China Decode

Could China Replace the U.S. as the Global Superpower? | China Decode

This revolution is being led by China. That is the key difference. China is at the forefront of this cluster of new technologies that promise to fundamentally reshape the way industry, commerce and actually our daily lives around the world will change and evolve over time.

The a16z Show

The Age of Body Futurism | Ruby Justice Thelot

rather than everyone optimizing toward the same ideal, we may see increasingly individualized and sometimes extreme forms of 'body futurism.'

Diet TBPN

Apple’s iPhone Duo, Meta’s Muse AI Agent, Anthropic Researcher Quits Over AI Doom | Diet TBPN

You spend more time on your phone than you do in your car. And your car is 10 times the price of your phone always like if not more.

TBPN

Greg Brockman on Astra and the Future of OpenAI

I think that talking about curing diseases and new medicines we're going to be able to develop, all of that starts to become much more real when you have models that are at this level of assistance and capability. And I do think that there are going to be real changes to to think about in terms of we can have so much more ambition with the kinds of of challenges that we can hope to tackle now.

TED

How AI Is Breaking the Internet (and What to Do About It) | Matthew Prince | TED

For the first time in human history, we have a mathematical model of all of human knowledge. It's not perfect, but that's essentially what all of the LLMs are.

The a16z Show

Can Open Source Keep AI Power From Concentrating?

today's concentration may be a feature of the current technological paradigm rather than a permanent feature of AI. Transformers reward enormous amounts of data and compute, but future breakthroughs could make smaller, more specialized models far more capable.

TBPN

Jobs Boom, Astra Reactions, Cybercab Roll Out, The Dyson Debate

It was a time when technology gave us all a deep sense of optimism for the future. I feel like some of that sense has been lost since certainly. But I hope models like Astra can help restore it and push us towards a more hopeful future.

The Prof G Pod

China Is Dumping AI to Crash Silicon Valley — Josh Tyrangiel

You need to separate the tech from the tech companies because then you're going to start finding interesting things like real experimentation and real people with values. Until you do that, you're just going to be stuck in the hype cycle.

Fresh Air

Back-to-school with Big Tech

the tech companies want kids to be prepared for the world the tech companies are building. But we're not saying to kids, do you want an AI-driven future? Do you want an AI-first future? Like, we're skipping over all the hard questions.

The a16z Show

Gavin Baker: Why AI Demand Is Outrunning Compute Supply

David explores whether the bigger near-term risk is not overbuilding, but failing to build enough.

Invest Like the Best with Patrick O'Shaughnessy

Neil Movva - Making AI 10x Cheaper - [Invest Like the Best, EP.488]

the premium the frontier labs charge for being three to six months ahead may not last

Invest Like the Best with Patrick O'Shaughnessy

Eric Vishria - A Decade of Lessons Investing in Software & Hardware - [Invest Like the Best, EP.486]

The best hardware companies look a lot like software companies in the way they think about software and the customer relationship, and the best software companies are starting to look a lot more like hardware companies in the sense that the physical world matters and the intersection of the two is where a lot of the most interesting things are happening.

The a16z Show

The Infrastructure Behind the Machine Age

AI is turning problems once constrained by engineering into problems that can increasingly be attacked with capital and compute.

The Prof G Pod

"Go Woke, Go Broke"? Texas Runs on Renewables Now

If you were to put a dollar of gasoline in your car, only around 20 cents of that actually go towards turning the wheels and getting you from A to B. 80% of that is completely wasted as heat and friction and stuff that's actually not serving you or giving you what you need. With electrification, that's basically flipped.

China Decode

Why Microsoft Is Quietly Abandoning China | China Decode

I think there's a third category, and this is the category that I would put Microsoft into. This is the category of companies, big western companies that dared to dream the dream but never managed to realize it.

The a16z Show

How Do You Defend Against AI That Can Hack?

the same AI capabilities creating new attack surfaces could ultimately give defenders their biggest advantage yet

The Prof G Pod

Debra Soh: "We're Having Less Sex Than Ever" — Here's Why

I think when we outsource our personal lives, and especially things like emotional intimacy and sexual intimacy, to these platforms that are not necessarily looking out for our best interests or treating us as individuals who have dreams and the desire to fall in love, um that can be potentially very unhelpful and frustrating to people.

Book of the Day

'Cloudthief' and 'Dead but Dreaming of Electric Sheep' are novels that center tech

The most valuable thing in the world is no longer money, you know, or jewels, or artwork. It's data. And all of this data lives in these Fort Knoxes that no one really talked about called data centers.

Decoder with Nilay Patel

Does Google even want to win in AI?

It's crazy to me that they have that much power and all that going for the company, and they're still not in the lead, let alone being behind as of right now. That's what I think is crazy.

