Listen Now

Kat Woods is an effective altruist and the co-founder of Nonlinear, which incubates longtermist nonprofits by connecting founders with ideas, funding, and mentorship. Gianluca and Kat discuss brain hacks for curing imposter syndrome and being more agentic, infohazards, the simulation hypothesis, why you don’t need permission to do things, “passive impact” via automation, and Kat’s exciting new projects at Nonlinear. -------- Shownotes: -------- Kat Woods on Twitter: www.twitter.com/Kat__Woods Gianluca on Twitter: www.twitter.com/QVagabond Kat’s blog: www.katwoods.org/ Nonlinear: www.nonlinear.org/ Effective Altruism (EA): https://www.effectivealtruism.org/ The Effective Altruism Handbook: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/handbook Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/10016013-harry-potter-and-the-methods-of-rationality Replacing Guilt: https://anchor.fm/guilt SMBC cartoon on compatibilism: www.smbc-comics.com/comic/compatibilism  Nonlinear Library (podcast): https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/JTZTBienqWEAjGDRv/listen-to-more-ea-content-with-the-nonlinear-library Kat’s post on text-to-speech automation: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/tAWK33eNXZKMckPhn/how-and-why-to-turn-everything-into-audio EA Houses: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/4zHWQNzCusaTfD7jz/ea-houses-live-or-stay-with-eas-around-the-world Nonlinear support fund: www.nonlinear.org/productivity-fund.html Nonlinear bounty programme: https://super-linear.org/ EA hiring agency: https://second-bellflower-54f.notion.site/EA-Hiring-Agency-0d6d75a0f5934455be9003fd7886d537 Nonlinear newsletter: www.nonlinear.org/subscribe.html Bit of a Tangent on Twitter: www.twitter.com/podtangent Bit of a Tangent on Instagram: instagram.com/podtangent/

In this episode, Gianluca and Jared discuss the neurobiology of predictive processing, the role of dopamine in reward signalling, satisfaction, and human desire. They also touch on the relation of reward to reinforcement learning and artificial intelligence.  The podcast then shifts to discuss the clinical manifestations of the predictive brain, including the computational psychiatry of depression, autism-spectrum-disorder, and schizophrenia, and how top-down prediction, and precision-weighted prediction error explain central aspects of these conditions. -------- Shownotes: -------- Jared on Twitter: www.twitter.com/jnearestn Gianluca on Twitter: www.twitter.com/QVagabond Bit of a Tangent on Twitter (www.twitter.com/podtangent) and Instagram (instagram.com/podtangent/) Last episode: https://www.podtangent.com/e/029-predictive-processing-2-where-the-action-is/

This week’s episode of Bit of a Tangent is a continuation of our 3 part series on Predictive Processing - a fascinating neuroscientific account of the way our brains come to understand the world. If you haven’t already listened to part 1 (episode 028), check that out first!  In this episode Gianluca and Jared discuss the importance of sensory precision, the circular causality of prediction and action, how action comes about in a counterintuitive way from high confidence predictions, the way in which prior expectations can bias sensory sampling, and how this could lead to self-fulfilling spirals that would make your life either much worse or much better! Find us on Twitter @podtangent

It's here. It's finally here! The first in a series of three episodes diving into the predictive processing theory of brain function! Jared and Gianluca discuss top-down versus bottom-up perception, Bayesian Brain hypotheses, the logic of caring only about prediction error, and the phenomenology of visual illusions!  

Gianluca and Jared have survived 2020 (so far) and are back for Season 3 of Bit of a Tangent. In this episode they bring you 7 new habits and techniques that can be used to iteratively upgrade yourself — even in lockdown. Forget everything else that’s going on in the world, and take a deep dive into personal optimisation. Or, as they’d put it, prepare to geek out on organisation hacks, bootstrapped learning, and motivation pumps.  -------- Shownotes: -------- Jared on Twitter: www.twitter.com/jnearestn Gianluca on Twitter: www.twitter.com/QVagabond Bit of a Tangent on Twitter (www.twitter.com/podtangent) and Instagram (instagram.com/podtangent/) Last episode: https://www.podtangent.com/e/026-drink-and-be-rational/ Matt D’Avella’s video on Checklists: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8n2vL2I__WY Alex Vermeer’s Tangibles: https://alexvermeer.com/tangibles/ Roam research: https://roamresearch.com/ Put iPhone in grayscale: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JNuziJOl61o FitNotes Android app: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.github.jamesgay.fitnotes Matt D’Avella’s 30-day challenges: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLXKuahfdkl6zkBULJhEMNy_RnErOYXwJk How Jerry Seinfeld writes jokes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=itWxXyCfW5s Anki (flashcards tool): https://apps.ankiweb.net/ Michael Nielsen’s essay on learning with Anki: http://augmentingcognition.com/ltm.html POLAR bookshelf software: https://getpolarized.io/ How to wrap your headphones up: https://youtu.be/3_FueKBoRO0?t=171

