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Clearer Thinking with Spencer Greenberg — Science
Clearer Thinking with Spencer Greenberg

Clearer Thinking is a podcast about ideas that truly matter. If you enjoy learning about powerful, practical concepts and frameworks, wish you had more deep, intellectual conversations in your life, or are looking for non-BS self-improvement, then we think you’ll love this podcast! Each week we invite a brilliant guest to bring four important ideas to discuss for an in-depth conversation. Topics include psychology, society, behavior change, philosophy, science, artificial intelligence, math, economics, self-help, mental health, and technology. We focus on ideas that can be applied right now to make your life better or to help you better understand yourself and the world, aiming to teach you the best mental tools to enhance your learning, self-improvement efforts, and decision-making. • We take on important, thorny questions like: • What’s the best way to help a friend or loved one going through a difficult time? How can we make our worldviews more accurate? How can we hone the accuracy of our thinking? What are the advantages of using our “gut” to make decisions? And when should we expect careful, analytical reflection to be more effective? Why do societies sometimes collapse? And what can we do to reduce the chance that ours collapses? Why is the world today so much worse than it could be? And what can we do to make it better? What are the good and bad parts of tradition? And are there more meaningful and ethical ways of carrying out important rituals, such as honoring the dead? How can we move beyond zero-sum, adversarial negotiations and create more positive-sum interactions?

Latest Episodes:

Virtual reality, simulation theory, consciousness, and identity (with David Chalmers) Jul 05, 2023

Show notes

Read the full transcript here.

What does philosophy have to say about virtual reality (VR)? Under what conditions is "normal" reality preferable to VR? To what extent are VR experiences "real"? How likely is it that we're living in a simulation? What implications would the discovery that we're living in a simulation have for our beliefs about reality? How common is Bayesian thinking among philosophers? How should we think about identity over time if selves can be split or duplicated? What might it look like for our conception of identity to undergo a "fall from Eden"? What do people mean when they say that consciousness is an illusion? Finding a grand unified theory of physics seems at least in principle the sort of thing that science can do, even if we haven't done it yet; but can science even in principle solve the hard problem of consciousness? Might consciousness just be a fundamental law of the universe, an axiom which we must accept but for which there might be no explanation? Is consciousness needed in order to attain certain levels of biological evolution? How conscious (or not) are our current AI models? Statistically speaking, what are the most prevalent views held by philosophers?

David Chalmers is University Professor of Philosophy and Neural Science and co-director of the Center for Mind, Brain, and Consciousness at New York University. He is the author of The Conscious Mind (1996) and Reality+ (2022). He is known for formulating the "hard problem" of consciousness, which inspired Tom Stoppard's play The Hard Problem, and for the idea of the "extended mind," which says that the tools we use can become parts of our minds. Learn more about him at consc.net.

Staff

Spencer Greenberg — Host / Director
Josh Castle — Producer
Ryan Kessler — Audio Engineer
Uri Bram — Factotum
WeAmplify — Transcriptionists
Miles Kestran — Marketing

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Deep canvassing, street epistemology, and other tools of persuasion (with David McRaney) Jun 28, 2023

Show notes

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What is persuasion, and what is it not? How does persuasion differ from coercion? What is the Elaboration Likelihood Model (ELM) of persuasion? How are the concepts of assimilation and accommodation related to persuasion? Motivated reasoning is usually seen as a cognitive bias or error; but what if all reasoning is motivated? Are we motivated more by physical death or social death? How much evidence would Flat-Earthers need in order to be convinced that Earth is round? What are "deep" canvassing and "street" epistemology? In what contexts are they most effective? Under what conditions is persuasion morally acceptable?

David McRaney is a science journalist fascinated with brains, minds, and culture. He created the podcast You Are Not So Smart based on his 2009 internationally bestselling book of the same name and its followup, You Are Now Less Dumb. Before that, he cut his teeth as a newspaper reporter covering Hurricane Katrina on the Gulf Coast and in the Pine Belt region of the Deep South. Later, he covered things like who tests rockets for NASA, what it is like to run a halfway home for homeless people who are HIV-positive, and how a family sent their kids to college by making and selling knives. Since then, he has been an editor, photographer, voiceover artist, television host, journalism teacher, lecturer, and tornado survivor. Most recently, after finishing his latest book, How Minds Change, he wrote, produced, and recorded a six-hour audio documentary exploring the history of the idea and the word: genius. Learn more about him at davidmcraney.com, or follow him on Twitter at @davidmcraney.

