CSPI Podcast

Brian Chau writes and hosts a podcast at the From the New World Substack, and recently established a new think tank, the Alliance for the Future.He joins the podcast to discuss why he’s not worried about the alignment problem, where he disagrees with “doomers,” the accomplishments of ChatGPT versus DALL-E, the dangers of regulating AI until progress comes to a halt in the way it did with nuclear power, and more. With his background in computer science, Brian takes issue with many of those who write on this topic, arguing that they think in terms of flawed analogies and know little about the underlying technology. The conversation touches on a previous CSPI discussion with Leopold Aschenbrenner, and the value of continuing to work on alignment. Brian’s view is that AI doomers are making people needlessly pessimistic. He believes that this technology has the potential to do great things for humanity, particularly when it comes to areas like software development and biotech. But the post-World War II era has seen many examples of government hindering progress, and AFF is dedicated to stopping that from happening with artificial intelligence. Listen to the conversation here, or watch the video here. LinksDonate to AFFAFF manifestoBrian on diminishing returns to machine learning, and discussing AI with Marc AndreessenVaswani et al. on transformersLimits of current machine learning techniques Get full access to Center for the Study of Partisanship and Ideology at www.cspicenter.com/subscribe

Brian Riedl is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, focusing on budget, tax, and economic policy. His previous jobs include chief economist to Senator Rob Portman (R-OH), and positions on the Marco Rubio and Mitt Romney presidential campaigns. He joins the podcast to talk about the financial future of the United States, with a special focus on entitlements. Medicare is projected to run out by 2031, and Social Security only two years later. Because of politicians kicking the can down the road for so long, this will mean that the federal government will at that point have to either implement massive benefit cuts for seniors or significantly raise taxes across the board.Brian talks about his experience in Washington, the history of negotiations over the debt, and what politicians say when you bring up these facts. We appear to be in an undesirable equilibrium, where everyone’s incentive is to ignore the issues involved, while the status quo is leading us towards disaster. Despite liberals wanting to tax the rich and conservatives calling for a cut to foreign aid and non-entitlement forms of domestic spending, the numbers for such proposals don’t add up. We will either get entitlement spending under control, or become taxed at the level of Europeans.In one important way, we will actually be worse off than Europe, because their welfare states pay for services and benefits that go to families across a wide section of the population. We are potentially building a US welfare state that will have high taxes primarily to funnel money to the elderly. The fact that older Americans are richer than those who will be supporting them makes the future we are moving towards even more absurd. LinksBrian Riedl: chart book on spending, report on the limits of taxing the rich, CNN op-ed on interest rates, NYT op-ed on Biden’s promises on entitlementsBrian’s X page, Manhattan Institute website Get full access to Center for the Study of Partisanship and Ideology at www.cspicenter.com/subscribe

Chris Rufo joins the podcast to talk about his new book, America's Cultural Revolution: How the Radical Left Conquered Everything.Rufo begins by talking about his background and his theory of political change. The conversation then shifts to his new book, the strengths of Ron DeSantis as an administrator, and finally what he’s doing on the board of the New College of Florida. Topics include:* Where did all of the crazy ideas that seem to have taken over institutions in the last few years come from? * What took conservatives so long to wake up to the problem?* Did Rufo end up liking the intellectuals he was studying?* What are the connections between left-wing ideas and civil rights law?* How do conservatives reach “good liberals” within institutions?See the transcript of the conversation at the Richard Hanania Newsletter.Listen in podcast form or watch the conversation on YouTube.Links:* Richard Hanania, The DeSantis Revolution* Politico profile on the relationship between Rufo and DeSantis* Rufo, America's Cultural Revolution: How the Radical Left Conquered Everything.* Rufo video on the trans movement and “nullification” surgery, discusses his theory of political change* Hanania, The Origins of Woke (forthcoming book)* Robert Rector on black-white gaps* The Atlantic giving Rufo his due Get full access to Center for the Study of Partisanship and Ideology at www.cspicenter.com/subscribe

Bryan Caplan joins the podcast to talk about his new book, Voters as Mad Scientists: Essays on Political Irrationality.Bryan begins by explaining why he hates politics. Much of the conversation then centers around Caplan’s simplistic theory of the right and left. This is compared and contrasted with Scott Alexander’s thrive/survive theory of the political spectrum, Robin Hanson’s theory of farmers and foragers, and Hanania’s “Liberals Read, Conservatives Watch TV.”Near the end, the discussion turns to the political climate at GMU, and whether the intellectual community that has been built can survive the trend towards DEI. Caplan emphasizes that he has noticed a difference since Glenn Youngkin came to power in Virginia, showing that politics actually matters for determining the future of free speech and intellectual freedom.For previous Bryan appearances on the podcast, see: May 2021, September 2022, and May 2022.Listen in podcast form or watch on YouTube. Get full access to Center for the Study of Partisanship and Ideology at www.cspicenter.com/subscribe