[Epistemic status: slightly intoxicated] Jared and Gianluca exchange rapid-fire questions whilst becoming increasingly inebriated. Think of this episode as the Ferriss/Rose “Random Show,” but with more references to Bayesian inference. It’s pretty likely to entertain you, but hopefully you’ll find it interesting too. Topics include Email response times, VR projects, and the statistical approach to an ethical diet.  -------- Shownotes: -------- Jared on Twitter: www.twitter.com/jnearestn Gianluca on Twitter: www.twitter.com/QVagabond Bit of a Tangent on Twitter (www.twitter.com/podtangent) and Instagram (instagram.com/podtangent/) Last episode: https://www.podtangent.com/e/025-self-supervised-machine-learning-introduction-intuitions-and-use-cases/ The Game Changers: www.imdb.com/title/tt7455754/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1 Joe Rogan Experience #1389 - Chris Kresser Debunks "The Gamechangers" Documentary: www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dq4Apc2Xk7Q Sam Altman on Conversations with Tyler: conversationswithtyler.com/episodes/sam-altman/ Top 19 Ideas from 2019: www.podtangent.com/e/021-the-top-19-ideas-from-2019/ Jared’s Twitter thread (19 ideas I couldn't stop thinking about in 2019): https://twitter.com/jnearestn/status/1211681767742156803 Donald Knuth on Lex Fridman’s podcast: https://lexfridman.com/donald-knuth/ Glen Weyl on the 80000 Hours podcast: https://soundcloud.com/80000-hours/glen-weyl-radically-reforming-capitalism-and-democracy Eric and Brett Weinstein talking about DISC and the failings of peer review on The Portal: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/19-bret-weinstein-the-prediction-and-the-disc/id1469999563?i=1000462975502 Gianluca’s paper on arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/1907.05363 This equation will change how you see the world by Veritasium: www.youtube.com/watch?v=ovJcsL7vyrk

On this episode of Bit of A Tangent, we discuss the emerging field of self-supervised machine learning. This is an immensely exciting area of active research in machine learning and AI - one which most people haven’t even heard about yet! We build up to the intuition for the topic by covering supervised and unsupervised learning; autoencoders and dimensionality reduction, and exploring how these techniques could be applied to Gianluca’s Quantified Self n=1 sleep quality dataset. We culminate in a detailed discussion of the state-of-the-art Contrastive Predictive Coding model, and how it allows us to learn about the structure of the world, without tonnes of labelled training data! -------- Shownotes: -------- Jared on Twitter: www.twitter.com/jnearestn Gianluca on Twitter: www.twitter.com/QVagabond Bit of a Tangent on Twitter (www.twitter.com/podtangent) and Instagram (instagram.com/podtangent/) Summer school on Computational Neuroscience: http://imbizo.africa/ Control problem in AI: https://intelligence.org/stanford-talk/ Coordination problem: https://conceptually.org/concepts/coordination-problems Deep learning overview: https://lilianweng.github.io/lil-log/2017/06/21/an-overview-of-deep-learning.html t-SNE explained: https://mlexplained.com/2018/09/14/paper-dissected-visualizing-data-using-t-sne-explained/ Variational autoencoders explained: https://anotherdatum.com/vae.html Self-supervised learning by fast.ai: https://www.fast.ai/2020/01/13/self_supervised/ CPC model papers on Arxiv: https://arxiv.org/pdf/1807.03748.pdf https://arxiv.org/pdf/1905.09272.pdf  Blog posts explaining CPC: https://lilianweng.github.io/lil-log/2019/11/10/self-supervised-learning.html https://yann-leguilly.gitlab.io/post/2019-09-29-representation-learning-with-contrastive-predictive-coding/ https://mf1024.github.io/2019/05/27/contrastive-predictive-coding/

