With a Bruce Springsteen concert on Monday, some family visiting, some family dealing with health problems and two late night Seders not a lot of reading got done this week. Such is life. The kids left this morning with their grandfather for a week in Florida, so I expect the coming week will be better. This week there was incremental progress on the book on incrementalism, as well as the book about the explorer, (which is turning out to be more nuanced than I initially thought it would be) and, of course, I continue to chip away at the beast. I expect to finish at least two of these this coming week.
Every week seems to be AI week around here, and I don’t see that changing anytime soon.
Navigating AI Safety: Exploring the Spectrum of Perspectives on Our Future is the first piece from the new substack “Trusted”. It is by far the best piece I’ve read on the varying schools of thought in the world of “A.I. Safety”.
I’m certainly no expert on the issue of AI alignment, I’m not even sure how much we should be worrying about it. Plenty of smart people are worried, though, and that has me interested. AI Alignment concerns has a lot of overlap with the weirder corners of effective altruism, and so-called “rationalist” communities, and nothing gets me more curious than smart people with weird ideas. Chase does an excellent job of laying out the state of play. Highly recommended.
A couple weeks ago, I linked to Dwarkesh’s interview with Nat Friedman where he spoke about the Herculaneum library and the possibility of actually decoding the damaged manuscripts. It’s still a very big if that the scrolls can be read at all, but Richard Carrier has some interesting ideas about what could be inside them.
There’s three basic outcomes possible here — the library remains inaccessible, it can be read, but it contains nothing of great interest, or it contains new and important texts that could change the way we view the ancient world. Obviously, the third option is the most exciting, and getting the most attention. It’s also the least likely. I’m pulling for you though Nat!
From the exciting to the concerning — we need to talk about the number of young people, globally, who are NEET, or not in education, employment or training. Yes, job growth remains pretty strong in the U.S., but remember the unemployment rate is looking only at folks looking for work, not those who have dropped out of a work force. And don’t get me started on the situation in Africa and other places in the world. Young people with poor prospects should concern all of us.
Finally, the only way to really describe this article in the New Yorker on Hillsdale College is sneering. The provost wears shoes that are "vaguely orthopedic" the donors are "small-city-gentry types" who made their money is "obscure industries". The example given? The man who made founded Friendly's his fortune in the "obscure industry" of chain restaurants. Please interrogate whether Hillsdale is as high minded as it says it is, but looking down your nose at them is why everyone hates East Coast elites. Do better, prestige media.
Don't know how you find the time. Loved the comment about snobbery and Hillsdale. You know they are talking about Pres Blakely and his estate just over in Somers.