Invest Like The Best
Episode 59 Grand Theft Life
Invest Like The Best

Episode 59: Grand Theft Life

Grand Theft Life

Tim runs the blog "Wait, But Why" and Andrew is his business partner. We cover what it means to be a cook and not a chef, what he learned from writing about Elon Musk, and what human progress implies about the future of our species.

[00:01:50] – (First question) – Explaining his concept of planets 1, 2, 3 and 4 and understanding the human colossus

[00:05:46] – Tim’s favorite idea of the human knowledge compounding

[00:07:52] – Die Progress Units (DPU)

[00:09:45] – Different stages of AI and the positives and negatives of each stage

[00:14:04] – What happens when AI gains breadth and general intelligence

[00:16:23] – The idea of a cook vs a chef and how Tim had the chance to interview Elon Musk

[0017:48] – Why you should reason from first principles instead of reasoning by analogies

[00:25:19] – Why it’s possible to turn a cook into a chef

[00:30:08] – Why being a chef is the safer route in a world with AI and what Tim has changed in himself as to why.

[00:31:22] – Looking at the discovery process

[00:34:39] – Superintelligence: Paths, Dangers, Strategies

[00:40:01] – Being the person who creates the metaphor vs being the people who simply using them

[00:43:41] – YouTube Channel Kurzgesagt – In a Nutshell

[00:44:54] – Most fun that Tim has had researching a topic

[00:46:08] – Musk model for attaining your goals

[00:53:43] – Why not caring what people think is one of the world’s best superpowers, grand theft life

[00:56:50] – Neuralink – what is it and how did Tim come to research it

[01:02:38] – Elon Musk’s concerns about AI

[01:14:28] – What then if the Neuralink concept works out

[01:18:02] – Kindest thing anyone has done for Tim

Grand Theft Life

Introduction

Patrick
This week's conversation is about artificial intelligence and interplanetary travel. It's about content creation, thinking from first principles and death progress units. It's about brain machine interfaces and why it is crucial that you be a chef and not a cook. My guest is Tim Urban along with his business partner, Andrew Finn. Tim is the most entertaining writer I've come across in years who explains complicated and interesting topics to his millions of dedicated readers on the website, Wait But Why.

As an example, Tim's last post on Elon Musk's Neuralink venture is 40,000 words long, roughly the length of a short book. It explains almost all of human progress and our potential future using drawings and cartoons. It's impossible to stop reading. Well, this conversation is wildly entertaining. It is also chock-full of metaphors and lessons that will be useful to anyone doing creative work or building a company. I hope this leaves you as energized as it left me.

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