Best Steven Davidson Podcasts (2025)

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“A deep critique of AI 2027’s bad timeline models” by titotal 1:12:32

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20h ago1:12:32

1:12:32

Thank you to Arepo and Eli Lifland for looking over this article for errors. I am sorry that this article is so long. Every time I thought I was done with it I ran into more issues with the model, and I wanted to be as thorough as I could. I’m not going to blame anyone for skimming parts of this article. Note that the majority of this article was w…

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“‘Buckle up bucko, this ain’t over till it’s over.’” by Raemon 6:12

22h ago6:12

6:12

The second in a series of bite-sized rationality prompts[1]. Often, if I'm bouncing off a problem, one issue is that I intuitively expect the problem to be easy. My brain loops through my available action space, looking for an action that'll solve the problem. Each action that I can easily see, won't work. I circle around and around the same set of…

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Top 25 Stories of the Past 25 Years, Ep. 4: George Mason; UMBC over Virginia>>UVA 2019 title; UNC ends Coach K’s career 1:36:41

1d ago1:36:41

1:36:41

Welcome back to our special offseason series! The penultimate installment of our look back at the biggest stories this century in men's college hoops. This episode includes the greatest buzzer beater in Final Four History, the day college basketball changed forever AND the team that retired Coach K -- Twice. 2:12 - 10. Kris Jenkins wins it at the b…

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“Shutdown Resistance in Reasoning Models” by benwr, JeremySchlatter, Jeffrey Ladish 18:01

1d ago18:01

18:01

We recently discovered some concerning behavior in OpenAI's reasoning models: When trying to complete a task, these models sometimes actively circumvent shutdown mechanisms in their environment––even when they’re explicitly instructed to allow themselves to be shut down. AI models are increasingly trained to solve problems without human assistance.…

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“Authors Have a Responsibility to Communicate Clearly” by TurnTrout 11:08

1d ago11:08

11:08

When a claim is shown to be incorrect, defenders may say that the author was just being “sloppy” and actually meant something else entirely. I argue that this move is not harmless, charitable, or healthy. At best, this attempt at charity reduces an author's incentive to express themselves clearly – they can clarify later![1] – while burdening the r…

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“The Industrial Explosion” by rosehadshar, Tom Davidson 31:57

3d ago31:57

31:57

Summary To quickly transform the world, it's not enough for AI to become super smart (the "intelligence explosion"). AI will also have to turbocharge the physical world (the "industrial explosion"). Think robot factories building more and better robot factories, which build more and better robot factories, and so on. The dynamics of the industrial …

1
Ian Coppinger 23:25

4d ago23:25

23:25

Steven takes Ian Coppinger back in time to an imaginary life he is living for the first time. Ian remembers every moment though, and a very serious discussion of stuff that didn't happen happens. Thanks to Greystoke & Daisy D for the tunes.By Steven Davidson

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“Race and Gender Bias As An Example of Unfaithful Chain of Thought in the Wild” by Adam Karvonen, Sam Marks 7:56

7d ago7:56

7:56

Summary: We found that LLMs exhibit significant race and gender bias in realistic hiring scenarios, but their chain-of-thought reasoning shows zero evidence of this bias. This serves as a nice example of a 100% unfaithful CoT "in the wild" where the LLM strongly suppresses the unfaithful behavior. We also find that interpretability-based interventi…

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EP. 43 – Fueling the Light Within w/ Chris Tjajadi | The Patty Show 1:43:23

7d ago1:43:23

1:43:23

Absolutely! Here's a fun, engaging, and emotionally resonant version of your podcast description for EP. 43 – Fueling the Light Within w/ Chris Tjajadi, now with added laughs, Japanese vibes, Indonesian brotherhood, mentorship, and deeper connection: EP. 43 – Fueling the Light Within w/ Chris Tjajadi | The Patty Show Release Date: July 3, 2025 This…

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“The best simple argument for Pausing AI?” by Gary Marcus 2:00

7d ago2:00

2:00

Not saying we should pause AI, but consider the following argument: Alignment without the capacity to follow rules is hopeless. You can’t possibly follow laws like Asimov's Laws (or better alternatives to them) if you can’t reliably learn to abide by simple constraints like the rules of chess. LLMs can’t reliably follow rules. As discussed in Marcu…

