substack.com

Ben Weinstein-Raun And so my guess is that that fairness seems like a plausible candidate for something like an alien species might have… kind of universal, like given some sort of assumptions about how evolution worked or works. Like there is something happening that results in us making choices. And if your philosophical determinism denies that, like you're wrong. And, I think it makes about as...

Divia and Ben discuss politics, reminisce about elections gone by, and try and make AI predictions. This transcript is machine generated and contains errors. Ben Goldhaber: [00:00:00] so how's it going Divia? Divia Eden: It's going well. Great to have a chance to talk to you on the podcast. Ben Goldhaber: Yeah, same back at you and Hi. Who, who else is joining us for the next minutes? Divia Eden:...

As I’ve said often in the past, utilitarianism is a hell of a drug. And it can get you to do incredibly horrible things while you’re high on it. Utilitarianism not even once, just say no to utilitarian. All of these discussions are old discussions. Instead of being had among 200 people, they are being had in public among vast numbers. Perry Metzger writes on Substack at Diminished Capacity and on...