Gianluca announces his latest project—the audio version of Nate Soares’ Replacing Guilt series—and Jared explains why it’s a notable contribution to the rationalist community. Together, they discuss how to gain the most from listening to the series and why it’s something you should strongly consider doing if you often find yourself binging Netflix until 3 AM.   -------- Shownotes: -------- Replacing Guilt podcast: https://anchor.fm/guilt Rationality: From AI to Zombies podcast: www.from-ai-to-zombies.eu/ SlateStarCodex podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/slate-star-codex-podcast/id1295289140 Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality (audio): http://www.hpmorpodcast.com/ Jared on Twitter: www.twitter.com/jnearestn Gianluca on Twitter: www.twitter.com/QVagabond Bit of a Tangent on Twitter (twitter.com/podtangent) and Instagram (instagram.com/podtangent/)

Jared and Gianluca have an uncompromising exchange about computational neuroscience and its implications for life and AI research. --------------- Shownotes: --------------- Jared on Twitter: www.twitter.com/jnearestn Gianluca on Twitter: www.twitter.com/QVagabond Bit of a Tangent on Twitter (twitter.com/podtangent) and Instagram (instagram.com/podtangent/) Last episode: www.podtangent.com/e/022-6-books-you-need-to-read-in-2020/ Ideas episode: www.podtangent.com/e/021-the-top-19-ideas-from-2019/ The Portal podcast episode with Garrett Lisi: podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/15-garrett-lisi-my-arch-nemesis-myself/id1469999563?i=1000458879827 Don Hoffman on Sam Harris’ podcast: https://samharris.org/subscriber-extras/178-reality-illusion/

Gianluca presents his much-requested three non-fiction and three fiction recommendations for 2020. Jared recommends a book so long and gripping that you should probably avoid it if you have anything productive to do in the next six months.  --------------- Shownotes: --------------- Jared (twitter.com/jnearestn) and Gianluca (twitter.com/QVagabond) on Twitter Bit of a Tangent on Twitter (twitter.com/podtangent) and Instagram (www.instagram.com/podtangent/) Last week’s episode: www.podtangent.com/e/021-the-top-19-ideas-from-2019/ Gianluca on Goodreads: www.goodreads.com/user/show/56535709-gianluca Books Gianluca read in 2019: www.goodreads.com/user_challenges/14773941 Algorithms to Live By, by Brian Christian and Tom Griffiths: www.goodreads.com/book/show/25666050-algorithms-to-live-by 80000 Hours podcast with one of the authors of Algorithms to Live By: https://80000hours.org/podcast/episodes/brian-christian-algorithms-to-live-by/ Inadequate Equilibria by Eliezer Yudkowsky: https://equilibriabook.com/ Eliezer Yudkowsky’s Sequences: https://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/Sequences 007 | Game Theory, Alignment, and Civilisational Inadequacy: https://www.podtangent.com/e/007-game-theory-alignment-and-civilisational-inadequacy/ Meditations on Moloch: https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/07/30/meditations-on-moloch/ The Replacing Guilt Series by Nate Soares: http://mindingourway.com/guilt/ Half-assing it with everything you’ve got: http://mindingourway.com/half-assing-it-with-everything-youve-got/ Discussions of Replacing Guilt on The Bayesian Conspiracy podcast: www.thebayesianconspiracy.com/2019/08/92-replacing-guilt/ Surfing Uncertainty by Andy Clark: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/25823558-surfing-uncertainty Good Omens by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman: www.goodreads.com/book/show/12067.Good_Omens Neil Gaiman on the Tim Ferriss show: https://tim.blog/2019/03/28/neil-gaiman/ The Metropolitan Man by Alexander Wales: www.goodreads.com/book/show/22872436-the-metropolitan-man Alexander Wales on the Bayesian Conspiracy podcast: www.thebayesianconspiracy.com/2018/07/63-rational-fiction/ The Metropolitan Man audiobook (free podcast): www.hpmorpodcast.com/?page_id=1705 The Three-Body Problem by Liu Cixin: www.goodreads.com/book/show/20518872-the-three-body-problem The Paper Menagerie by Ken Liu: www.goodreads.com/book/show/39803561-the-paper-menagerie Worm (the webseries you should probably never read): https://parahumans.wordpress.com/