Staff

Spencer Greenberg — Host / Director
Josh Castle — Producer
Ryan Kessler — Audio Engineer
Uri Bram — Factotum
WeAmplify — Transcriptionists
Miles Kestran — Marketing

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Will AI destroy civilization in the near future? (with Connor Leahy) Jun 21, 2023

Show notes

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Does AI pose a near-term existential risk? Why might existential risks from AI manifest sooner rather than later? Can't we just turn off any AI that gets out of control? Exactly how much do we understand about what's going on inside neural networks? What is AutoGPT? How feasible is it to build an AI system that's exactly as intelligent as a human but no smarter? What is the "CoEm" AI safety proposal? What steps can the average person take to help mitigate risks from AI?

Connor Leahy is CEO and co-founder of Conjecture, an AI alignment company focused on making AI systems boundable and corrigible. Connor founded and led EleutherAI, the largest online community dedicated to LLMs, which acted as a gateway for people interested in ML to upskill and learn about alignment. With capabilities increasing at breakneck speed, and our ability to control AI systems lagging far behind, Connor moved on from the volunteer, open-source Eleuther model to a full-time, closed-source model working to solve alignment via Conjecture.

Staff

Spencer Greenberg — Host / Director
Josh Castle — Producer
Ryan Kessler — Audio Engineer
Uri Bram — Factotum
WeAmplify — Transcriptionists
Miles Kestran — Marketing

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Is AI development moving too fast or not fast enough? (with Reid Hoffman) Jun 14, 2023

Show notes

Read the full transcript here.

Many people who work on AI safety advocate for slowing the rate of development; but might there be any advantages in speeding up AI development? Which fields are likely to be impacted the most (or the least) by AI? As AIs begin to displace workers, how can workers make themselves more valuable? How likely is it that AI assistants will become better at defending against users who are actively trying to circumvent assistants' guardrails? What effects would the open-sourcing of AI code, models, or training data likely have? How do actual or potential AI intelligence levels affect AI safety calculus? Are there any good solutions to the problem that only ethically-minded people are likely to apply caution and restraint in AI development? What will a world with human-level AGI look like?

An accomplished entrepreneur, executive, and investor, Reid Hoffman has played an integral role in building many of today's leading consumer technology businesses including as the co-founder of LinkedIn. He is the host of the podcasts Masters of Scale and Possible. He is the co-author of five best-selling books: The Startup of You, The Alliance, Blitzscaling, Masters of Scale, and Impromptu.

Note from Reid: Possible [the podcast] is back this summer with a three-part miniseries called "AI and The Personal," which launches on June 21. Featured guests use AI, hardware, software, and their own creativity to better people's daily lives. Subscribe here to get the series: https://link.chtbl.com/thepossiblepodcast

Staff

Spencer Greenberg — Host / Director
Josh Castle — Producer
Ryan Kessler — Audio Engineer
Uri Bram — Factotum
WeAmplify — Transcriptionists
Miles Kestran — Marketing

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Where philosophy meets the real world (with Peter Singer) Jun 07, 2023

Show notes

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How have animal rights and the animal rights movement changed in the last few decades? How has the scale of animal product consumption grown relative to human population growth? On what principles ought animal ethics to be grounded? What features of human psychology enable humans to empathize with and dislike animal suffering and yet also eat animal products regularly? How does the agribusiness industry convince people to make choices that go against their own values? What are some simple changes people can make to their diets if they're not ready yet to go completely vegetarian or vegan but still want to be less responsible for animal suffering? What attitudes should vegetarians and vegans hold towards meat-eaters? When, if ever, is it possible to have done "enough", morally speaking? What are the things that matter intrinsically to humans and other sentient beings? What is the most complex organism that is apparently not conscious? Will we ever have the technology to scan someone's brain and measure how much pleasure or suffering they're experiencing? How uncertain should we be about moral uncertainty? What should we eat if it's eventually discovered that plants can suffer?

