"The Cognitive Revolution"

Latest Episodes:

Runway's Video Revolution: Empowering Creators with General World Models, with CTO Anastasis Germanidis Oct 09, 2024

Show notes

Nathan and co-host Stephen Parker delve into the world of AI video generation with Anastasis Germanidis, Co-Founder and CTO of Runway. This episode of The Cognitive Revolution explores the cutting-edge technology behind Runway's Gen 3 models and their impact on the creative industry. From emergent properties in scaled-up models to the democratization of video creation, join us for an illuminating discussion on the future of AI-generated content and its potential to reshape entertainment and culture.

Check out Runway here: https://runwayml.com

Apply to join over 400 Founders and Execs in the Turpentine Network: https://www.turpentinenetwork.co/

SPONSORS:

Notion: Notion offers powerful workflow and automation templates, perfect for streamlining processes and laying the groundwork for AI-driven automation. With Notion AI, you can search across thousands of documents from various platforms, generating highly relevant analysis and content tailored just for you - try it for free at https://notion.com/cognitiverevolutio n

Weights & Biases RAG++: Advanced training for building production-ready RAG applications. Learn from experts to overcome LLM challenges, evaluate systematically, and integrate advanced features. Includes free Cohere credits. Visit https://wandb.me/cr to start the RAG++ course today.

Omneky: Omneky is an omnichannel creative generation platform that lets you launch hundreds of thousands of ad iterations that actually work customized across all platforms, with a click of a button. Omneky combines generative AI and real-time advertising data. Mention "Cog Rev" for 10% off https://www.omneky.com/

Oracle: Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) is a single platform for your infrastructure, database, application development, and AI needs. OCI has four to eight times the bandwidth of other clouds; offers one consistent price, and nobody does data better than Oracle. If you want to do more and spend less, take a free test drive of OCI at https://oracle.com/cognitive

RECOMMENDED PODCAST:

This Won't Last - Eavesdrop on Keith Rabois, Kevin Ryan, Logan Bartlett, and Zach Weinberg's monthly backchannel ft their hottest takes on the future of tech, business, and venture capital.

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2HwSNeVLL1MXy0RjFPyOSz

CHAPTERS:

(00:00:00) About the Show

(00:00:22) About the Episode

(00:03:05) Introduction and AI for Creative Work

(00:03:39) Video Generation as World Modeling

(00:05:52) Emergent Properties in Scaled Models

(00:08:44) Importance of Architecture vs Data

(00:10:57) Multimodal Models

(00:15:52) Sponsors: Notion | Weights & Biases RAG++

(00:18:37) Video Understanding and AGI

(00:25:03) AI Agents for Video Creation

(00:27:30) Runway's culture of shipping

(00:29:20) Balancing Research Publication and Strategy

(00:33:19) Sponsors: Omneky | Oracle

(00:34:40) Features Variety Release Cycle

(00:36:54) Power Users

(00:38:56) Interactive Video

(00:40:40) Scaling Challenges

(00:42:21) Future of Creativity

(00:45:24) Competing with Giants

(00:47:39) Model Divergence

(00:49:28) Disclosure vs. Strategy

(00:51:19) Runway ML's API

(00:54:23) Outro

SOCIAL LINKS:

Website: https://www.cognitiverevolution.ai

Twitter (Podcast): https://x.com/cogrev_podcast

Twitter (Nathan): https://x.com/labenz

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nathanlabenz/

Biologically Inspired AI Alignment & Neglected Approaches to AI Safety, with Judd Rosenblatt and Mike Vaiana of AE Studio Oct 05, 2024

Show notes

In this episode of The Cognitive Revolution, Nathan explores unconventional approaches to AI safety with Judd Rosenblatt and Mike Vaiana from AE Studio. Discover how this innovative company pivoted from brain-computer interfaces to groundbreaking AI alignment research, producing two notable results in cooperative and less deceptive AI systems. Join us for a deep dive into biologically-inspired approaches that offer hope for solving critical AI safety challenges.