Robin Hanson joins the podcast to talk about the AI debate. He explains his reasons for being skeptical about “foom,” or the idea that there will emerge a sudden superintelligence that will be able to improve itself quickly and potentially destroy humanity in the service of its goals. Among his arguments are:* We should start with a very low prior about something like this happening, given the history of the world. We already have “superintelligences” in the form of firms, for example, and they only improve slowly and incrementally * There are different levels of abstraction with regards to intelligence and knowledge. A machine that can reason very fast may not have the specific knowledge necessary to know how to do important things.* We may be erring in thinking of intelligence as a general quality, rather than as more domain-specific.Hanania presents various arguments made by AI doomers, and Hanson responds to each in kind, eventually giving a less than 1% chance that something like the scenario imagined by Eliezer Yudkowsky and others will come to pass. He also discusses why he thinks it is a waste of time to worry about the control problem before we know what any supposed superintelligence will even look like. The conversation includes a discussion about why so many smart people seem drawn to AI doomerism, and why you shouldn’t worry all that much about the principal-agent problem in this area.Listen in podcast form or watch on YouTube. You can also read a transcript of the conversation here.Links:* The Hanson-Yudkowsky AI-Foom Debate* Previous Hanson appearance on CSPI podcast, audio and transcript* Eric Drexler, Engines of Creation* Eric Drexler, Nanosystems* Robin Hanson, “Explain the Sacred”* Robin Hanson, “We See the Sacred from Afar, to See It the Same.”* Articles by Robin on AI alignment:* “Prefer Law to Values” (October 10, 2009)* “The Betterness Explosion” (June 21, 2011)* “Foom Debate, Again” (February 8, 2013)* “How Lumpy AI Services?” (February 14, 2019)* “Agency Failure AI Apocalypse?” (April 10, 2019)* “Foom Update” (May 6, 2022)* “Why Not Wait?” (June 30, 2022) Get full access to Center for the Study of Partisanship and Ideology at www.cspicenter.com/subscribe

Tim Miller is a former political operative who has worked for Jeb Bush and John Huntsman, and is currently a writer for The Bulwark and an MSNBC analyst. He joins the podcast to talk about his political memoir, Why We Did It: A Travelogue from the Republican Road to Hell. With a former insider’s perspective, Miller discusses* Where the Republican Party went wrong* The importance of character in politics* Mistakes made by Clinton and George W. Bush that led us to this point* To what extent right-wing populists have legitimate grievances* The effect of the changing media environment on our fractious politics* Why only Chris Christie could have derailed Trump in 2016* Whether, to stop Trump, other candidates should get out of the way and support DeSantisThe discussion closes on whether there are reasons to be hopeful about the future of the Republican Party. Listen here or watch the video on YouTube. Get full access to Center for the Study of Partisanship and Ideology at www.cspicenter.com/subscribe

Joe Henrich is the Ruth Moore Professor of Biological Anthropology and Professor of Human Evolutionary Biology at Harvard University. He is the author of Why Humans Cooperate, The Secret of Our Success, and The WEIRDest People in the World. He joins the podcast to talk about his work. Topics include:* The implications of Henrich’s theories for the debate over AI alignment* The nature of intelligence* Whether genetic differences between populations explain societal outcomes* If the Ancient Greeks and Romans were already WEIRD* How to understand the group selection debate* Why Islamic familial practices may have stunted economic development and growth* The political and ideological reaction to his last bookListen in podcast form or watch on YouTube. A transcript of the podcast can be found at the Richard Hanania newsletter.Links:* Joe Henrich, “The WEIRDest People in the World.”* Joe Henrich, “The Secrets of Our Success.”* Richard Hanania, “How Monogamy and Incest Taboos Made the West.”* David Epstein, “The Sports Gene.” * Seth Stephens-Davidowitz, “Don’t Trust Your Gut.” * Elizabeth Shim, “North Korea finishes fourth at International Mathematical Olympiad.” * Minnesota Transracial Adoption Study.* Bryan Caplan, “The Wonder of International Adoption: Adult IQ in Sweden.” Get full access to Center for the Study of Partisanship and Ideology at www.cspicenter.com/subscribe

Alexander Young is a researcher at the UCLA Anderson School of Management Genomics Department and School of Medicine’s Human Genetics Department, working with the Social Science Genetic Association Consortium (SSGAC). He studies the genetics of cognitive ability and educational attainment, with a particular focus on developing methods to uncover true measures of heritability for important traits.Richard and Alexander talk about why siblings are so useful for this purpose, in the midst of a larger overview of the history of behavioral genetics and modern methods. Twin and adoption studies show much higher levels of heritability than genome wide association studies (GWAS). Why might this be the case? Different theories are discussed, along with ways to solve seeming discrepancies.The conversation goes on to cover the societal relevance of Alexander’s work, and attempts to isolate research on genes and cognitive ability within the academy.Listen in podcast form or watch on YouTube:Links:* Alexander’s Twitter account.* Alexander Young, “Solving the Missing Heritability Problem.”* Alexander Young and co-authors, “Deconstructing the Sources of Genotype-Phenotype Associations in Humans.”* James Lee, “Don’t Even Go There.” Get full access to Center for the Study of Partisanship and Ideology at www.cspicenter.com/subscribe