Peter Singer is a philosopher and the Ira W. DeCamp Professor of Bioethics in the University Center for Human Values at Princeton University. His work focuses on the ethics of human treatment of animals; he is often credited with starting the modern animal rights movement; and his writings have significantly influenced the development of the Effective Altruism movement. In 1971, Peter co-founded the Australian Federation of Animal Societies, now called Animals Australia, the country's largest and most effective animal organization; and in 2013, he founded The Life You Can Save, an organization named after his 2009 book, which aims to spread his ideas about why we should be doing much more to improve the lives of people living in extreme poverty and how we can best do this. In 2021, he received the Berggruen Prize for Philosophy and Culture for his "widely influential and intellectually rigorous work in reinvigorating utilitarianism as part of academic philosophy and as a force for change in the world". He has written, co-authored, edited, or co-edited more than 50 books, including Animal Liberation, The Life You Can Save, Practical Ethics, The Expanding Circle, Rethinking Life and Death, One World, The Ethics of What We Eat (with Jim Mason), and The Point of View of the Universe (with Katarzyna de Lazari-Radek); and his writings have been translated into more than 25 languages. Find out more about him at his website, petersinger.info, or follow him on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram.

Staff

Spencer Greenberg — Host / Director
Josh Castle — Producer
Ryan Kessler — Audio Engineer
Uri Bram — Factotum
WeAmplify — Transcriptionists
Miles Kestran — Marketing

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Large language models, deep peace, and the meaning crisis (with Jim Rutt) May 31, 2023

Show notes

Read the full transcript here.

What are large language models (LLMs) actually doing when they churn out text? Are they sentient? Is scale the only difference among the various GPT models? Google has seemingly been the clear frontrunner in the AI space for many years; so how did they fail to win the race to LLMs? And why are other competing companies having such a hard time catching their LLM tech up to OpenAI's? What are the implications of open-sourcing LLM code, models, and corpora? How concerned should we be about bad actors using open source LLM tools? What are some possible strategies for combating the coming onslaught of AI-generated spam and misinformation? What are the main categories of risks associated with AIs? What is "deep" peace? What is "the meaning crisis"?

Jim Rutt is the host of the Jim Rutt Show podcast, past president and co-founder of the MIT Free Speech Alliance, executive producer of the film "An Initiation to Game~B", and the creator of Network Wars, the popular mobile game. Previously he has been chairman of the Santa Fe Institute, CEO of Network Solutions, CTO of Thomson-Reuters, and chairman of the computer chip design software company Analog Design Automation, among various business and not-for-profit roles. He is working on a book about Game B and having a great time exploring the profits and perils of the Large Language Models.

Staff

Spencer Greenberg — Host / Director
Josh Castle — Producer
Ryan Kessler — Audio Engineer
Uri Bram — Factotum
WeAmplify — Transcriptionists
Miles Kestran — Marketing

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Censorship, cancel culture, and truth-seeking (with Iona Italia) May 24, 2023

Show notes

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When is a certain speech act an opinion versus a call to action? Does that distinction matter for censorship purposes? Why does it seem that human behavior tends towards censorship rather than towards freedom of expression? Is feeling emotionally or politically harmed a valid reason for censoring certain speech acts? Will it always be the case that, given enough time, truth will win out over ignorance, bullshit, misinformation, and lies? What are the necessary and sufficient conditions for creating a society in which truth wins at the end of the day? Why are citizens so often attracted to populist and/or fascist ideologies and political parties? What value does religion provide to a society?

Iona Italia is the editor-in-chief of Areo Magazine and the host of its Two for Tea podcast. Iona is the author of two books: Anxious Employment (a study of eighteenth-century essayists) and Our Tango World (sociological and philosophical musings on dance and life). She holds a PhD in English Literature from Cambridge University and publishes weekly creative non-fiction pieces on her Substack, The Second Swim. Her background includes a decade in academe and a 12-year career as a tango dancer and teacher. Iona lives in London with four old friends. She loves dancing, running, choral singing, chess, dogs, and sci-fi.

Staff

Spencer Greenberg — Host / Director
Josh Castle — Producer
Ryan Kessler — Audio Engineer
Uri Bram — Factotum
Miles Kestran — Marketing

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Why are birth rates plummeting? And how much does it matter? (with Malcolm & Simone Collins) May 18, 2023

Show notes

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What is pro-natalism? How fast are birth rates falling around the world? How long will it take for us to really feel the effects of population collapse? What are the primary drivers of population collapse? How does the current difficulty of raising children compare to other periods in history? What roles do various religions and philosophies play in population dynamics? What are some non-coercive ways to encourage population growth? What constitutes an intergenerationally durable culture?

