Azeem Azhar: The Exponential View

Episode 122 I spoke with Azeem Azhar about: * The speed of progress in AI * Historical context for some of the terminology we use and how we think about technology * What we might want our future to look like Azeem is an entrepreneur, investor, and adviser. He is the creator of Exponential View, a global platform for in-depth technology analysis, and the host of the Bloomberg Original series Exponentially. Reach me at editor@thegradient.pub for feedback, ideas, guest suggestions. Subscribe to The Gradient Podcast:  Apple Podcasts  | Spotify | Pocket Casts | RSSFollow The Gradient on Twitter Outline: * (00:00) Intro * (00:32) Ad read — MLOps conference * (01:05) Problematizing the term “exponential” * (07:35) Moore’s Law as social contract, speed of technological growth and impedances * (14:45) Academic incentives, interdisciplinary work, rational agents and historical context * (21:24) Monolithic scaling * (26:38) Investment in scaling * (31:22) On Sam Altman * (36:25) Uses of “AGI,” “intelligence” * (41:32) Historical context for terminology * (48:58) AI and teaching * (53:51) On the technology-human divide * (1:06:26) New technologies and the futures we want * (1:10:50) Inevitability narratives * (1:17:01) Rationality and objectivity * (1:21:13) Cultural affordances and intellectual history * (1:26:15) Centralized and decentralized AI systems * (1:32:54) Instruction tuning and helpful/honest/harmless * (1:39:18) Azeem’s future outlook * (1:46:15) Outro Links: * Azeem’s website and Twitter * Exponential View Get full access to The Gradient at thegradientpub.substack.com/subscribe