Cold Takes Audio
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Amateur read-throughs of blog posts on Cold-Takes.com, for those who prefer listening to reading. Available on Apple, Spotify, Google Podcasts, and anywhere else you listen to podcasts by searching Cold Takes Audio.
Available episodes
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Oldest first
Feb 20, 2023
What AI companies can do today to help with the most important century
Major AI companies can increase or reduce global catastrophic risks.
https://www.cold-takes.com/what-ai-companies-can-do-today-to-help-with-the-most-important-century/
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Feb 10, 2023
Jobs that can help with the most important century
People are far better at their jobs than at anything else. Here are the best ways to help the most important century go well.
https://www.cold-takes.com/jobs-that-can-help-with-the-most-important-century/
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Jan 25, 2023
Spreading messages to help with the most important century
For people who want to help improve our prospects for navigating transformative AI, and have an audience (even a small one).
https://www.cold-takes.com/spreading-messages-to-help-with-the-most-important-century/
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Jan 13, 2023
How we could stumble into AI catastrophe
Hypothetical stories where the world tries, but fails, to avert a global disaster.
https://www.cold-takes.com/how-we-could-stumble-into-ai-catastrophe
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Jan 5, 2023
Transformative AI issues (not just misalignment): an overview
An overview of key potential factors (not just alignment risk) for whether things go well or poorly with transformative AI.
https://www.cold-takes.com/transformative-ai-issues-not-just-misalignment-an-overview/
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Dec 22, 2022
Racing Through a Minefield: the AI Deployment Problem
Push AI forward too fast, and catastrophe could occur. Too slow, and someone else less cautious could do it. Is there a safe course?
https://www.cold-takes.com/racing-through-a-minefield-the-ai-deployment-problem/
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Dec 15, 2022
High-level hopes for AI aligment
A few ways we might get very powerful AI systems to be safe.
https://www.cold-takes.com/high-level-hopes-for-ai-alignment/
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Dec 8, 2022
AI safety seems hard to measure
Four analogies for why "We don't see any misbehavior by this AI" isn't enough.
https://www.cold-takes.com/ai-safety-seems-hard-to-measure/
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Nov 29, 2022
Why Would AI "Aim" To Defeat Humanity?
Today's AI development methods risk training AIs to be deceptive, manipulative and ambitious. This might not be easy to fix as it comes up.
https://www.cold-takes.com/why-would-ai-aim-to-defeat-humanity/
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Jun 30, 2022
The Track Record of Futurists Seems ... Fine
We scored mid-20th-century sci-fi writers on nonfiction predictions. They weren't great, but weren't terrible either. Maybe doing futurism works fine.
https://www.cold-takes.com/the-track-record-of-futurists-seems-fine/
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Jun 23, 2022
Nonprofit Boards are Weird
With great power comes, er, unclear responsibility and zero accountability.
https://www.cold-takes.com/nonprofit-boards-are-weird-2/
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Jun 7, 2022
AI Could Defeat All Of Us Combined
How big a deal could AI misalignment be? About as big as it gets.
https://www.cold-takes.com/ai-could-defeat-all-of-us-combined/
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Apr 12, 2022
Useful Vices for Wicked Problems
Investigating important topics with laziness, impatience, hubris and self-preservation.
https://www.cold-takes.com/useful-vices-for-wicked-problems/
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Apr 4, 2022
Ideal governance (for companies, countries and more)
What kind of governance system should you set up, if you're starting from scratch and can do it however you want?
https://www.cold-takes.com/ideal-governance-for-companies-countries-and-more/
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Mar 29, 2022
Debating myself on whether “extra lives lived” are as good as “deaths prevented”
Preventing extinction would be good - but "saving 8 billion lives" good or "saving a trillion trillion trillion lives" good?
https://www.cold-takes.com/debating-myself-on-whether-extra-lives-lived-are-as-good-as-deaths-prevented/
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Mar 2, 2022
The Wicked Problem Experience
A day in the life of trying to complete a self-assigned project with no clear spec or goal.
https://www.cold-takes.com/the-wicked-problem-experience/
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Feb 22, 2022
Learning By Writing
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Feb 15, 2022
Defending One-Dimensional Ethics
First in a series of dialogues on utilitarianism and "future-proof ethics."
https://www.cold-takes.com/defending-one-dimensional-ethics/
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Feb 2, 2022
Future-Proof Ethics
Ethics based on common sense seems to have a horrible historical track record. Can we do better?
https://www.cold-takes.com/future-proof-ethics/
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Jan 27, 2022
Stakeholder Management and Cost Disease
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Jan 25, 2022
Reader reactions and update on "Where's Today's Beethoven"
Lots of theories for why older science and art seem to have an easier time getting critical acclaim.
https://www.cold-takes.com/reader-reactions-and-update-on-wheres-todays-beethoven/
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Jan 11, 2022
Why it matters if "ideas get harder to find"
Want more innovation? Think about population, not recapturing "golden age" culture.
https://www.cold-takes.com/why-it-matters-if-ideas-get-harder-to-find/
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Jan 4, 2022
Where's Today's Beethoven?
Why is no composer today as acclaimed as Beethoven, no author as acclaimed as Shakespeare? A data-driven look at a few possible explanations.
https://www.cold-takes.com/wheres-todays-beethoven/
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Dec 21, 2021
The Bayesian Mindset
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Dec 13, 2021
Visualizing Utopia
An attempt to help visualize utopia, without running into pitfalls I covered previously.
https://www.cold-takes.com/visualizing-utopia/
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Dec 7, 2021
Why Describing Utopia Goes Badly
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Nov 23, 2021
Minimal-trust investigations
The activity that has been most formative for the way I think: suspending my trust in others and digging to the bottom of some claim.
https://www.cold-takes.com/minimal-trust-investigations/
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Nov 22, 2021
Did life get better during the pre-industrial era? (Ehhhh)
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Nov 16, 2021
Falling everyday violence, bigger wars and atrocities: how do they net out?