Simone and Malcolm Collins are a husband-wife team driving the pronatalist movement, which seeks to bring attention to the risks of a hard landing on demographic collapse. In addition to running the Pronatalist Foundation, the Collins Institute, and a collection of private equity companies, they enjoy writing, having so far published five bestselling books (The Pragmatist's Guide series). To hear more from them, check out their podcast (on Substack, YouTube, or whenever you listen to podcasts), follow them on Twitter at @SimoneHCollins, or check out their books:

Further reading:

Forecasting Our World in Data: The Next 100 Years: Metaculus "pro" forecasters' estimates of global fertility rates over the next 100 years

Staff

Spencer Greenberg — Host / Director
Josh Castle — Producer
Ryan Kessler — Audio Engineer
Uri Bram — Factotum
WeAmplify — Transcriptionists
Miles Kestran — Marketing

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Science is learning from start-ups (with Adam Marblestone) May 15, 2023

Show notes

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What are focused research organizations? Which kinds of research projects lend themselves to the FRO model? Researchers in academia frequently complain about the incentive structures around funding and publishing; so how do FROs change those dynamics? Why must FROs be time-limited, especially if they're successful? Who's in charge in an FRO? How does "field-building" help to improve science? What effects might large language models have on science?

Adam Marblestone is the CEO of Convergent Research. He's been launching Focused Research Organizations (FROs) such as E11 bio and Cultivarium. He also serves on the boards of several non-profits pursuing new methods of funding and organizing scientific research including Norn Group and New Science. Previously, he was a Schmidt Futures Innovation Fellow, a consultant for the Astera Institute, a Fellow with the Federation of American Scientists (FAS), a research scientist at Google DeepMind, Chief Strategy Officer of the brain-computer interface company Kernel, a research scientist at MIT, a PhD student in biophysics with George Church and colleagues at Harvard, and a theoretical physics student at Yale. He also previously helped to start companies like BioBright and advised foundations such as the Open Philanthropy Project. His work has been recognized with a Technology Review 35 Innovators Under 35 Award (2018), a Fannie and John Hertz Foundation Fellowship (2010), and a Goldwater Scholarship (2008). Learn more about him at adammarblestone.org.

Staff

Spencer Greenberg — Host / Director
Josh Castle — Producer
Ryan Kessler — Audio Engineer
Uri Bram — Factotum
WeAmplify — Transcriptionists
Miles Kestran — Marketing

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The range of human perceptual experiences (with Anil Seth) May 03, 2023

Show notes

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How does the world differ from our perception of it? Where is color located? Is the self constructed in the same way our concept of the world is constructed? Aside from being interesting bits of trivia, why does any of that really matter? In what ways does perception most often differ among humans? How different are art and science?

Anil Seth is a neuroscientist, author, and public speaker who has pioneered research into the brain basis of consciousness for more than twenty years. His mission is to advance the science of consciousness, and to use its insights for the benefits of society, technology, and medicine. He is Professor of Cognitive and Computational Neuroscience at the University of Sussex; Co-Director of the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research Program on Brain, Mind, and Consciousness; a European Research Council Advanced Investigator; and Editor-in-Chief of the academic journal Neuroscience of Consciousness. He has published more than 180 research papers and has been recognized by Web of Science, over several years, as being in the top 0.1% of researchers worldwide. A former Wellcome Trust Engagement Fellow, his two TED talks have been viewed more than thirteen million times, he has appeared in several films, and he has written for Aeon, The Guardian, Granta, New Scientist, and Scientific American, and he is lead scientist on the Dreamachine project. His new book Being You: A New Science of Consciousness was an instant Sunday Times Bestseller and a 2021 Book of the Year for The Economist, The New Statesman, Bloomberg Business, The Guardian, The Financial Times and elsewhere. Check out Dreamachine, take part in The Perception Census, visit Anil's website, or follow him on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, or LinkedIn.

Staff

Spencer Greenberg — Host / Director
Josh Castle — Producer
Ryan Kessler — Audio Engineer
Uri Bram — Factotum
WeAmplify — Transcriptionists
Miles Kestran — Marketing

Music

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