I’m scared of AGI. It's confusing how people can be so dismissive of the risks.
I’m an investor in two AGI companies and friends with dozens of researchers working at DeepMind, OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google Brain. Almost all of them are worried.
🧵
Yearly building permits:
SF Bay: 5k
NYC: 20k
LA: 24K
Tokyo: 142k 🔥
Tokyo housing prices have *decreased* since 2006.
The solution? Strip local control. “If you want to build a mock-Gothic castle faced in pink seashells, that is your business."
1/ Sorry New York Times, I decline to be interviewed.
The harassment of @bariweiss and Scott Alexander are only two of the more recent reasons I no longer trust your paper. Helping elect Donald Trump is another. I encourage others in tech to #BoycottTheNYT
Recreating 3D scenes using the reflections in your eyes:
world-from-eyes.github.io
A single photo is enough, but it becomes much more accurate with multiple reflections from multiple angles, like a video capturing moving eyes.
2/ The data makes it plain that the NYT has abandoned its commitment to nonpartisan reporting. When the internet threatened their business they made a devil’s bargain to amplify outrage and us-vs-them psychology. Racism wasn't a new problem in 2014 but their stock being down was.
5/ How does the NYT complete with YouTube? Identity = virality was the Buzzfeed formula with articles like ‘X Things Only a Y Would Understand’. Klein: ‘outrage is deeply connected to identity’.
The New York Times is now functionally Buzzfeed with a cultured facade.
Everyone thinks the media is ok until they interact with them. They don’t give a shit about anything except driving eyeballs. The first few times reporters wrote about me were incredibly eye opening.
Playing with GPT-3 feels like seeing the future. I’ve gotten it to write songs, stories, press releases, guitar tabs, interviews, essays, technical manuals. It's shockingly good.
arr.am/2020/07/09/gpt…
11/ In short, The New York Times and Trump harness the same forces. It's working: trust is down, but the stock is up. The paper of record is now an engine for turning out-group hatred into profit. We don’t have to help them. #BoycottTheNYT
Palantir is moving to Colorado.
One of the biggest cracks I've seen in San Francisco's status as the center of our industry. CEO Alex Karp said he was against the “increasing intolerance and monoculture of Silicon Valley”.
