Weekly Wrap Up for the Week 6 16 2023
Being everything I read, watched, and listened to in the last two weeks
Books
About a third of the way through the Books of Jacob and what can I say about this book? Its masterful. More of a joy to read than the Scholem book on Sevi. Hard to see how any book will surpass this one as best novel of the year. Pairing it with The Heresy of Jacob Frank by Jay Michaelson, which is also excellent and accessible.*
I’m beginning to see 18th century false Jewish messiahs are a hinge point from which to explore so much. The codification modern Judaism, western Christian esotericism, the Enlightenment, and more. There’s a part of me that wants to do a project that just mines the hell out of this area to see where it goes. Drop a comment if that kind of weirdness would be of interest.
* By the way, I was referred to the Michaelson book by an anonymous twitter user known for his rap songs and interest in conspiracies. Don’t tell me twitter’s dead.
Articles
If you’re following the debate around AI alignment, you probably saw Marc Andreesen’s AI maximalist essay why AI Will Save the World. It’s worth reading. I think he gets some things right, others not so right. Andreesen, we should remember, was telling us less than a year ago that crypto was going to save the world so take what he says with a grain of salt.
Once you’re read Andreesen, you need to read Dwarkesh’s excellent “Contra Marc Andreesen” rebuttal. It is wild to think this recent college graduate has become one of the most interesting folks on the internet in no time by putting together the three things that lead to success — being smart, being curious, and being brave enough to start.
Sometimes I wonder if it is worth even linking to New Yorker articles here. If you read, you get the New Yorker. It is sitting there right now, taunting you, whispering “really? another Wire re-watch? You haven’t read me in months.” Still, this article on Isabelle Weber and inflation is super interesting. In general the world of academia is boring and unimportant, but it does give shelter to unorthodox thinkers like Weber who turn out to be, if not right, certainly worth taking seriously.
Podcasts
Again with Dwarkesh and his great podcast Lunar Society. This week he has the first part of a supposedly eight hour (!) conversation with AI Alignment research Carl Shulman. I was unfamiliar with Shulman before this podcast, but I guess he’s deeply respected in the AI Alignment space. (I find it interesting that his background is philosophy and law, and not CS. There may be hope for us lawyers!) One of the great things about Dwarkesh’s podcast is he really doesn’t talk down to the audience — he assumes a very high level of knowledge about whatever he’s talking about — but if, like me, your understanding of the mechanics of LLMs is poor, it can sometimes be a challenging ride. I didn’t understand everything in this episode, but I still found it incredibly interesting, especially Shulman’s thoughts on the likelihood of truly breakthrough AGI (either in the next ten years or maybe not at all). Looking forward to part two!
In general my podcast consumption has gone way down, but the two I always check out are Lunar Society referenced above and Conversations with Tyler. Recently, Tyler had Peter Singer on and it was just excellent. Cowen’s interview style is unique and well suited to a conversation with the thinker like Singer. Self recommending.
Speaking of Tyler, he was recently on another podcast called “Call Me Back” as guest. It was also excellent. Cowen’s curiosity, intelligence, and willingness to be heterodox are a real inspiration to me, and all of that is on display in this episode where he wanders from AI to international relations, to basketball. Super interesting.
Been listening to the Spellcaster series on Sam Bankman Fried and its… fine. Some new goss for the SBF deadenders like me, but if you’ve been following the saga you won’t learn anything really new.
Finally, Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit have a new record out and its good.
Movies
The new Spiderman movie is beautiful and moving and my son and I loved it. Really made me fall in love again with the experience of going to the movies. Need to do more of that.
Programming Note
Headed to the country with the fam this weekend for a week and therefore no posting. I’ll return last week of June!