The Week

The Half-Trillion-Dollar AI Loop | The Week

If you were to go back and look at the average productivity of the US worker over the past 90 years, you will not see a single technological innovation. You won't see air conditioning. You won't see cell phones or computers or the internet or Microsoft Office. You don't see it because it takes a long time for productivity to be absorbed into the workplace and used by employers.

The Prof G Pod

Scott Galloway on Why Capitalism Isn't the Enemy of the Poor | Office Hours

I find that in general, people talk a big game about privacy concerns, and then they will give Uber all of their data. Think about Uber. With a hack and a thin layer of AI, you could pretty easily determine if someone just terminated a pregnancy, their HIV status, if they're having affairs, their sexual orientation.

Diet TBPN

Nvidia’s $500B Compute Deal, Paramount Threatens CA Exit, Musk’s Shortcut to $1T Payday | Diet TBPN

AI tokens are profitable incredibly profitable. When you have something profitable, everybody wants to make more of it. Great demand, great profitability. The conditions are exactly right for the work that we're doing right now.

Invest Like the Best with Patrick O'Shaughnessy

Sam Altman - How to Make an Abundant Future - [Invest Like the Best, EP.484]

The economic growth we've had in the last 200 years is this extraordinary exception in human history. And yet, I think we're about to look back on that and think it was just this tiny little warmup. I think we can do the equivalent of that again in a very small number of years.

Fresh Air

Silicon Valley billionaires’ war on democracy

My book is about a cult of Silicon Valley billionaires who believe that in the 21st century, technology will make democracy obsolete.

TED

Save It to Your Desktop! | Alan Resnick | TED

I think of computers a little like grandparents, actually. You wouldn't use your grandmother, right? But your grandmother can make your life easier if you use her properly.

TED

Our Last, Best Chance to Cool the Earth | Bill McKibben | TED

We live on a planet where the cheapest way to make power is to point a sheet of glass at the sun.

Invest Like the Best with Patrick O'Shaughnessy

Gavin Baker - AI Market Jitters - [Invest Like the Best, EP.485]

The most underappreciated thing about AI is that it's deflationary. Every single time in history when something has caused the kind of growth in demand that AI is causing, it has been because it is deflationary — because it lowers the cost of doing something that people want to do.

Invest Like the Best with Patrick O'Shaughnessy

Sam Altman - How to Make an Abundant Future - [Invest Like the Best, EP.484]

I think the most important thing that I have come to believe is that intelligence is the underlying commodity of the universe. And if we can have a much more abundant supply of intelligence, both human and artificial, we can solve problems that have stumped humanity for a long time.

Freakonomics Radio

684. He Helped Clean Up the Last Crash. Does He See Another One Coming?

Former S.E.C. chair Gary Gensler has had a front-row seat to numerous financial booms and busts. How does he feel about America's massive bet on A.I.? "Something has to give."

Invest Like the Best with Patrick O'Shaughnessy

Sam Altman - How to Make an Abundant Future - [Invest Like the Best, EP.484]

The thing that I keep coming back to is that intelligence and energy are the two inputs to wealth creation, and if we can make those cheap and abundant, the world will be able to solve the problems that have plagued us for millennia. And I think that within a not crazy long period of time, we will look back at the current time the way we look back at other transitions in history and think this is when things really changed.

Invest Like the Best with Patrick O'Shaughnessy

Sam Altman - How to Make an Abundant Future - [Invest Like the Best, EP.484]

I think most people radically underestimate what's going to be possible. Not just in terms of technology, but if we can actually get these systems to work and we can actually get the abundance they could provide, the degree to which every single person on the planet could have a quality of life better than the wealthiest people today is really hard to get your head around.

Invest Like the Best with Patrick O'Shaughnessy

Gavin Baker - AI Market Jitters - [Invest Like the Best, EP.485]

The most important thing I would say is that I think AI is the most important technology in human history, bar none. More important than the printing press, more important than electricity, more important than the internet. The reason I say that is it's the first technology that can potentially augment or replace human cognitive labor at scale.

Invest Like the Best with Patrick O'Shaughnessy

Gavin Baker - AI Market Jitters - [Invest Like the Best, EP.485]

The history of technology tells us that the companies that win in a new technology paradigm are often not the companies that won in the previous technology paradigm. And I think that's a really important thing to keep in mind when you're thinking about AI.

Invest Like the Best with Patrick O'Shaughnessy

Sam Altman - How to Make an Abundant Future - [Invest Like the Best, EP.484]

I think we may be approaching a moment where many instances of AI are out running experiments, doing the work of scientists, and humanity could potentially compress decades of scientific progress into just a few years. We could run experiments to defeat diseases that have plagued us for millennia, independently develop and test solutions to mental health crises, and actively drive economic growth in a way that could lift billions out of poverty.

