The Retort AI Podcast

Latest Episodes:

Tom leaves stealth: Hortus AI Feb 18, 2025

Show notes

An exciting week for Tom, who tells Nate about his company Hortus AI, whose mission is to make AI accountable to local communities. We cover a lot of classic Retort themes as Tom makes a case for what's missing from AI development, and how models could be more healthily integrated into everyday people's lives.

Press release: https://hortus.ai/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/Hortus-AI-Press-Release_Feb25.pdf
Company website: https://hortus.ai/
Link to whitepaper: https://www.newamerica.org/rethinkai/policy-papers/a-sustainable-path-for-ai-development/

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.retortai.com

We ask again: Is AI a science? Jan 10, 2025

Show notes

Tom and Nate sit down for a classic discussion of the role of AI in the modern philosophy of science. Much of this discussion is based on Thomas Samuel Kuhn's influential book The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. We ask -- is AI a science in the Kuhn'ian sense? Will the "paradigm" worldview apply to other sciences post AI? How will scientific institutions manage the addition of AI?

We promised an AI for science reading list, so here it is:

[Dario interview with Lex] https://youtu.be/ugvHCXCOmm4?si=1hnlvue8M4pV2TqC
Levers for biological progress https://open.substack.com/pub/cell/p/levers?r=68gy5&utm_medium=ios
X thread on theories of change in scienceshttps://x.com/AdamMarblestone/status/1845158919523664019
whitepaper linked by seb krier
Dwarkesh physics pod https://open.substack.com/pub/dwarkesh/p/adam-brown?r=68gy5&utm_medium=ios — Nobel in physics went to ai
Ai policy perspectives piece A new golden age of discoveryhttps://www.aipolicyperspectives.com/p/a-new-golden-age-of-discovery
Owl posting checking recent NeurIPS papers https://www.owlposting.com/p/can-o1-preview-find-major-mistakes based on idea from Ethan Mollick https://x.com/emollick/status/1868329599438037491
also another post on the subject https://open.substack.com/pub/amistrongeryet/p/the-black-spatula-project?r=68gy5&utm_medium=ios
Kuhn’s The Structure of Scientific Revolutions
intrinsic perspective https://open.substack.com/pub/erikhoel/p/great-scientists-follow-intuition?r=68gy5&utm_medium=ios

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This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.retortai.com

The Retort's biggest AI stories of 2024 Dec 06, 2024

Show notes

We're back! Tom and Nate catch up after the Thanksgiving holiday. Our main question was -- what were the biggest AI stories of the year? We touch on the core themes of the show: infrastructure, AI realities, and and antitrust. The power buildout to scale out AI is going to have very real long-term impacts.

Some links this week:
* Ben Thompson's, The End of the Beginning: https://stratechery.com/2020/the-end-of-the-beginning/
* Miles Brundage's Substack: https://milesbrundage.substack.com/p/why-im-leaving-openai-and-what-im
* Stochastic Parrots paper: https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3442188.3445922

Thanks for listening!

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.retortai.com

The Nobel Albatross Oct 11, 2024

Show notes

Tom and Nate catch up on the happenings in AI. Of course, we're focused on the biggest awards available to us as esteemed scientists (or something close enough) -- the Nobel Prizes! What does it mean in the trajectory of AI for Hinton and Hassabis to carry added scientific weight. Honestly, feels like a sinking ship.

Some links:
* Schmidhuber tweet: https://x.com/SchmidhuberAI/status/1844022724328394780
* Hinton "I'm proud my student fired Sam": https://x.com/Grady_Booch/status/1844145422824243290

00:00 Introduction
04:43 Criticism of AI-related Nobel Prize awards
09:06 Geoffrey Hinton's comments on winning the Nobel Prize
18:14 Debate on who should be credited for current AI advancements
25:53 Changes in the nature of scientific research and recognition
34:44 Changes in AI safety culture and company dynamics
37:27 Discussion on AI scaling and its impact on the industry
42:21 Reflection on the ongoing AI hype cycle

Retort on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@TheRetortAIPodcast
Retort on Twitter: https://x.com/retortai
Retort website: https://retortai.com/
Retort email: mail at retortai dot com

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.retortai.com

Claude Needs a Constitutional Convention Sep 13, 2024

Show notes

Tom and Nate catch up on recent events (before the OpenAI o1 release) and opportunities in transparency/policy. We recap the legendary scam of Matt from IT department, why disclosing the outcomes of process is not enough, and more. This is a great episode on understanding why the process technology was birthed from is just as important as the outcome!

Some links:
* Nathan's post on Model Specs for regulation https://www.interconnects.ai/p/a-post-training-approach-to-ai-regulation
* Nathan's post on inference spend https://www.interconnects.ai/p/openai-strawberry-and-inference-scaling-laws

Send your questions to mail at retortai dot com

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.retortai.com

Avoiding the AI burnout Aug 26, 2024

Show notes

Tom and Nate catch up on core themes of AI after a somewhat unintended summer break. We discuss the moral groundings and philosophy of what we're building, our travels, The Anxious Generation, AGI obsessions, an update on AI Ethics vs. AI Safety, and plenty more in between.

