We've looked forward to today's episode since we launched the show! Andreas Stuhlmuller and Jungwon Byun are the co-founders of Ought, a product-driven research lab that develops mechanisms for delegating open-ended thinking to advanced machine learning systems. Their flagship product, Elicit (elicit.org), is an AI research assistant that helps researchers accelerate time-consuming workflows, starting with literature review.

We're hiring across the board at Turpentine and for Erik's personal team on other projects he's incubating. He's hiring a Chief of Staff, EA, Head of Special Projects, Investment Associate, and more. For a list of JDs, check out: eriktorenberg.com.

LINKS REFERENCED IN EPISODE:

Ought: https://ought.org/

Elicit: https://elicit.org/

TIMESTAMPS:

(0:00) Preview

(2:00) Nathan introduces the founders of Ought

(4:20) Why doesn't AI serve better reasoning?

(6:55) What limits the current paradigm

(8:40) Reflections on the last six years of Ought’s research experiments of "composable thinking"

(13:10) Error elimination mechanism is a shared challenge between human and AI systems

(16:45) Sponsor: Omneky

(18:00) Interpretability by construction product philosophy

(25:00) Nathan’s personal experience using Elicit as a research assistant

(30:00) Explicit concerns about model reasonings, and the importance of going a step further

(36:00) What customers of OpenAI Foundry should consider

(43:15) Evaluation challenges

(48:15) Embeddings challenges

(51:00) Vision for a knowledge work assembly line corporate paradigm

(56:00) Ought's short-term approach to building: Understanding human ways of teaching the model to be more helpful

(59:00) Wishful thinking versus real helpfulness

(1:03:00) What's next for Elicit: expansion and new workflows

(1:17:00) Zapier for reasoning

(1:23:00) What are the most fundamental "magic questions" for all domains?

(1:31:43) Significant impact of GPT4

(1:36:00) How people are using Elicit

(1:44:00) AI Uncertainty and reason for hope

(1:48:00) 3 lightning-round questions

TWITTER:

@CogRev_Podcast

@jungofthewon

@stuhlmueller

@labenz (Nathan)

@eriktorenberg (Erik)

SPONSORS:

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This show is produced by Turpentine: a network of podcasts, newsletters, and more, covering technology, business, and culture — all from the perspective of industry insiders and experts. We’re launching new shows every week, and we’re looking for industry-leading sponsors — if you think that might be you and your company, email us at erik@turpentine.co.

More show notes and reading material released in our Substack: https://cognitiverevolution.substack.com/