Bit of a Tangent is back! In this episode, Jared shares the 19 ideas he couldn’t stop thinking about in 2019, whilst Gianluca does two B-grade Joe Rogan impressions. Together, they discuss everything from mechanism design to personal fitness hacks, and throw in some recommendations for supercharging your learning in the new year. Strap yourselves in for a taste of the fascinating conversations that lie ahead in 2020! --------------- Shownotes: --------------- Jared (twitter.com/jnearestn) and Gianluca (twitter.com/QVagabond) on Twitter Jared’s Twitter thread (19 ideas I couldn't stop thinking about in 2019): https://twitter.com/jnearestn/status/1211681767742156803 Eliezer Yudkowsky’s Sequences: https://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/Sequences Meditations on Moloch: https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/07/30/meditations-on-moloch/ Radical Markets: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/36515770-radical-markets 007 | Game Theory, Alignment, and Civilisational Inadequacy: https://www.podtangent.com/e/007-game-theory-alignment-and-civilisational-inadequacy/ Glen Weyl on Twitter: https://twitter.com/glenweyl Mechanism design: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mechanism_design Tyler Cowen on Twitter: https://twitter.com/tylercowen Surfing Uncertainty by Andy Clark: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/25823558-surfing-uncertainty Fast.AI courses: https://www.fast.ai/ When someone tries to “Euler” you: https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/08/12/does-race-exist-does-culture/ Body by Science, by Little and McGuff: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/4642174-body-by-science FitNotes app for Android: https://www.fitnotesapp.com/ All Debates are Bravery Debates on SlateStarCodex: https://slatestarcodex.com/2013/06/09/all-debates-are-bravery-debates/ Tim Ferriss on Twitter: https://twitter.com/tferriss Naval Ravikant on Twitter: https://twitter.com/naval 011 | Slack, attention and focus: https://www.podtangent.com/e/slack-attention-and-focus-or-why-more-is-less/ 010 | Flow states, optimal performance, and PhD hunter-gathering: https://www.podtangent.com/e/010-flow-states-optimal-performance-and-phd-hunter-gathering Michael Nielsen on Twitter: https://twitter.com/michael_nielsen Anki for spaced repetition: https://apps.ankiweb.net/ 013 | How To Learn Anything: https://www.podtangent.com/e/013-how-to-learn-anything/ The 7 +-2 principle for memory: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Magical_Number_Seven,_Plus_or_Minus_Two Chunking: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chunking_(psychology) The Elephant in the Brain by Kevin Simler, Robin Hanson: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/28820444-the-elephant-in-the-brain Inadequate Equilibria by Eliezer Yudkowsky: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/36606376-inadequate-equilibria Robin Hanson on Twitter: https://twitter.com/robinhanson Awareness by Anthony de Mello: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/94318.Awareness The Cook and the Chef on WaitButWhy: https://waitbutwhy.com/2015/11/the-cook-and-the-chef-musks-secret-sauce.html Sam Harris on Twitter: https://twitter.com/SamHarrisOrg Sam’s Waking Up app: https://wakingup.com/