Self-Modeling: https://arxiv.org/abs/2407.10188

Self-Other Distinction Minimization: https://www.alignmentforum.org/posts/hzt9gHpNwA2oHtwKX/self-other-overlap-a-neglected-approach-to-ai-alignment

Neglected approaches blog post: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/qAdDzcBuDBLexb4fC/the-neglected-approaches-approach-ae-studio-s-alignment

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SPONSORS:

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Weights & Biases Weave: Weights & Biases Weave is a lightweight AI developer toolkit designed to simplify your LLM app development. With Weave, you can trace and debug input, metadata and output with just 2 lines of code. Make real progress on your LLM development and visit the following link to get started with Weave today: https://wandb.me/cr

80,000 Hours: 80,000 Hours offers free one-on-one career advising for Cognitive Revolution listeners aiming to tackle global challenges, especially in AI. They connect high-potential individuals with experts, opportunities, and personalized career plans to maximize positive impact. Apply for a free call at https://80000hours.org/cognitiverevolution to accelerate your career and contribute to solving pressing AI-related issues.

RECOMMENDED PODCAST:

This Won't Last - Eavesdrop on Keith Rabois, Kevin Ryan, Logan Bartlett, and Zach Weinberg's monthly backchannel ft their hottest takes on the future of tech, business, and venture capital.

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2HwSNeVLL1MXy0RjFPyOSz

CHAPTERS:

(00:00:00) About the Show

(00:00:22) Sponsors: WorkOS

(00:01:22) About the Episode

(00:05:18) Introduction and AE Studio Background

(00:11:37) Keys to Success in Building AE Studio

(00:16:57) Sponsors: Weights & Biases Weave | 80,000 Hours

(00:19:37) Universal Launcher and Productivity Gains

(00:24:44) 100x Productivity Increase Explanation

(00:31:46) Brain-Computer Interface and AI Alignment

(00:38:05) Sponsors: Omneky

(00:38:30) Current State of NeuroTech

(00:44:00) Survey on Neglected Approaches in AI Alignment

(00:50:41) Self-Modeling and Biological Inspiration

(00:57:48) Technical Details of Self-Modeling

(01:06:17) Self-Other Distinction Minimization

(01:12:44) Implementation in Language Models

(01:19:00) Compute Costs and Scaling Considerations

(01:24:27) Consciousness Concerns and Future Work

(01:40:24) Evaluating Neglected Approaches

(01:55:56) Closing Thoughts and Policy Considerations

(01:59:25) Outro

Automating Software Engineering: Genie Tops SWE-Bench, w/ Alistair Pullen, from Latent.Space podcast Oct 02, 2024

Show notes

In this special crossover episode of The Cognitive Revolution, Nathan shares an insightful conversation from the Latent.Space podcast. Swyx and Alessio interview Alistair Pullen of Cosine, creators of Genie, showcasing the cutting edge of AI automation in software engineering. Learn how Cosine achieves state-of-the-art results on the SWE-bench benchmark by implementing advanced AI techniques. This episode complements Nathan's recent discussion on AI Automation, demonstrating how far these practices can be pushed in real-world applications. Don't miss this opportunity to explore the future of AI-driven software development and its implications for businesses across industries.

Check out the Latent.Space podcast here: https://www.latent.space

Apply to join over 400 Founders and Execs in the Turpentine Network: https://www.turpentinenetwork.co/

SPONSORS:

CHAPTERS:

(00:00:00) About the Show

(00:00:22) Sponsors: WorkOS

(00:01:22) About the Episode

(00:04:29) Alistair and Cosine intro

(00:13:50) Building the Code Retrieval Tool

(00:17:36) Sponsors: Weights & Biases Weave | 80,000 Hours

(00:20:15) Developing Genie and Fine-tuning Process

(00:27:41) Working with Customer Data

(00:30:53) Code Retrieval Challenges and Solutions

(00:36:39) Sponsors: Omneky

(00:37:02) Planning and Reasoning in AI Models

(00:45:55) Language Support and Generalization

(00:49:46) Fine-tuning Experience with OpenAI

(00:52:56) Synthetic Data and Self-improvement Loop

(00:55:57) Benchmarking and SWE-bench Results

(01:01:47) Future Plans for Genie

(01:03:02) Industry Trends and Cursor's Success

(01:05:23) Calls to Action and Ideal Customers

(01:08:43) Outro

Zapier's AI Revolution: From No-Code Pioneer to LLM Knowledge Worker Sep 26, 2024