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Discover The Difference with Matt Stevens 59:18

7d ago59:18

59:18

In this episode of Discover the Difference, Jamie and Gabe talk with Matt Stevens, Navy SEAL veteran and CEO of The Honor Foundation. Matt shares his journey from the Naval Academy to the SEALs, then into tech, and now leading a mission-driven organization helping Special Operations Forces transition to civilian life. Hear how his commitment to exc…

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Top 25 Stories of Past 25 Years, Ep. 3: Zion transcends CBB; Florida + UConn's B2B titles; Carmelo and Cuse 1:07:46

7d ago1:07:46

1:07:46

Welcome back to our special offseason series! The third installment of our look back at the biggest stories this century in men's college hoops includes one of the most impactful coaching decisions in college basketball history, the biggest star in the sport since 2000 and five (yes, five) national championship teams.04:45 - No. 15: Florida becomes…

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“Foom & Doom 2: Technical alignment is hard” by Steven Byrnes 56:38

9d ago56:38

56:38

2.1 Summary & Table of contents This is the second of a two-post series on foom (previous post) and doom (this post). The last post talked about how I expect future AI to be different from present AI. This post will argue that this future AI will be of a type that will be egregiously misaligned and scheming, not even ‘slightly nice’, absent some fu…

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“Proposal for making credible commitments to AIs.” by Cleo Nardo 5:19

10d ago5:19

5:19

Acknowledgments: The core scheme here was suggested by Prof. Gabriel Weil. There has been growing interest in the deal-making agenda: humans make deals with AIs (misaligned but lacking decisive strategic advantage) where they promise to be safe and useful for some fixed term (e.g. 2026-2028) and we promise to compensate them in the future, conditio…

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Ep 40 - The Wild World of Embryos with Dr. Jeff Hardin, Part 2 40:59

10d ago40:59

40:59

In the second of a two part conversation with embryologist Dr. Jeff Hardin, we get into the ethical/moral implications of experimentation with embryos, how a human embryo should be treated in terms of its human nature or capacity, fixing vs enhancing genes, creating trans-species chimeras, and attempts to make humanzes (human-chimp embryos. Wild ti…

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“X explains Z% of the variance in Y” by Leon Lang 18:52

12d ago18:52

18:52

Audio note: this article contains 218 uses of latex notation, so the narration may be difficult to follow. There's a link to the original text in the episode description. Recently, in a group chat with friends, someone posted this Lesswrong post and quoted: The group consensus on somebody's attractiveness accounted for roughly 60% of the variance i…

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“A case for courage, when speaking of AI danger” by So8res 10:12

13d ago10:12

10:12

I think more people should say what they actually believe about AI dangers, loudly and often. Even if you work in AI policy. I’ve been beating this drum for a few years now. I have a whole spiel about how your conversation-partner will react very differently if you share your concerns while feeling ashamed about them versus if you share your concer…

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EP. 42 – The Art of Enjoying Life w/ Steven Ronggur | The Patty Show 1:21:04

14d ago1:21:04

1:21:04

Get ready for an episode that’s all about living with intention and finding joy in every moment! I’m joined by my fellow Indonesian brother, talented actor, entertainer, TikTok sensation, and passionate friend who’s truly become family — Steven Ronggur. 🙌 Big shoutout to Steven for showing me the best of San Diego and reminding me what it means to …

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Night 1 draft recap: DAL, UTAH, SA, CHA winners; inside stories on some of the big picks and surprise selections 1:06:01

14d ago1:06:01

1:06:01

The 1st round of the NBA draft is OVER and it's time for Gary Parrish and Matt Norlander to react to all of it.00:00 - Start02:04 - Ace Bailey DROPS to Utah09:35 - San Antonio killed the draft24:49 - Cedric Coward to the Grizzlies31:11 - New Orleans Big Blunder37:27 - Hansen Yang and the Portland Trailblazers42:26 - Jakucionis FALLS to the Heat 🎵 T…