This is part 3 of the series on Mental Models, in which Gianluca and Jared discuss the cognitive biases that often impede aspiring rationalists. They discuss the idea of “System 1 and 2” thinking as a framing for the entire discussion, before exploring 12 of the most deadly thinking traps and how to avoid them. This includes everything from the Planning Fallacy and Anchoring, to more esoteric pitfalls that are yet to be named. Finally, they describe meta-biases—like the Bias Blindspot and the Fallacy Fallacy—equipping your mental toolkit with everything you need to upgrade your thinking.  --------------- Shownotes: --------------- System 1 and 2 thinking in Kahneman’s “Thinking Fast and Slow”: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/11468377-thinking-fast-and-slow An awesome resource, the Cognitive Bias Codex: https://ritholtz.com/2016/09/cognitive-bias-codex/ A superb introduction to biases by Rob Bensinger: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/ptxnyfLWqRZ98wnYi/biases-an-introduction Yudkowsky on scope insensitivity: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/2ftJ38y9SRBCBsCzy/scope-insensitivity [Study] Scope insensitivity: The limits of intuitive valuation of human lives in public policy: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2211368114000795 Bayes’ Theorem in medical testing: https://plus.maths.org/content/maths-minute-bayes-theorem Bayes’ Theorem examples visualised: https://oscarbonilla.com/2009/05/visualizing-bayes-theorem/ Hamburg’s philharmonic concert hall that ran 6 years and 1000% over budget: https://www.thelocal.de/20161101/700m-over-budget-hamburg-concert-hall-finally-finished-elbphilharmonie Fascinating studies on the planning fallacy in students’ academic predictions: https://web.mit.edu/curhan/www/docs/Articles/biases/67_J_Personality_and_Social_Psychology_366,_1994.pdf Reference class forecasting: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reference_class_forecasting How to overcome the planning fallacy with “fudge ratios”: https://wpsmith.net/2015/improving-your-time-estimates-the-fudge-ratio/ Spinning the wheel on the anchoring bias: https://youarenotsosmart.com/2010/07/27/anchoring-effect/ “Influence” by Robert Cialdini: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/28815.Influence 016 | Free Will, Compassion, and Reinforcement Learning: https://www.podtangent.com/e/016-free-will-compassion-and-reinforcement-learning/ Inferential distances: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/HLqWn5LASfhhArZ7w/expecting-short-inferential-distances Findings in Hedonic adaptation: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hedonic_treadmill#Empirical_findings Dan Harris’ “10% Happier” podcast: https://www.tenpercent.com/podcast The Peak-End Rule: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peak%E2%80%93end_rule

This is part 2 of our series on Mental Models. In it, we’re bringing you the most useful and applicable models we’ve encountered in everything we’ve read, heard or seen over the years! In part 2 we unpack models from Bayesian reasoning, calibration, and expected value. We also cover fat-tailed distributions, counterfactual reasoning, inversion, and red-teaming. Throughout, we build up each model with examples and motivations, and often found ourselves making previously unseen (by us) links to other models which gave us several new insights. We hope this conversation will do the same for you! --------------- Shownotes: --------------- Farnam Street Blog - https://fs.blog  Calibration training app by 80 000 Hours - https://80000hours.org/calibration-training/  Superforecasting by Philip Tetlock - https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/23995360-superforecasting  0 And 1 Are Not Probabilities - https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/QGkYCwyC7wTDyt3yT/0-and-1-are-not-probabilities  Thinking In Bets by Annie Duke - https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/35957157-thinking-in-bets  The Black Swan by Nassim Taleb - https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/242472.The_Black_Swan  CGP Grey on 7 Ways To Maximise Misery - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LO1mTELoj6o  Claude Shannon on Creative Thinking - https://jamesclear.com/great-speeches/creative-thinking-by-claude-shannon  The Bottom Line - https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/34XxbRFe54FycoCDw/the-bottom-line 

This is part 1 of a new series on Mental Models - tips, tricks, and tools to add to your mental toolbox. In this episode we introduce the concept of a mental model but then quickly dive in to explanations of the most powerful models we’ve encountered. Join us and learn how to make better decisions (or know when a decision is not worth making), how to have more original and impactful ideas (and how to find the most promising ideas to work on out of the thousands you’ll soon have), and when tidying up your messy desk is just plain wrong (sorry, Marie Kondo!) --------------- Shownotes: --------------- The Great Mental Models: General Thinking Concepts by Shane Parrish - https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/44245196-the-great-mental-models  Super Thinking: The Big Book of Mental Models by Gabriel Weinberg - https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/41181911-super-thinking  Feynman technique - https://fs.blog/2012/04/feynman-technique/  More Dakka by The Zvi - https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/z8usYeKX7dtTWsEnk/more-dakka  Least recently used idea: read the book Algorithms To Live By by Brian Christian - https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/25666050-algorithms-to-live-by  Eisenhower matrix - https://jamesclear.com/eisenhower-box  Josh Wolfe on Shane Parrish’s podcast - https://fs.blog/josh-wolfe/  Eliezer Yudkowsky’s marvelous introduction to Bayes Theorem. Seriously, read this: http://yudkowsky.net/rational/bayes  Tim Urban’s WaitButWhy post on thinking from first principles like Elon Musk: https://waitbutwhy.com/2015/11/the-cook-and-the-chef-musks-secret-sauce.html  Deep Work by Cal Newport - https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/25744928-deep-work  So Good They Can’t Ignore You by Cal Newport - https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13525945-so-good-they-can-t-ignore-you  Keep Your Identity Small by Paul Graham - http://www.paulgraham.com/identity.html  Joscha Bach on the Singularity podcast: https://www.singularityweblog.com/joscha-bach/

