Hear This Idea #13 – Jaime Sevilla Molina on on Forecasting, Cultural Persistence, and Quantum Computing
Jaime Sevilla Molina is a visiting researcher at the Center for the Study of Existential Risk, and is beginning a PhD studying Bayesian reasoning. Previously, he was a Research Fellow at the Future of Humanity Institute, and his academic background is in mathematics and computer science.
In this episode we discuss:
- How the social sciences infer causation from natural experiments;
- Evidence for 'cultural persistence', particularly in the context of the Atlantic slave trade;
- What is forecasting, and why does it matter? Why is good forecasting so hard to come by?
- What are the likely implications of quantum computing for cryptography, drug discovery, and AI?
You can read much more on this episode's accompanying write-up hearthisidea.com/episodes/Jaime.
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