Jeremie and Edouard Harris discuss the risks and scaling of AI, nuclear power for data centers, navigating government bureaucracy for critical issues, challenges in AI safety and regulation, existentialism in AI systems, rapid advancements in AI technology, uncertainty in technology regulation, evolution of AI in Silicon Valley, transhumanism and AI advocates, product optimization, AI capabilities, predicting biological molecule structures, material discovery, and balancing benefits and risks in AI development.

In episode 79 of The Gradient Podcast, Daniel Bashir speaks to Jeremie Harris.Jeremie is co-founder of Gladstone AI, author of the book Quantum Physics Made Me Do It, and co-host of the Last Week in AI Podcast. Jeremy previously hosted the Towards Data Science podcast and worked on a number of other startups after leaving a PhD in physics.Have suggestions for future podcast guests (or other feedback)? Let us know here or reach us at editor@thegradient.pubSubscribe to The Gradient Podcast:  Apple Podcasts  | Spotify | Pocket Casts | RSSFollow The Gradient on TwitterOutline:* (00:00) Intro* (01:37) Jeremie’s physics background and transition to ML* (05:19) The physicist-to-AI person pipeline, how Jeremie’s background impacts his approach to AI* (08:20) A tangent on inflationism/deflationism about natural laws (I promise this applies to AI)* (11:45) How ML implies a particular viewpoint on the above question* (13:20) Jeremie’s first (recommendation systems) company, how startup founders can make mistakes even when they’ve read Paul Graham essays* (17:30) Classic startup wisdom, different sorts of startups* (19:35) OpenAI’s approach in shipping features for DALL-E 2 and generation vs. discrimination as an approach to product* (24:55) Capabilities and risk* (26:43) Commentary on fundamental limitations of alignment in LLMs* (30:45) Intrinsic difficulties in alignment problems* (41:15) Daniel tries to steel man / defend anti-longtermist arguments (nicely :) )* (46:23) Anthropic’s paper on asking models to be less biased* (47:20) Why Jeremie is excited about Anthropic’s Constitutional AI scheme* (51:05) Jeremie’s thoughts on recent Eliezer discourse* (56:50) Cheese / task vectors and steerability/controllability in LLMs* (59:50) Difficulty of one-shot solutions in alignment work, better strategies* (1:02:00) Lack of theoretical understanding of deep learning systems / alignment* (1:04:50) Jeremie’s work and perspectives on AI policy* (1:10:00) Incrementality in convincing policymakers* (1:14:00) How recent developments impact policy efforts* (1:16:20) Benefits and drawbacks of open source* (1:19:30) Arguments in favor of (limited) open source* (1:20:35) Quantum Physics (not Mechanics) Made Me Do It* (1:24:10) Some theories of consciousness and corresponding physics* (1:29:49) OutroLinks:* Jeremie’s Twitter* Quantum Physics Made Me Do It* Gladstone AI Get full access to The Gradient at thegradientpub.substack.com/subscribe

Guest Jeremie Harris discusses AI Safety and risks of AGI, potential for AGI to destroy or benefit humanity, tips on becoming an AI safety expert, insights on his work at Mercurius, differences in Canadian vs American start-up ecosystems, and the importance of mentorship in data science career development.