Cold Takes Audio
Activity Overview
Episode publication activity over the past year
Episodes
What AI companies can do today to help with the most important century
20 Feb 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Major AI companies can increase or reduce global catastrophic risks.https://www.cold-takes.com/what-ai-companies-can-do-today-to-help-with-the-most-im...
Jobs that can help with the most important century
10 Feb 2023
Contributed by Lukas
People are far better at their jobs than at anything else. Here are the best ways to help the most important century go well.https://www.cold-takes.co...
Spreading messages to help with the most important century
25 Jan 2023
Contributed by Lukas
For people who want to help improve our prospects for navigating transformative AI, and have an audience (even a small one).https://www.cold-takes.com...
How we could stumble into AI catastrophe
13 Jan 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Hypothetical stories where the world tries, but fails, to avert a global disaster.https://www.cold-takes.com/how-we-could-stumble-into-ai-catastrophe
Transformative AI issues (not just misalignment): an overview
05 Jan 2023
Contributed by Lukas
An overview of key potential factors (not just alignment risk) for whether things go well or poorly with transformative AI.https://www.cold-takes.com/...
Racing Through a Minefield: the AI Deployment Problem
22 Dec 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Push AI forward too fast, and catastrophe could occur. Too slow, and someone else less cautious could do it. Is there a safe course?https://www.cold-t...
High-level hopes for AI aligment
15 Dec 2022
Contributed by Lukas
A few ways we might get very powerful AI systems to be safe.https://www.cold-takes.com/high-level-hopes-for-ai-alignment/
AI safety seems hard to measure
08 Dec 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Four analogies for why "We don't see any misbehavior by this AI" isn't enough.https://www.cold-takes.com/ai-safety-seems-hard-to-m...
Why Would AI "Aim" To Defeat Humanity?
29 Nov 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Today's AI development methods risk training AIs to be deceptive, manipulative and ambitious. This might not be easy to fix as it comes up.https:...
The Track Record of Futurists Seems ... Fine
30 Jun 2022
Contributed by Lukas
We scored mid-20th-century sci-fi writers on nonfiction predictions. They weren't great, but weren't terrible either. Maybe doing futurism w...
Nonprofit Boards are Weird
23 Jun 2022
Contributed by Lukas
With great power comes, er, unclear responsibility and zero accountability. https://www.cold-takes.com/nonprofit-boards-are-weird-2/
AI Could Defeat All Of Us Combined
07 Jun 2022
Contributed by Lukas
How big a deal could AI misalignment be? About as big as it gets.https://www.cold-takes.com/ai-could-defeat-all-of-us-combined/
Useful Vices for Wicked Problems
12 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Investigating important topics with laziness, impatience, hubris and self-preservation.https://www.cold-takes.com/useful-vices-for-wicked-problems/
Ideal governance (for companies, countries and more)
05 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
What kind of governance system should you set up, if you're starting from scratch and can do it however you want?https://www.cold-takes.com/ideal...
Debating myself on whether “extra lives lived” are as good as “deaths prevented”
29 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Preventing extinction would be good - but "saving 8 billion lives" good or "saving a trillion trillion trillion lives" good?https:...
The Wicked Problem Experience
02 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
A day in the life of trying to complete a self-assigned project with no clear spec or goal. https://www.cold-takes.com/the-wicked-problem-experience/
Learning By Writing
22 Feb 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Defending One-Dimensional Ethics
15 Feb 2022
Contributed by Lukas
First in a series of dialogues on utilitarianism and "future-proof ethics."https://www.cold-takes.com/defending-one-dimensional-ethics/
Future-Proof Ethics
02 Feb 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Ethics based on common sense seems to have a horrible historical track record. Can we do better?https://www.cold-takes.com/future-proof-ethics/
Stakeholder Management and Cost Disease
27 Jan 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Reader reactions and update on "Where's Today's Beethoven"
25 Jan 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Lots of theories for why older science and art seem to have an easier time getting critical acclaim.https://www.cold-takes.com/reader-reactions-and-up...
Why it matters if "ideas get harder to find"
11 Jan 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Want more innovation? Think about population, not recapturing "golden age" culture.https://www.cold-takes.com/why-it-matters-if-ideas-get-ha...
Where's Today's Beethoven?
04 Jan 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Why is no composer today as acclaimed as Beethoven, no author as acclaimed as Shakespeare? A data-driven look at a few possible explanations.https://w...
The Bayesian Mindset
21 Dec 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Visualizing Utopia
14 Dec 2021
Contributed by Lukas
An attempt to help visualize utopia, without running into pitfalls I covered previously.https://www.cold-takes.com/visualizing-utopia/
Why Describing Utopia Goes Badly
07 Dec 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Minimal-trust investigations
23 Nov 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The activity that has been most formative for the way I think: suspending my trust in others and digging to the bottom of some claim.https://www.cold-...