This episode features the much-anticipated conversation with Bronwyn Williams on the topic of Universal Basic Income (UBI). Bronwyn is a futurist and trend analyst with a background in marketing and economics. Gianluca and Jared pick her brain about the economic viability of UBI, the influence of politics and big tech, and the trends in automation that will shape the future of humanity. Regardless of your fiscal intuitions or political leanings, this episode will equip you with the core arguments in the UBI debate and leave you with plenty of food for thought.   -------------- Shownotes: -------------- Write to Bit of a Tangent at podtangent@gmail.com Tweet at Bit of a Tangent: https://twitter.com/podtangent Follow Bit of a Tangent (incl. behind the scenes) on Instagram: www.instagram.com/podtangent Bronwyn Williams on Twitter: https://twitter.com/bronwynwilliams Bronwyn’s website: https://whatthefuturenow.com Flux Trends: https://www.fluxtrends.com/ Apollo 42: http://apollo42.com/ Negative income tax: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negative_income_tax Alaskan oil dividend: nhttps://basicincometoday.com/the-complicated-politics-of-the-alaska-permanent-fund-dividend/5422 Andrew Yang and the proposed “Freedom Dividend”: https://www.yang2020.com/policies/the-freedom-dividend/ Andrew Yang’s discussions about UBI with Sam Harris: https://samharris.org/podcasts/130-universal-basic-income/ Social credit system in China: https://www.wired.co.uk/article/china-social-credit-system-explained Elon Musk on automation and UBI: https://www.cnbc.com/2018/06/18/elon-musk-automated-jobs-could-make-ubi-cash-handouts-necessary.html Neuralink’s human-brain interface: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lA77zsJ31nA Humanity’s increasing prosperity (Steven Pinker): https://youtu.be/o5X2-i_poNU On having a “Venezuela moment”: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crisis_in_Venezuela Single-payer healthcare: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single-payer_healthcare Cost of bringing a drug to market: https://www.forbes.com/sites/matthewherper/2017/10/16/the-cost-of-developing-drugs-is-insane-a-paper-that-argued-otherwise-was-insanely-bad/#2c8eb48d2d45 Swiss referendum on UBI: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-36454060 Bronwyn’s book reviews: https://whatthefuturenow.com/category/reading-right-now/ The Origins of Totalitarianism by Hannah Arendt: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/396931.The_Origins_of_Totalitarianism Thinking Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/11468377-thinking-fast-and-slow The Age of Surveillance Capitalism by Shoshana Zuboff: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/26195941-the-age-of-surveillance-capitalism Death of the Gods by Carl Miller: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/40504262-the-death-of-the-gods?ac=1&from_search=true Ben Hunt on Twitter: https://twitter.com/epsilontheory David Pearce on Twitter: https://twitter.com/webmasterdave Slate Star Codex breakdown of UBI: https://slatestarcodex.com/2019/08/01/squareallworthy-on-ubi-plans/ Bayesian Conspiracy (with David Spearman) on the economics of UBI vs. NIT: http://www.thebayesianconspiracy.com/2019/07/88-ubi-and-other-forms-of-evil-taxes/

