China, Acceleration, and Nick Land - with Matt Southey – #108

About this episode

Matt Southey discusses Accelerationism, AI, and his insights on Nick Land with host Steve Hsu.

Matt Southey is an editor for an AI safety organization. He wrote his PhD dissertation on the philosophy of Nick Land. Matt's "A Brief History of Accelerationism" can be found here , and he recommends the second chapter of Crypto-Current as a good introduction to Land's usage of Kant. He and Steve discuss Accelerationism, AI, and Steve's recent meeting with Land in Shanghai. Chapter Markers: (00:00) - Introduction (02:07) - China Trip: Shenzhen, Beijing, Shanghai (03:16) - Tsinghua University: Talent (09:02) - Robotics and AI research (24:01) - Shanghai and Nick Land (35:46) - Land’s Esotericism (37:19) - Accelerationism and Orthogonality (43:01) - Simulation Metaphysics and Physics (54:36) - Dark Enlightenment and Inevitable Complexity – Steve Hsu is Professor of Theoretical Physics and of Computational Mathematics, Science, and Engineering at Michigan State University. Previously, he was Senior Vice President for Research and Innovation at MSU and Director of the Institute of Theoretical Science at the University of Oregon. Hsu is a startup founder (SuperFocus.ai, SafeWeb, Genomic Prediction, Othram) and advisor to venture capital and other investment firms. He was educated at…

People in this episode

Host: Steve Hsu

Guest: Matt Southey

Topics covered

• Accelerationism
• AI
• China
• Philosophy
• Nick Land
• Robotics

Keywords

• Accelerationism
• AI safety
• Nick Land
• China
• Robotics
• Philosophy

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: AI safety organization, Tsinghua University

Books & works: A Brief History of Accelerationism, Crypto-Current

Places: Shenzhen, Beijing, Shanghai

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