832: The Anthropic CEO’s Techno-Utopia
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This is epsom number eight hundred and thirty two on the anthropic C E, O, powerfully I utopia.

Well, come back to the super da science podcast. I am your host, john chone. Let's start things off with the recent review of the show.

This one comes from luka copula, a truck who is a gastroenteritis ctr in colorado. Doctor cover choke says, thanks so much for your great content. I learned so much and thank you um for so much social media engagement recently.

Thanks to everyone out there actually for all the recent ratings and feedback on apple podcast, spotify and all the other podcasting platforms out there as well as for the legs and comments on our youtube videos. Apple podcast reviews, I think, are especially helpful to ask because there are biggest channel, and they also allow you to leave written feedback if you want to. And I keep a close eye those.

So if you leave an apple podcast review and be sure to read IT on air today, we're diving into the technical, optimistic vision of dario amo day, who is the C. E. O of a anthropic. Uh, published in october. Daro wrote a fifteen thousand word article called machines of loving Grace, how A I could transform the world for the Better and um yeah it's long fifteen thousand words but it's an exciting read particularly if um as seems likely given that you listen to this podcast you're bringing data science and machine learning to life.

Um I do recommend reading the full article which of course we have provided for you in the show notes but given that is so long, you might also appreciate this podcast epsom in which I summarized the key points for you over just a few minutes. Um the aspect of darius article that made the biggest splash was his explicit defining of the term powerful A I am going to use that term a lot in today's epo de um he claims that he doesn't like the term artificial general intelligence or E G. I although I do happen to like that term when it's well defined as IT, is by google demand, which is something I cover in detail in epsom, number seven hundred and forty eight, you can go back to that.

But anyway, we don't need to talk about A G I that term in today's episode. Instead we will just use the powerful A I term the dio defines in ticals. Here are we defined IT.

So first of all, powerfully, I is smarter than a noble prize winner across most field. So for example, feels like biology, computer programing, mathematics, engineering and writing. We're talking about an A I system that can prove unsolved mathematical theories, that can rate exceptional novels and develop a complex software from scratch.

But here's where powerfully I get interesting. This isn't just an A I that you are speak to that you ck to like the cloud or ChatGPT user interfaces that A I predominates in today. Instead, powerfully, A I has all the interfaces available to a human that's working virtues of.

This is text, audio, video, mouse, keyboard, control and internet access. This powerfully, I can then take actions online, direct experiments, create videos s and communicate with humans, for example. Um and I would do all of this at a level exceeding human capabilities is powerfully.

I is autonomists too. I can handle tasks that take hours, days or even weeks to complete. And IT works independently like a smart employee.

Wood, well, I I guess I even like a contractor that you hire to handle, uh, like a contractor consult that you hire to handle a big complex task over several weeks or even months I pose and while the powerfully I doesn't have a physical body, IT can control existing tools, robots and laboratory equipment through computer interfaces. And we can scale this system up. It's not like there's just one of these.

The resource is used to train the model can be refer, posed to run millions of instances of IT at in front time. So each instance of these millions can process information and generate actions, tend to a hundred times faster than humans. These millions of copies can either work independently on different tasks or collaborate like a team of humans.

wood. All in all, when this powerful ly eye is created, IT would be a daro referred to in this article as a country full of genius in a data. So it's like, yeah having millions of genius just pack together into a data um well, this powerfully is my blowing relative to today's already tremendously impressive AI systems, there are limitations even to powerfully.

I, for example, biological experiments and harder manufacturing will take time. Intelligence, while powerful, isn't magic, fergus. You can't instantly cure aging and all cancers just because you have a vast intelligence available to you humans and or the powerfully.

I can have a hypothesis um as to somehow some way to cure A A specific cancer type, but then the hypotheses needs to be tested for years in experimental animals and show promising safe results before being tested on a small number of humans and then gradually more and more humans and well controlled clinical trials the timeline I just described is the best case scenario hypothesis is proved correct by in vivo experiments, but most of the time breakthrough hypothesis are incorrect, and lots of time consuming international are required. Nevertheless, the vision of powerful AI is exciting. Potentially within his few as five to ten years after developing this powerful AI system, we could see transformative changes across multiple domains in health care and biology.

For example, we might compress a century's worth progress into a decade or so. Many cancers could be eliminated. Genetic diseases could be cured or prevented.

An average man life ban could potentially double through one hundred and fifty years mental health conditions that have plagued humanity for millennia could become fully treatable, and we might gain unprecedented rol over our biological and cognitive processes. On the economic front, dario envisions A I enabling developing nations to achieve unprecedented growth rates of up to twenty percent annually. This could lift billions of people out of poverty and help close the gap between developed and developing nations.

We might see a second Green revolution in agriculture, breakthrough solutions for climate change and dramatic improvements in food security worldwide, even in governance and social structures, which could be trickier to accelerate their technology powerfully, I could potentially strengthen democratic institutions by improving government services, making legal systems more impartial and helping create more informed and thoughtful citizens. So what's the timeline for this wild, powerful AI to be realized? Is that decades away? Maybe, but darro suggests powerfully eye could arrive as early as twenty twenty six.

That's only two years away. I could be a stretch and dorio A C E O van tho pic. One of the leaders at the absolute cutting edge of A I capabilities he's highly incentivize to be highly biased in his optimism in order to encourage his investors and researchers.

But by scaling up the A I capabilities we already have today, for example, by scaling up the number of model provider by orders of being intituled, in scaling up inference time compute, like opening eyes, a one does, having a powerfully add that exceeds human level performance across virtually all cognitive tasks in only a few years is not holy ungrounded science fiction. And if we develop power fully AI with effective safeguards, IT could serve as a tool to create more equitable, healthy and prosperous world. For everyone.

Aren't that's if for today's epo de, if you enjoyed or know someone who might consider sharing this episode with them, leave a review of the show on your favor podcasting platform tag me and a linked in a twitter post with your thoughts for example, do you think darrius s utopia and visions are overly optimistic to the point of being silly? Um all read and where appropriate, respond uh to your thoughts online and if you aren't already, be sure to subscribe to the show. Of course most importantly, i'd just hope you will keep on this until next time. Keep on rocket and out there and i'm looking forward to enjoying another round of the super design pog gas with you very same.