This is part 2 of our series on free will! In this episode we reconcile how it is that we can feel like we have free will (even when we don’t), give an evolutionary argument for why this might be the case and show how knowing this makes us more compassionate people who are (paradoxically) better at achieving our goals. Along the way, we explain what a Bayesian Network is (and why you should care about yours), and give an introduction to some of the key ideas and concepts in the field of Reinforcement Learning (a subfield of AI) and how we can use these concepts to clarify our view of ourselves and the world! --------------- Shownotes: --------------- Dan Dennett essay on Sam Harris’s argument: https://samharris.org/reflections-on-free-will/ Sam Harris’s response to Dennett: https://samharris.org/free-will-and-free-will/  Sam Harris’s “Free Will: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13259270-free-will Good primer on the Libet experiments that preempted decision making: https://youtu.be/OjCt-L0Ph5o The original Libet publication [paywalled]: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/6640273 Details of more recent versions of the Libet experiments with 7 second preempting and some predictive capability: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mMDuakmEEV4 A recent “debunking” of the Libet results: https://www.pnas.org/content/109/42/e2904 A popular article on the Libet experiments in the light of the new model: https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2019/09/free-will-bereitschaftspotential/597736/ Radiolab Loops episode: https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/radiolab/articles/radiolab-loops  Litany of Gendlin on LessWrong: https://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/Litany_of_Gendlin  Julia Galef on Bayes Nets: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cFv5DvrLDCg  Learn Bayes Nets post on LessWrong: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/tp4rEtQqRshPavZsr/learn-bayes-nets  Compatibilism: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/compatibilism/  A good introductory courses on reinforcement learning for those interested: https://www.theschool.ai/courses/move-37-course/  Video of RL agent walking on the back of its legs: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GdTBqBnqhaQ  Sean Carroll’s podcast: https://www.preposterousuniverse.com/podcast/  How to Win Friends and Influence Reality (episode 9 of Bit of a Tangent): https://podcasts.apple.com/za/podcast/009-how-to-win-friends-and-influence-reality/id1470855694?i=1000446168718 

This is Part 1 of the series on Free Will. In this episode, Gianluca and Jared dispel the assumption that humans have Free Will by presenting the argument from Determinism—popularised by Sam Harris. They discuss the evidence from physics, neurology, and the famous Libet experiments; before laying the groundwork for later conversations about what this implies morally and societally. You have no choice but to listen. -------- Shownotes: Sam Harris’s “Free Will: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13259270-free-will Ted Chiang’s Story of Your Life (and some of his other fantastic shorts): https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/223380.Stories_of_Your_Life_and_Others Arrival, the film adaptation of Story of Your Life: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2543164 Principle of Least Action: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principle_of_least_action Chaos Theory: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaos_theory Good primer on the Libet experiments that preempted decision making: https://youtu.be/OjCt-L0Ph5o The original Libet publication [paywalled]: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/6640273 Details of more recent versions of the Libet experiments with 7 second preempting and some predictive capability: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mMDuakmEEV4 A recent “debunking” of the Libet results: https://www.pnas.org/content/109/42/e2904 A popular article on the Libet experiments in the light of the new model: https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2019/09/free-will-bereitschaftspotential/597736/ Great CGP Grey video on split brain experiments: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wfYbgdo8e-8 Decent primer on Sperry’s split-brain experiments: https://embryo.asu.edu/pages/roger-sperrys-split-brain-experiments-1959-1968 “Behave” by Robert Sopalsky: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/31170723-behave  

Jared and Gianluca try something new on this episode! We read passages from Robert Pirsig’s wonderful novel Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, reacting and discussing as we go! Along the way, we explored the limits of conceptual understanding (a.k.a. Shut up and taste the wine!), how the words we use to describe reality also end up defining it, limiting it or expanding it, and why cliches are so easy to dismiss and when they shouldn’t be (hint: your gran was right - there’s nothing a good night’s sleep won’t solve). We also discuss what it means to truly understand something, and how our intuitive sense of what is excellent can guide us to cook great food, write beautiful code, and be delightful people!   As a bonus, we drop some hints about an exciting upcoming episode, and at the end we each share the advice we’ve heard that has the highest impact with the fewest words!   Listener feedback can be recorded here: https://www.speakpipe.com/podtangent ---------- Shownotes: Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert Pirsig: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/629.Zen_and_the_Art_of_Motorcycle_Maintenance  The Stranger by Albert Camus: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/49552.The_Stranger  Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/662.Atlas_Shrugged  Fountainhead by Ayn Rand: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2122.The_Fountainhead  The Philosopher’s Toolkit by Julian Baggini: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/192414.The_Philosophers_Toolkit  Fermat’s Enigma by Simon Singh: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/38412.Fermat_s_Enigma  The Cook & The Chef - Elon Musk’s Secret Sauce by Tim Urban: https://waitbutwhy.com/2015/11/the-cook-and-the-chef-musks-secret-sauce.html  How To Win Friends & Influence People by Dale Carnegie: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/4865.How_to_Win_Friends_and_Influence_People  Michael Nielsen’s personal blog: http://michaelnielsen.org/  Venture Stories podcast with Michael Nielsen: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/what-michael-nielsen-thinks-about-basically-everything/id1316769266?i=1000436484320  Tyler Cowen on The high-return activity of raising others’ aspirations: https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2018/10/high-return-activity-raising-others-aspirations.html