Show notes

Join Nathan for an insightful episode of The Cognitive Revolution with Wade Foster, co-founder and CEO of Zapier. Discover how this no-code pioneer is evolving into an AI-powered platform for the future of work. Learn about Zapier's ambitious vision, their integration of AI throughout their product, and how they're adapting as a company. From AI-driven lead qualification to innovative customer use cases, explore the cutting edge of automation at scale. Wade shares valuable insights on effective AI prompting, internal AI adoption strategies, and his perspective on recent AI advancements.

Check out the ZapConnect 2024 event: https://zapier.com/zapconnect

Apply to join over 400 Founders and Execs in the Turpentine Network: https://www.turpentinenetwork.co/

SPONSORS:

RECOMMENDED PODCAST:

This Won't Last - Eavesdrop on Keith Rabois, Kevin Ryan, Logan Bartlett, and Zach Weinberg's monthly backchannel ft their hottest takes on the future of tech, business, and venture capital.

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2HwSNeVLL1MXy0RjFPyOSz

CHAPTERS:

(00:00:00) About the Show

(00:00:22) Sponsors: WorkOS

(00:01:22) About the Episode

(00:03:41) Introduction and Zapier's Competitive Edge

(00:07:20) AI as Knowledge Worker Companion

(00:10:27) Impressive AI Use Cases

(00:16:25) Sponsors: Weights & Biases Weave | 80,000 Hours

(00:19:05) AI Implementation Challenges

(00:19:13) LLM Performance and Prompting

(00:22:42) AI Adoption within Zapier

(00:31:00) Sponsors: Omneky

(00:31:23) AI-Assisted Workflow Creation

(00:36:07) AI Culture and Adoption at Zapier

(00:43:03) AI Impact on Zapier's Productivity

(00:48:06) Zapier's AI Integration Strategy

(00:54:43) Outro

Anthropic's Responsible Scaling Policy, with Nick Joseph, from the 80,000 Hours Podcast Sep 25, 2024

Show notes

In this crosspost from the 80,000 Hours podcast, host Rob Wiblin interviews Nick Joseph, Head of Training at Anthropic, about the company's responsible scaling policy for AI development. The episode delves into Anthropic's approach to AI safety, the growing trend of voluntary commitments from top AI labs, and the need for public scrutiny of frontier model development. The conversation also covers AI safety career advice, with a reminder that 80,000 Hours offers free career advising sessions for listeners. Join us for an insightful discussion on the future of AI and its societal implications.

Apply to join over 400 Founders and Execs in the Turpentine Network: https://www.turpentinenetwork.co/

SPONSORS:

RECOMMENDED PODCAST:

This Won't Last - Eavesdrop on Keith Rabois, Kevin Ryan, Logan Bartlett, and Zach Weinberg's monthly backchannel ft their hottest takes on the future of tech, business, and venture capital.

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2HwSNeVLL1MXy0RjFPyOSz

CHAPTERS:

(00:00:00) About the Show

(00:00:22) Sponsors: WorkOS

(00:01:22) About the Episode

(00:04:31) Intro and Nick's background

(00:08:37) Model training and scaling laws

(00:13:10) Nick's role at Anthropic

(00:16:49) Responsible Scaling Policies overview (Part 1)

(00:18:00) Sponsors: Weights & Biases Weave | 80,000 Hours

(00:20:39) Responsible Scaling Policies overview (Part 2)

(00:25:24) AI Safety Levels framework

(00:30:33) Benefits of RSPs (Part 1)

(00:33:15) Sponsors: Omneky

(00:33:38) Benefits of RSPs (Part 2)

