Gwern Branwen

It's more like I'm now using scaling to think about primatology because obviously if scaling is true, it has to tell us something about humans and monkeys and other forms of intelligence.

It just has to.

If that works, it can't be a coincidence and just be totally unrelated.

I refuse to believe that there are two totally unrelated kinds of intelligence or paths to intelligence where humans, monkeys, guppies, dogs are all one thing and then you have neural networks and computers that are a distinct thing and they have absolutely nothing to do with each other.

Right.

I think that's just kind of like obviously wrong.

They can be two sides of the same coin.

They can obviously have obscure connections.

Maybe one form can end up being better or whatever.

They just can't be completely unrelated.

as if humans like finally got to Mars and then simultaneously a bunch of space aliens landed on Mars for the first time and that's how we met, right?

You would never believe that.

It would just be too absurd of a coincidence.

What is it that you try to maximize in life?

I maximize rabbit holes.

I love more than anything else falling into a new rabbit hole.

That's what I really look forward to.

Like this sudden kind of new idea or area that I had no idea about where I can suddenly fall into this deep hole for a while.

Even things that might seem bad are a great excuse for falling into a rabbit hole.

One example, you know, I buy some catnip for my cat and I wasted $10.