Did life get better during the pre-industrial era? (Ehhhh)
23 Nov 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Falling everyday violence, bigger wars and atrocities: how do they net out?
16 Nov 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Homicide rates have fallen over the past 1000+ years, but wars and genocides may have gotten bigger. How does it net out?https://www.cold-takes.com/ha...
Rowing, Steering, Anchoring, Equity, Mutiny
09 Nov 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Five clashing pictures of how to help the world, and the questions about history they raise.https://www.cold-takes.com/rowing-steering-anchoring-equit...
Unraveling the evidence about violence among very early humans
02 Nov 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The rate of violent deaths is one of the key measures of long-run quality of life, and strong claims are made on both sides.https://www.cold-takes.com...
Was life better in hunter-gatherer times?
26 Oct 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Part of the "Has Life Gotten Better?" series.https://www.cold-takes.com/was-life-better-in-hunter-gatherer-times/
Pre-agriculture gender relations seem bad
19 Oct 2021
Contributed by Lukas
"Hunter-gatherers"/"foragers" are sometimes said to have strong gender equality. But as far as I can tell, they don't. Part o...
Has Life Gotten Better?: the Post-Industrial Era
12 Oct 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Why I think life has gotten better over the last couple hundred years.https://www.cold-takes.com/has-life-gotten-better-the-post-industrial-era/
Has Life Gotten Better?
05 Oct 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Trends in quality of life over all of human history (not just the last few hundred years).https://www.cold-takes.com/has-life-gotten-better/
Summary of history (empowerment and well-being lens)
28 Sep 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Listing the big events for empowerment and well-being, leaving out all the wars that didn't clearly affect these things.https://www.cold-takes.co...
Why AI alignment could be hard with modern deep learning (guest post by Ajeya Cotra)
20 Sep 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Why would we program AI that wants to harm us? Because we might not know how to do otherwise.https://www.cold-takes.com/why-ai-alignment-could-be-hard...
Call to Vigilance
15 Sep 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Given all our uncertainties about the most important century, I'm issuing a "call to vigilance" instead of "call to action": ...
How to make the best of the most important century?
14 Sep 2021
Contributed by Lukas
We, the people living in this century, have the chance to have a huge impact on huge numbers of people to come - if we can make sense of the situation...
AI Timelines: Where the Arguments, and the ”Experts,” Stand
07 Sep 2021
Contributed by Lukas
What the best available forecasting methods say about when we can expect transformative AI - and why there's no "expert field" for this...
Forecasting transformative AI: the ”biological anchors” method in a nutshell
31 Aug 2021
Contributed by Lukas
My preferred method of forecasting transformative AI, with pros and cons. https://www.cold-takes.com/forecasting-transformative-ai-the-biological-anc...
Are we "trending toward" transformative AI? (How would we know?)
24 Aug 2021
Contributed by Lukas
AI progress may not trend in the ways we intuitively expect.https://www.cold-takes.com/are-we-trending-toward-transformative-ai-how-would-we-know/
Forecasting transformative AI: what's the burden of proof?
17 Aug 2021
Contributed by Lukas
This is the second of 4 posts summarizing hundreds of pages of technical reports focused almost entirely on forecasting one number: the year by which ...
Forecasting Transformative AI, Part 1: What Kind of AI?
10 Aug 2021
Contributed by Lukas
PASTA: Process for Automating Scientific and Technological Advancementhttps://www.cold-takes.com/transformative-ai-timelines-part-1-of-4-what-kind-of-...
This Can't Go On
02 Aug 2021
Contributed by Lukas
https://www.cold-takes.com/this-cant-go-on/The long view of economic history says we're in the midst of a huge, unsustainable acceleration. What ...
Digital People Part 3 - Implications
27 Jul 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Final section of the "Digital People Would Be An Even Bigger Deal" readthrough.https://www.cold-takes.com/how-digital-people-could-change-th...
Digital People Part 2 (optional) - FAQ
27 Jul 2021
Contributed by Lukas
FAQ about the "digital people" idea.https://www.cold-takes.com/digital-people-faq
Digital People Part 1 - intro
27 Jul 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Audio for the first part of "Digital People Would Be An Even Bigger Deal."https://www.cold-takes.com/how-digital-people-could-change-the-wor...
The Duplicator
19 Jul 2021
Contributed by Lukas
If people could be insta-copied, economic growth would explode.https://www.cold-takes.com/the-duplicator/
All Possible Views About Humanity's Future Are Wild
13 Jul 2021
Contributed by Lukas
If you think humans will eventually spread out across the galaxy (even if it takes 100,000 years), then you think we are among the earliest living bei...