(00:36:32) Concerns about RSPs

(00:47:33) Sandbagging and evaluation challenges

(00:54:46) Critiques of RSPs

(01:03:11) Trust and accountability

(01:12:03) Conservative vs. aggressive approaches

(01:17:43) Capabilities vs. safety research

(01:23:47) Working at Anthropic

(01:35:14) Nick's career journey

(01:45:12) Hiring at Anthropic

(01:52:06) Concerns about AI capabilities work

(02:03:38) Anthropic office locations

(02:08:46) Pressure and stakes at Anthropic

(02:18:09) Overrated and underrated AI applications

(02:35:57) Closing remarks

(02:38:33) Sponsors: Outro

The Evolution Revolution: Scouting Frontiers in AI for Biology with Brian Hie Sep 20, 2024

Show notes

In this episode of The Cognitive Revolution, Nathan explores the cutting-edge intersection of AI and biology with Stanford assistant professor Brian Hie. Discover how AI is revolutionizing our understanding of biological systems and creating new possibilities for interventions. Brian discusses his groundbreaking papers on hybrid AI architectures, the surprising capabilities of language models trained on DNA sequences, and AI-guided evolution of antibodies. Join us for an insightful journey into the future of AI in biology, touching on biosecurity, drug discovery, and the challenges of interpreting AI models in biological contexts.

Links :

Brian Hie : https://x.com/BrianHie

Scanorama paper

Mechanistic Design and Scaling of Hybrid Architectures

Sequence modeling and design from molecular to genome scale with Evo

Unsupervised evolution of protein and antibody complexes with a structure-informed language model

Apply to join over 400 Founders and Execs in the Turpentine Network: https://www.turpentinenetwork.co/

SPONSORS:

Brave: The Brave search API can be used to assemble a data set to train your AI models and help with retrieval augmentation at the time of inference. All while remaining affordable with developer first pricing, integrating the Brave search API into your workflow translates to more ethical data sourcing and more human representative data sets. Try the Brave search API for free for up to 2000 queries per month at https://bit.ly/BraveTCR

RECOMMENDED PODCAST:

This Won't Last - Eavesdrop on Keith Rabois, Kevin Ryan, Logan Bartlett, and Zach Weinberg's monthly backchannel ft their hottest takes on the future of tech, business, and venture capital.

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2HwSNeVLL1MXy0RjFPyOSz

CHAPTERS:

(00:00:00) About the Show

(00:00:22) About the Episode

(00:03:22) Introduction and Overview

(00:03:55) AI for Biology: Big Picture

(00:05:49) Challenges in Biology and Drug Discovery

(00:08:36) Scanorama and Single Cell Transcriptomics

(00:10:27) Brian's Research Identity

(00:13:00) Mechanistic Design of Hybrid Architectures

(00:14:52) Evo: DNA Language Model (Part 1)

(00:18:10) Sponsors: 80,000 Hours | Brave

(00:20:44) Evo: DNA Language Model (Part 2)

(00:28:58) Gene Essentiality and Evo's Capabilities

(00:29:19) Unsupervised Evolution of Protein Complexes (Part 1)

(00:31:02) Sponsors: Omneky | Oracle

(00:32:24) Unsupervised Evolution of Protein Complexes (Part 2)

(01:10:27) Improving Antibody Binding Affinity

(01:14:24) Overfitting and ARC Institute

(01:18:11) Sponsors: Outro

The Professional Network for AI Agents, with Agent.ai Engineering Lead Andrei Oprisan Sep 18, 2024

Show notes

In this sponsored episode of The Cognitive Revolution, Nathan interviews Andrei Oprisan, Engineering Lead at Agent.ai. They explore the cutting-edge world of AI agents and their impact on the future of work. Andrei shares insights on language model limitations, best practices for building AI agents, and Agent AI's vision as a professional network for AI agents. The conversation covers technical details like fine-tuning models, vector database choices, and privacy-preserving techniques. Don't miss this deep dive into AI's role in transforming industries and the skills needed in an AI-augmented workplace.

Check out Agent.ai website here: https://agent.ai

Apply to join over 400 Founders and Execs in the Turpentine Network: https://www.turpentinenetwork.co/

SPONSORS:

Squad: Head to Squad to access global engineering without the headache and at a fraction of the cost: head to https://choosesquad.com/ and mention “Turpentine” to skip the waitlist.