Diet TBPN

Hank Green Faces AI Backlash, OpenAI Math Advances, Million-Dollar Solo Firms | Diet TBPN

It's a real challenge to simultaneously say, I'm going to cover math. I'm going to cover science, but I'm not going to touch AI. That AI stuff's bad.

Invest Like the Best with Patrick O'Shaughnessy

Sam Altman - How to Make an Abundant Future - [Invest Like the Best, EP.484]

what it's like to raise kids who will grow up never knowing a world without abundant intelligence

Invest Like the Best with Patrick O'Shaughnessy

Sam Altman - How to Make an Abundant Future - [Invest Like the Best, EP.484]

The last 100 years of scientific and technological progress have been incredible, but I think the next 20 years will be the most transformative in human history. I believe we are on the verge of creating AI systems that will compress decades of scientific progress into just a few years, potentially solving diseases that have plagued humanity for millennia, defeating mental health crises, and creating economic growth in a way that could lift billions out of poverty.

Invest Like the Best with Patrick O'Shaughnessy

Sam Altman - How to Make an Abundant Future - [Invest Like the Best, EP.484]

I think we're at the beginning of an era where we're going to be able to just have much more. And I think that the thing that I would most want people to understand is that technological progress is the main driver of that, and that we should think about how to accelerate it rather than slow it down, because the compounding effects of even slightly faster scientific progress are enormous.

Invest Like the Best with Patrick O'Shaughnessy

Sam Altman - How to Make an Abundant Future - [Invest Like the Best, EP.484]

I think we will look back on this moment as the single most important turning point in the history of human civilization. Truly, not hyperbole. The transition from a world where there was a fixed amount of intelligence and energy to a world where both of those are effectively unlimited is so profound that I don't think we are able to fully conceptualize what it will mean.

Freakonomics Radio

683. In the New Space Race, Who Makes the Rules?

Governments started the space age. Now, billionaires and private firms are reinventing it.

TED

How to Escape the Smartphone Doom Loop | Larz May, Elise Hu | TED

Technology is more like food than anything. We have our own media metabolisms. Every child is different. Every family is different. We must learn how to consume technology in a way that is going to support us rather than hurt us, because unfortunately, the systems are not built for us to thrive.

Invest Like the Best with Patrick O'Shaughnessy

Sam Altman - How to Make an Abundant Future - [Invest Like the Best, EP.484]

I think AI is going to be the most transformative technology in human history, and I think it will compress potentially 100 years of scientific progress into the next decade or so. I think it will defeat diseases that have plagued us forever. I think it will help lift many people out of poverty. I think it will dramatically increase the quality of life for most people on Earth.

Invest Like the Best with Patrick O'Shaughnessy

Sam Altman - How to Make an Abundant Future - [Invest Like the Best, EP.484]

I think we're at an inflection point where AI will be doing a lot of the work, and the jobs of the future will be to figure out what we should build, what direction to point the AI, and how to verify that the AI has done the right thing. The people who do that best will capture an enormous amount of value.

Invest Like the Best with Patrick O'Shaughnessy

Sam Altman - How to Make an Abundant Future - [Invest Like the Best, EP.484]

I think we're at an early moment in what will eventually be seen as a clear inflection point in history — the moment when AI started to do real scientific research autonomously and the pace of scientific progress started to change in a way that will just seem unimaginable to us now.

TED

Why AI Will Never Replace a Great Teacher | Matt Wu | TED

We're investing billions into making sure we put the very best AI tools onto every screen on the planet. But with all this technology at our fingertips, why aren't we investing just as urgently into making sure every student can connect with the people who will change their life?

Invest Like the Best with Patrick O'Shaughnessy

Sam Altman - How to Make an Abundant Future - [Invest Like the Best, EP.484]

The thing that I keep coming back to is that intelligence and energy are the two inputs to the economy, and if you have basically unlimited intelligence and energy, you can make almost anything. And we may actually be on track to get there.

Invest Like the Best with Patrick O'Shaughnessy

Sam Altman - How to Make an Abundant Future - [Invest Like the Best, EP.484]

The thing that I keep coming back to is that intelligence and energy are the two inputs to wealth creation. And we have, in AI, a way to potentially radically expand the amount of intelligence available to humanity. If we can do that, and if we can find a way to get cheap, abundant energy, I think the world looks totally different in 20 to 30 years than most people are imagining.

The Week

The Week: China Is Undercutting America’s AI Boom

The best business model in history is IP theft. A close second in terms of a pricing mechanism is 80% of the market leader for half the price. And DeepSeek and these Chinese open-way models claim they're 90% of the market leader for a third of the price.

The Week

The Week: China Is Undercutting America’s AI Boom

The big story here is not necessarily Chinese models versus American models. I think the big story here is open source versus closed source. The big labs, they don't have anything that the open source labs don't have.