As always, contact us at mail@retortai.com

Some links we mention in the episode:
* The Emotional Dog and its Rational Tail https://motherjones.com/wp-content/uploads/emotional_dog_and_rational_tail.pdf
* The Anxious Generation https://www.amazon.com/Anxious-Generation-Rewiring-Childhood-Epidemic/dp/0593655036
* Shadow Lake Lodge https://shadowlakelodge.com/
* Recent Dwarkesh Podcast https://www.dwarkeshpatel.com/p/joe-carlsmith

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.retortai.com

What we are getting wrong about AI regulation Jul 19, 2024

Show notes

Tom and Nate catch up on the rapidly evolving (and political) space of AI regulation. We cover CA SB 1047, recent policing of data scraping, presidential appointees, antitrust intention vs. implementation, FLOP thresholds, and everything else touching the future of large ML models.

Nate's internet cut out, so this episode ends a little abruptly. Reach out with any questions to mail at retortai.com

Some links:
- night falls on the cumberlands https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Night_Comes_to_the_Cumberlands
- hillbilly elegy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hillbilly_Elegy
- wired piece on data https://www.wired.com/story/youtube-training-data-apple-nvidia-anthropic/
- nate's recent piece on AI regulation https://www.interconnects.ai/p/sb-1047-and-open-weights

00:00 Intro
01:19 Training Data and the Media
03:43 Norms, Power, and the Limits of Regulation
08:52 OpenAI's Business Model
12:33 Antitrust: The Essential Tool for Governing AI
17:11 Users as Afterthoughts
20:07 Depoliticizing AI
26:14 "Breaking Bad" & the AI Parallel
28:11 The "Little Tech" Agenda
31:03 Reframing the Narrative of Big Tech
32:20 "The Lean Startup" & AI's Uncertainty

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.retortai.com

AI, feedback, and population public health Jun 28, 2024

Show notes

Tom and Nate revisit one of their old ideas -- AI through the lens of public health infrastructure, and especially alignment. Sorry about Tom's glitchy audio, I figured it out after the fact that he was talking into the microphone at the wrong angle. Regardless, here are some links for this week. Links:
- Data foundry for AI https://scale.com/blog/scale-ai-series-f
- Information piece on Scale AI ($) https://www.theinformation.com/articles/why-a-14-billion-startup-is-now-hiring-phds-to-train-ai-from-their-living-rooms?shared=168f685a864ca709
- ChatGPT compounding math: https://chatgpt.com/share/2c19a357-acb2-441d-8203-946b74ce785c

00:00 Intro
00:39 Chicago's Tech Scene and the "The Bear"
01:22 AI and Public Health: A New Framework
08:17 Lessons for AI from Sanitation Infrastructure
12:58 The Mental Health Impact of Generative AI
23:28 Aligning AI with Diverse Societal Values
27:06 Power Dynamics in AI's Development
33:02 The Need for a Neutral AI Research Body (NAIRR)
36:57 New Regulations for a New Era of AI
41:05 Outro: Join the Conversation

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.retortai.com

Apple sends a memo to the AGI faithful Jun 21, 2024

Show notes

Tom and Nate caught up last week (sorry for the editing delay) on the big two views of the AI future: Apple Intelligence and Situational Awareness (Nationalistic AI doom prevention). One of our best episodes, here are the links:
* The Kekulé Problem https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Kekul%C3%A9_Problem
* Truth and Method https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Truth_and_Method
* Situational Awareness https://situational-awareness.ai/

00:00 A Hypothetical Life: From Germany to AGI
01:20 Leopold Aschenbrenner: Situational Awareness and Extrapolation
02:01 The Retort: Apple vs. Doomsday AI
03:40 Credentials and Social Choice Theory
05:14 Dissecting "Situational Awareness": Hype vs. Reality
07:16 The Limits of Language Models: Are They Really Intelligent?
11:04 Apple's Vision: AI for Consumers, Not Conquerors
13:53 Silicon Valley Myopia and the Geopolitics of AI
18:25 Beyond Benchmarks: The Scientist vs. The Engineer
22:04 What is Intelligence? The Narrowness of Human Fixation
24:32 A Growing Disrespect for Language?
27:40 The Power of Talking to Language Models
32:50 Language: Representation or Revelation?
38:54 The Future of Meaning: Will AI Obliterate Art?
45:32 A Vision for AI as Public Infrastructure

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.retortai.com

Murky waters in AI policy May 31, 2024

Show notes

Tom and Nate catch up on many AI policy happenings recently. California's "anti open source" 1047 bill, the senate AI roadmap, Google's search snaifu, OpenAI's normal nonsense, and reader feedback! A bit of a mailbag. Enjoy.

00:00 Murky waters in AI policy
00:33 The Senate AI Roadmap
05:14 The Executive Branch Takes the Lead
08:33 California's Senate AI Bill
22:22 OpenAI's Two Audiences
28:53 The Problem with OpenAI Model Spec
39:50 A New World of AI Regulation

A bunch of links...
Data and society whitepaper: https://static1.squarespace.com/static/66465fcd83d1881b974fe099/t/664b866c9524f174acd7931c/1716225644575/24.05.18+-+AI+Shadow+Report+V4.pdf
https://senateshadowreport.com/

California bill
https://www.hyperdimensional.co/p/california-senate-passes-sb-1047
https://legiscan.com/CA/text/SB1047/id/2999979

Data walls
https://www.interconnects.ai/p/the-data-wall

Interconnects Merch
https://interconnects.myshopify.com/

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.retortai.com