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Why Did Kevin Roose Leave the New York Times? · Decoder with Nilay Patel

Decoder with Nilay Patel

Kevin Roose is AGI-pilled. Why aren't you?

My guest today is Kevin Roose, a journalist and author of the new book The AGI Chronicles. Kevin was a longtime New York Times reporter and host of the popular podcast Hard Fork, but he and friend of the show Casey Newton just left The Times to start the all-new tech podcast Machine Gods, which launched last week. Kevin and I talked about launching Machine…

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Notes

  1. Why Did Kevin Roose Leave the New York Times? at 3:33

    Kevin Roose left The New York Times, and left Hard Fork with Casey Newton, to build on YouTube. Full answer

  2. What Is the Machine Gods Podcast? at 6:08

    Kevin Roose says Machine Gods, the show he and Casey Newton started after Hard Fork, is meant to be video first. Full answer

  3. What Is AI Realism? at 10:59

    Kevin Roose says AI realism, Casey Newton's phrase, is the stance of people who are resigned to AI or excited that it is not going away. Full answer

  4. Why Did Kevin Roose Write the AGI Chronicles? at 13:35

    Kevin Roose wrote The AGI Chronicles because he was afraid the record of this era would vanish. Full answer

  5. Why Won't Sundar Pichai Say AGI? at 24:28

    Kevin Roose says Sundar Pichai does not say AGI. Demis Hassabis does, and Sergey Brin does. Roose does not think the labs feel it equally. Full answer

  6. How Did OpenAI's Compute Bet Pay Off? at 27:54

    Kevin Roose says the belief that led Sam Altman and his executives to bet, and maybe overbet, on compute last year is why OpenAI is in a better position than… Full answer

  7. How Wrong Was Dario Amodei's 2021 Plan for Anthropic? at 32:39

    Kevin Roose says Dario Amodei's 2021 note, Vision for a New Co, written as Anthropic was starting, put a full AGI at about 10 billion dollars. Full answer

  8. Why Do AI Labs Keep Building If AGI Is Dangerous? at 37:30

    Kevin Roose says he asked some version of this of the about 150 people he interviewed for The AGI Chronicles: if it is so dangerous, why are you doing it? Full answer

  9. Why Did Bing's Chatbot Sydney Feel Human? at 49:28

    Kevin Roose says he never thought Sydney, the Bing chatbot, was alive, and he said so at the time. Full answer

  10. Will OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google Become Trillion-dollar Companies? at 58:23

    Kevin Roose says OpenAI will make it, Anthropic will make it, and Google will make it. Full answer

  11. Why Is Kevin Roose AGI-pilled? at 1:09:30

    Kevin Roose says Sydney, the Bing chatbot, is what started to make him AGI-pilled. After that it was gradual. Full answer

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