Azeem Azhar: The Exponential View
Episode 122I spoke with Azeem Azhar about:* The speed of progress in AI* Historical context for some of the terminology we use and how we think about technology* What we might want our future to look likeAzeem is an entrepreneur, investor, and adviser. He is the creator of Exponential View, a global platform for in-depth technology analysis, and the host of the Bloomberg Original series Exponentially.Reach me at editor@thegradient.pub for feedback, ideas, guest suggestions. Subscribe to The Gradient Podcast: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Pocket Casts | RSSFollow The Gradient on TwitterOutline:* (00:00) Intro* (00:32) Ad read — MLOps conference* (01:05) Problematizing the term “exponential”* (07:35) Moore’s Law as social contract, speed of technological growth and impedances* (14:45) Academic incentives, interdisciplinary work, rational agents and historical context* (21:24) Monolithic scaling* (26:38) Investment in scaling* (31:22) On Sam Altman* (36:25) Uses of “AGI,” “intelligence”* (41:32) Historical context for terminology* (48:58) AI and teaching* (53:51) On the technology-human divide* (1:06:26) New technologies and the futures we want* (1:10:50) Inevitability narratives* (1:17:01) Rationality and objectivity* (1:21:13) Cultural affordances and intellectual history* (1:26:15) Centralized and decentralized AI systems* (1:32:54) Instruction tuning and helpful/honest/harmless* (1:39:18) Azeem’s future outlook * (1:46:15) OutroLinks:* Azeem’s website and Twitter* Exponential View Get full access to The Gradient at thegradientpub.substack.com/subscribe