RECOMMENDED PODCAST:

This Won't Last - Eavesdrop on Keith Rabois, Kevin Ryan, Logan Bartlett, and Zach Weinberg's monthly backchannel ft their hottest takes on the future of tech, business, and venture capital.

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2HwSNeVLL1MXy0RjFPyOSz

CHAPTERS:

(00:00:00) About the Show

(00:00:22) Sponsors: Weights & Biases Weave

(00:01:28) About the Episode

(00:05:36) Introduction and AI Agents Overview

(00:07:02) Current State of AI Agents

(00:11:30) Building and Optimizing AI Agents

(00:19:01) Sponsors: Oracle | Brave

(00:21:05) Agent.ai Platform and Marketplace

(00:31:12) Sponsors: Omneky | Squad

(00:32:38) Customization and Context for Agents

(00:33:34) Business Model and Monetization

(00:36:53) Tech Stack and Development Process

(00:43:55) Future of Work and AI Impact

(01:03:46) Fine-tuning and Chain of Thought

(01:14:30) Capturing Human Reasoning Process

(01:21:00) Preparing for Rapid AI Advancement

(01:40:58) AI's Impact on Jobs and Society

(02:00:16) Closing Thoughts and Future Outlook

(02:03:33) Sponsors: Outro

Red Teaming o1 Part 2/2– Detecting Deception with Marius Hobbhahn of Apollo Research Sep 14, 2024

Show notes

In this Emergency Pod of The Cognitive Revolution, Nathan provides crucial insights into OpenAI's new O1 and O1-mini reasoning models. Featuring exclusive interviews with members of the O1 Red Team from Apollo Research and Hayes Labs, we explore the models' capabilities, safety profile, and OpenAI's pre-release testing approach. Dive into the implications of these advanced AI systems, including their potential to match or exceed expert performance in many areas. Join us for an urgent and informative discussion on the latest developments in AI technology and their impact on the future.

o1 Safety Card

Endless Jailbreaks with Bijection Learning: a Powerful, Scale-Agnostic Attack Method

Apollo Research

Apollo Careers Page

Papers mentioned:

Safetywashing: Do AI Safety Benchmarks Actually Measure Safety Progress?

Exploring Scaling Trends in LLM Robustness

Apply to join over 400 Founders and Execs in the Turpentine Network: https://www.turpentinenetwork.co/

SPONSORS:

Squad: Head to Squad to access global engineering without the headache and at a fraction of the cost: head to https://choosesquad.com/ and mention “Turpentine” to skip the waitlist.

RECOMMENDED PODCAST:

This Won't Last.

Eavesdrop on Keith Rabois, Kevin Ryan, Logan Bartlett, and Zach Weinberg's monthly backchannel. They unpack their hottest takes on the future of tech, business, venture, investing, and politics.

Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/id1765665937

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2HwSNeVLL1MXy0RjFPyOSz

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@ThisWontLastpodcast

CHAPTERS:

(00:00:00) About the Show

(00:00:22) About the Episode

(00:05:03) Introduction and Apollo Research Updates

(00:06:40) Focus on Deception in AI

(00:11:08) Open AI's 01 Model and Testing

(00:15:54) Evaluating AI Models for Scheming (Part 1)

(00:19:32) Sponsors: Oracle | Brave

(00:21:36) Evaluating AI Models for Scheming (Part 2)

(00:25:55) Specific Benchmarks and Tasks (Part 1)

(00:35:03) Sponsors: Omneky | Squad

(00:36:29) Specific Benchmarks and Tasks (Part 2)

(00:37:21) Model Capabilities and Potential Risks

(00:44:11) Ethical Considerations and Future Concerns

(00:50:31) Competing Trends in AI Development

(00:53:30) System Card Quotes and Implications

(00:58:36) Sponsors: Outro

Red Teaming o1 Part 1/2– Automated Jailbreaking with Haize Labs' Leonard Tang, Aidan Ewart, and Brian Huang Sep 14, 2024

Show notes

In this Emergency Pod of The Cognitive Revolution, Nathan provides crucial insights into OpenAI's new o1 and o1-mini reasoning models. Featuring exclusive interviews with members of the o1 Red Team from Apollo Research and Haize Labs, we explore the models' capabilities, safety profile, and OpenAI's pre-release testing approach. Dive into the implications of these advanced AI systems, including their potential to match or exceed expert performance in many areas. Join us for an urgent and informative discussion on the latest developments in AI technology and their impact on the future.