We’ve all heard about the importance of learning. We’ve all heard about the importance of learning how to learn. Well, on this episode Gianluca and Jared dive into both of these topics. They discuss the philosophies of learning they’ve encountered on their own journeys, and share several key tricks that they’ve found most helpful over the years! Along the way they discovered a new way to think about how to keep your knowledge up to date in an ever changing world! Listener feedback can be recorded here: https://www.speakpipe.com/podtangent ---------- Shownotes: This essay by Michael Nielsen is what spurred me to say we might need a follow up. It’s definitely worth a read: http://augmentingcognition.com/ltm.html  Cultural evolution primer by Scott Alexander: https://slatestarcodex.com/2019/06/04/book-review-the-secret-of-our-success/  Tim Urban’s Elon Musk blog posts: https://waitbutwhy.com/2017/03/elon-musk-post-series.html - the last post in the series changed Jared’s life https://waitbutwhy.com/2015/11/the-cook-and-the-chef-musks-secret-sauce.html Poor Charlie’s Almanack: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/944652.Poor_Charlie_s_Almanack Shane Parrish on Chauffeur knowledge: https://fs.blog/2015/09/two-types-of-knowledge/ The Sequences by Eliezer Yudkowski: https://www.lesswrong.com/rationality  We’ve include some relevant essays from the sequences to today’s conversation below: Taboo Your Words: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/WBdvyyHLdxZSAMmoz/taboo-your-words Cached Thoughts: https://www.lesswrong.com/s/pmHZDpak4NeRLLLCw/p/2MD3NMLBPCqPfnfre Replace The Symbol with The Substance: https://www.lesswrong.com/s/SGB7Y5WERh4skwtnb/p/GKfPL6LQFgB49FEnv Truly Part of You: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/fg9fXrHpeaDD6pEPL/truly-part-of-you Living By Your Own Strength: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/dKGfNvjGjq4rqffyF/living-by-your-own-strength Learning How to Learn course: https://www.coursera.org/learn/learning-how-to-learn/  Anki: https://apps.ankiweb.net/  r/medicalschoolanki decks: https://www.reddit.com/r/medicalschoolanki/  Jared used https://www.brosencephalon.com/flashcards/ in his earlier years of medschool Testing effect: https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Testing_effect  Deliberate practice: https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Practice_(learning_method)  Desirable difficulty: https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Desirable_difficulty  Method of Loci: https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Method_of_loci  Expecting Short Inferential Distances by Eliezer Yudkowski: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/HLqWn5LASfhhArZ7w/expecting-short-inferential-distances  Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid by Douglas Hofstadter: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/24113.G_del_Escher_Bach  Conversations with Tyler podcast: https://conversationswithtyler.com/

This is a discussion about why deep neural nets are unreasonably effective. Gianluca and Jared examine the relationships between neural architectures and the laws of physics that govern our Universe—exploring brains, human language, and linear functions. Nothing could have prepared them for the territories this episode expanded to, so strap yourself in! ---------- Shownotes: AlphaGo beating Lee Sedol at Go: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AlphaGo_versus_Lee_Sedol OpenAI Five: https://openai.com/blog/openai-five/ Taylor series/expansions video from 3Blue1Brown: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3d6DsjIBzJ4 Physicist Max Tegmark: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_Tegmark Tegmark’s great talk on connections between physics and deep learning (which formed much of the inspiration for this conversation): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5MdSE-N0bxs Universal Approximation Theorem: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_approximation_theorem A refresher on “Map vs. Territory”: https://fs.blog/2015/11/map-and-territory/ Ada Lovelace (who worked on Babbage’s Analytical Engine): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ada_Lovelace Manifolds and their topology: http://colah.github.io/posts/2014-03-NN-Manifolds-Topology/ Binary trees: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binary_tree Markov process: http://mathworld.wolfram.com/MarkovProcess.html OpenAIs GPT-2: https://openai.com/blog/better-language-models/ Play with GPT-2 in your browser here: https://talktotransformer.com/ Lex Fridman’s MIT Artificial Intelligence podcast: https://lexfridman.com/ai/ The Scientific Odyssey podcast: https://thescientificodyssey.libsyn.com/