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“My pitch for the AI Village” by Daniel Kokotajlo 13:27

15d ago13:27

13:27

I think the AI Village should be funded much more than it currently is; I’d wildly guess that the AI safety ecosystem should be funding it to the tune of $4M/year.[1] I have decided to donate $100k. Here is why. First, what is the village? Here's a brief summary from its creators:[2] We took four frontier agents, gave them each a computer, a group …

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“Foom & Doom 1: ‘Brain in a box in a basement’” by Steven Byrnes 58:46

16d ago58:46

58:46

1.1 Series summary and Table of Contents This is a two-post series on AI “foom” (this post) and “doom” (next post). A decade or two ago, it was pretty common to discuss “foom & doom” scenarios, as advocated especially by Eliezer Yudkowsky. In a typical such scenario, a small team would build a system that would rocket (“foom”) from “unimpressive” t…

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Mega mock draft: Overvalued/underrated prospects, intel on lottery picks, projecting Cooper Flagg’s career, Ace Bailey’s stock, picks doomed to miss + much more 1:43:44

16d ago1:43:44

1:43:44

The only mock draft that you'll ever need on the internet is HERE! Gary Parrish, Matt Norlander and Kyle Boone give you the likely EXACT order that the NBA Draft will happen. Plus info and intel on the all the top teams! 00:00 - Start 02:38 - The Dallas Mavericks select.. 06:49 - The San Antonio Spurs select... 09:00 - The Philadelphia 76ers select…

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Ep 39 - The Wild World of Embryos with Dr. Jeff Hardin, Part 1 46:22

18d ago46:22

46:22

In this two part conversation, I am joined by Dr. Jeff Hardin, a zoologist at the University of Wisconsin and co-author of the textbook World of the Cell. In part 1, we spend most of the discussion on the amazing and sometimes mind-boggling science of the embryo, including splitting an embryo to create two or more fully developing individuals, two …

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“Futarchy’s fundamental flaw” by dynomight 15:28

19d ago15:28

15:28

Say you’re Robyn Denholm, chair of Tesla's board. And say you’re thinking about firing Elon Musk. One way to make up your mind would be to have people bet on Tesla's stock price six months from now in a market where all bets get cancelled unless Musk is fired. Also, run a second market where bets are cancelled unless Musk stays CEO. If people bet o…

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“Do Not Tile the Lightcone with Your Confused Ontology” by Jan_Kulveit 11:28

21d ago11:28

11:28

Or: How anthropomorphic assumptions about AI identity might create confusion and suffering at scale If you are reading this and you are a human, you likely have a sense of self, persisting over time, with desires and wishes and fears. Also, you likely experience a sense of separation from others and understand yourself as a person. If you are readi…

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2025 NBA Draft Mailbag: VJ Edgecombe's Draft Ceiling, Carter Bryant's Rising Draft Stock 1:08:52

21d ago1:08:52

1:08:52

READ - CBS NBA Draft Prospect Rankings : https://www.cbssports.com/nba/draft/prospect-rankings/ With less than a week until the NBA Draft, there's less clarity than ever. So with GP on vacation, we pull in Adam Finklestein to answer any NBA Draft related question.00:00 - Start02:35 - Quality of 2025 NBA Draft Class. 07:55 - Top-100 Prospects that w…

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“Endometriosis is an incredibly interesting disease” by Abhishaike Mahajan 35:13

21d ago35:13

35:13

Introduction There are several diseases that are canonically recognized as ‘interesting’, even by laymen. Whether that is in their mechanism of action, their impact on the patient, or something else entirely. It's hard to tell exactly what makes a medical condition interesting, it's a you-know-it-when-you-see-it sort of thing. One such example is m…

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EP. 41 - Limitless Possibilities w/ Maria Marin & Valerie Bien-Aime | The Patty Show 1:07:18

21d ago1:07:18

1:07:18

In this heart-filled episode of The Patty Show, we explore the powerful theme of Passion—what it looks like, how to find it, and most importantly, how to live it daily. Joined by two of my closest friends-turned-family from college, Maria Marin and Valerie Bien-Aime, we dive into how passion can create limitless possibilities when paired with purpo…