Papers mentioned:

Apply to join over 400 Founders and Execs in the Turpentine Network: https://www.turpentinenetwork.co/

SPONSORS:

Squad: Head to Squad to access global engineering without the headache and at a fraction of the cost: head to https://choosesquad.com/ and mention “Turpentine” to skip the waitlist.

RECOMMENDED PODCAST:

This Won't Last.

Eavesdrop on Keith Rabois, Kevin Ryan, Logan Bartlett, and Zach Weinberg's monthly backchannel. They unpack their hottest takes on the future of tech, business, venture, investing, and politics.

Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/id1765665937

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2HwSNeVLL1MXy0RjFPyOSz

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@ThisWontLastpodcast

CHAPTERS:

(00:00:00) About the Show

(00:00:22) About the Episode

(00:05:03) Introduction and Haize Labs Overview

(00:07:36) Universal Jailbreak Technique and Attacks

(00:13:47) Automated vs Manual Red Teaming

(00:17:15) Qualitative Assessment of Model Jailbreaking (Part 1)

(00:19:38) Sponsors: Oracle | Brave

(00:21:42) Qualitative Assessment of Model Jailbreaking (Part 2)

(00:26:21) Context-Specific Safety Considerations

(00:32:26) Model Capabilities and Safety Correlation (Part 1)

(00:36:22) Sponsors: Omneky | Squad

(00:37:48) Model Capabilities and Safety Correlation (Part 2)

(00:44:42) Model Behavior and Defense Mechanisms

(00:52:47) Challenges in Preventing Jailbreaks

(00:56:24) Safety, Capabilities, and Model Scale

(01:00:56) Model Classification and Preparedness

(01:04:40) Concluding Thoughts on o1 and Future Work

(01:05:54) Outro

The Path to Utopia, with Nick Bostrom – from Clearer Thinking with Spencer Greenberg Sep 11, 2024

Show notes

In this special cross-post episode of The Cognitive Revolution, Nathan shares a fascinating conversation between Spencer Greenberg and philosopher Nick Bostrom from the Clearer Thinking podcast. They explore Bostrom's latest book, "Deep Utopia," and discuss the challenges of envisioning a truly desirable future. Discover how advanced AI could reshape our concept of purpose and meaning, and hear thought-provoking ideas on finding fulfillment in a world where technology solves our pressing problems. Join us for an insightful journey into the potential evolution of human flourishing and the quest for positive visions of the future.

Originally appeared in Clearer Thinking Podcast: https://podcast.clearerthinking.org/episode/224/nick-bostrom-the-path-to-utopia

Check out the Clearer Thinking with Spencer Greenberg Podcast here: https://podcast.clearerthinking.org/

Deep Utopia Book: https://www.amazon.com/Deep-Utopia-Meaning-Solved-World/dp/1646871642/

Apply to join over 400 Founders and Execs in the Turpentine Network: https://www.turpentinenetwork.co/

SPONSORS:

RECOMMENDED PODCAST:

This Won't Last.

Eavesdrop on Keith Rabois, Kevin Ryan, Logan Bartlett, and Zach Weinberg's monthly backchannel. They unpack their hottest takes on the future of tech, business, venture, investing, and politics.

Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/id1765665937

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2HwSNeVLL1MXy0RjFPyOSz

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@ThisWontLastpodcast

CHAPTERS:

(00:00:00) About the Show

(00:00:22) About the Episode

(00:02:58) Introduction to the podcast

(00:03:26) Dystopias vs utopias in fiction

(00:07:29) Material abundance and utopia

(00:14:57) AI and the future of work

(00:20:10) AI companions and human relationships

(00:22:57) Sponsors: Weights & Biases Weave | Oracle