Homicide rates have fallen over the past 1000+ years, but wars and genocides may have gotten bigger. How does it net out?
https://www.cold-takes.com/has-violence-declined-when-we-include-the-world-wars-and-other-major-atrocities/
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Nov 9, 2021
Rowing, Steering, Anchoring, Equity, Mutiny
Five clashing pictures of how to help the world, and the questions about history they raise.
https://www.cold-takes.com/rowing-steering-anchoring-equity-mutiny/
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Nov 2, 2021
Unraveling the evidence about violence among very early humans
The rate of violent deaths is one of the key measures of long-run quality of life, and strong claims are made on both sides.
https://www.cold-takes.com/unraveling-the-evidence-about-violence-among-very-early-humans/
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Oct 26, 2021
Was life better in hunter-gatherer times?
Part of the "Has Life Gotten Better?" series.
https://www.cold-takes.com/was-life-better-in-hunter-gatherer-times/
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Oct 19, 2021
Pre-agriculture gender relations seem bad
"Hunter-gatherers"/"foragers" are sometimes said to have strong gender equality. But as far as I can tell, they don't. Part of the "Has Life Gotten Better?" series.
https://www.cold-takes.com/pre-agriculture-gender-relations-seem-bad/
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Oct 12, 2021
Has Life Gotten Better?: the Post-Industrial Era
Why I think life has gotten better over the last couple hundred years.
https://www.cold-takes.com/has-life-gotten-better-the-post-industrial-era/
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Oct 5, 2021
Has Life Gotten Better?
Trends in quality of life over all of human history (not just the last few hundred years).
https://www.cold-takes.com/has-life-gotten-better/
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Sep 28, 2021
Summary of history (empowerment and well-being lens)
Listing the big events for empowerment and well-being, leaving out all the wars that didn't clearly affect these things.
https://www.cold-takes.com/summary-of-history-empowerment-and-well-being-lens/
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Sep 20, 2021
Why AI alignment could be hard with modern deep learning (guest post by Ajeya Cotra)
Why would we program AI that wants to harm us? Because we might not know how to do otherwise.
https://www.cold-takes.com/why-ai-alignment-could-be-hard-with-modern-deep-learning/
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Sep 15, 2021
Call to Vigilance
Given all our uncertainties about the most important century, I'm issuing a "call to vigilance" instead of "call to action": look out for opportunities to help the most important century go as well as possible.
https://www.cold-takes.com/call-to-vigilance/
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Sep 14, 2021
How to make the best of the most important century?
We, the people living in this century, have the chance to have a huge impact on huge numbers of people to come - if we can make sense of the situation enough to find helpful actions.
https://www.cold-takes.com/making-the-best-of-the-most-important-century/
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Sep 7, 2021
AI Timelines: Where the Arguments, and the ”Experts,” Stand
What the best available forecasting methods say about when we can expect transformative AI - and why there's no "expert field" for this topic.
https://www.cold-takes.com/where-ai-forecasting-stands-today/
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Aug 31, 2021
Forecasting transformative AI: the ”biological anchors” method in a nutshell
My preferred method of forecasting transformative AI, with pros and cons.
https://www.cold-takes.com/forecasting-transformative-ai-the-biological-anchors-method-in-a-nutshell/
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Aug 24, 2021
Are we "trending toward" transformative AI? (How would we know?)
AI progress may not trend in the ways we intuitively expect.
https://www.cold-takes.com/are-we-trending-toward-transformative-ai-how-would-we-know/
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Aug 17, 2021
Forecasting transformative AI: what's the burden of proof?
This is the second of 4 posts summarizing hundreds of pages of technical reports focused almost entirely on forecasting one number: the year by which transformative AI will be developed.
https://www.cold-takes.com/forecasting-transformative-ai-whats-the-burden-of-proof/
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Aug 10, 2021
Forecasting Transformative AI, Part 1: What Kind of AI?
PASTA: Process for Automating Scientific and Technological Advancement
https://www.cold-takes.com/transformative-ai-timelines-part-1-of-4-what-kind-of-ai/
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Aug 2, 2021
This Can't Go On
https://www.cold-takes.com/this-cant-go-on/
The long view of economic history says we're in the midst of a huge, unsustainable acceleration. What happens next?
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Jul 26, 2021
Digital People Part 3 - Implications
Final section of the "Digital People Would Be An Even Bigger Deal" readthrough.
https://www.cold-takes.com/how-digital-people-could-change-the-world/
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Jul 26, 2021
Digital People Part 2 (optional) - FAQ
FAQ about the "digital people" idea.
https://www.cold-takes.com/digital-people-faq
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Jul 26, 2021
Digital People Part 1 - intro
Audio for the first part of "Digital People Would Be An Even Bigger Deal."
https://www.cold-takes.com/how-digital-people-could-change-the-world/
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Jul 19, 2021
The Duplicator
If people could be insta-copied, economic growth would explode.
https://www.cold-takes.com/the-duplicator/
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Jul 12, 2021
All Possible Views About Humanity's Future Are Wild
If you think humans will eventually spread out across the galaxy (even if it takes 100,000 years), then you think we are among the earliest living beings, with remarkable opportunities to shape the future.
https://www.cold-takes.com/all-possible-views-about-humanitys-future-are-wild/
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