5 ms·

I can't express how good Dwarkesh's podcast is in general.

by chaoz_ 2y ago

lordswork 2y ago
Lex walked so that Dwarkesh could run. He runs the best AI podcast around right now, by a long shot.
- bearjaws 2y ago
  I feel like Lex has gone full 'both sides' at this point, waiting for him to have Alex Jones on at this point. There is no real commentary to pull from his interviews, at best you get some interesting stories but not the truth.
  - bigstrat2003 2y ago
    That is a strength, not a weakness. It's valuable to see why people, even those with whom we disagree, think the way they do. There's already far too much of a tendency to expel heretics in today's society, so the fact that Lex just patiently listens to people is a breath of fresh air.
    - Workaccount2 2y ago
      I felt that way until he had Carlson on. Carlson is a grade A TV talking head grifter who just spins up sensationalist narratives to drive views. No background, no expertise, just a guy who mastered which buttons to push to get average joe's raging. Lex says he wants open honest conversation, but Carlson was just doing the same stunningly dishonest grift he does every time he has a mic in front of him. So dumb.
    - glenstein 2y ago
      >That is a strength, not a weakness The trouble is self-styled "both sides" types believe that since they take the both sides approach, they have insulated themselves from the kinds of politicization that compromises the extremes. But the manner in which you position yourself relative to those extremes is every bit as politicized and every bit as liable to the same cognitive biases and rationalizations. Misinformed climate skeptics often regard themselves in this way, as not taking one side or the other on global warming. They mistakenly believe that this orientation has elevated them above equivalently offensive extremes, but in truth they have compromised their own media literacy by orienting themselves in that manner. There are numerous instances of this all over the political spectrum, Cornell West talking to left-wing academics in left-wing academic language about how "nobody" thinks Obama is truly left-wing. Journalists during the Iraq war had a both sides approach that cashed out as extremely hawkish and apologetic in defense of the Iraq war. The Lex Friedman version is a "centrist" in a specific kind of media environment that lends disproportionate visibility towards its own set of boutique topics. The combination of optimism about technology and trends especially around AI and crypto and some libertarian leaning politics surrounding it, which at its periphery finds itself disproportionately saturated by right-wing memeing and politics. And so it's a form of centerism that's in the center of a world as described by those things. But for him and his viewers it's something they consider a perfectly neutral state of nature that's free of any adornment of ideology.
    - deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]
    - drngdds 2y ago
      How? It's fine to have on people with all different viewpoints, including awful ones, but I think pushing back when they're on some bullshit is good and necessary. Otherwise you're just uncritically spreading fake junk to a huge audience, which leads to more people believing in fake junk.
- aster0id 2y ago
  I agree that it is the best AI podcast. I do have a few gripes though, which might just be from personal preference. A lot of the time the language used by both the host and the guests is unnecessarily obtuse. Also the host is biased towards being optimistic about LLMs leading to AGI, and so he doesn't probe guests deep enough about that, more than just asking something along the lines of "Do you think next token prediction is enough for AGI?". Most of his guests are biased economically or academically to answer yes. This is then taken as the premise of the discussion following. Having said that, I do agree that it is much better and deeper than other podcasts about AI.
  - Smaug123 2y ago
    I struggle to blame people for speaking in whatever way is most natural to them, when they're answering hard questions off the cuff. "I apologize for such a long letter - I didn't have time to write a short one."
  - HarHarVeryFunny 2y ago
    There's a difference to being a good chatshow/podcast host and a journalist holding someone's feet to the fire! Dwarkesh is excellent at what he does - lots of research beforehand (which is how he lands these great guests), but then lets the guest do most of the talking, and encourages them to expand on what they are saying. It you are critisizing the guest or giving them too much push back, then they are going to clam up and you won't get the best out of them.
    - mrtranscendence 2y ago
      I haven't listened to Dwarkesh, but I take the complaint to mean that he doesn't probe his guests in interesting ways, not so much that he doesn't criticize his guests. If you aren't guiding the conversation into interesting corners then that seems like a problem.
      - aster0id 2y ago
        Agree
- mrtranscendence 2y ago
  I don't know Dwarkesh but I despise Lex Fridman. I don't know how a man that lacks the barest modicum of charisma has propelled himself to helming a high-profile, successful podcast. It's not like he tends to express interesting or original thoughts to make up for his paucity of presence. It's bizarre. Maybe I'll check out Dwarkesh, but even seeing him mentioned him in the same breath as Fridman gives me pause ...
  - chaoz_ 2y ago
    I agree with you so much, but he has a solid programmatic approach, where some of the guests uncover. Maybe that's the whole role of an interviewer.
  - forrestthewoods 2y ago
    The question you should ask is: why are high-profile guests willing to talk to Lex Fridman but not others? The short answer, imho, is trust. No one gets turned into an embarrassing soundbite talking to Lex. He doesn't try to ask gotcha questions for clickbait articles. Generally speaking "the press" are not your friend and they will twist your words. You have to walk on egg shells. Lex doesn't need to express original ideas. He needs to get his guests to open up and share their unique perspectives and thoughts. He's been extremely successful in this. An alternative question is why hasn't someone more charismatic taken off in this space? I'm not sure! Who knows, there might be some lizard brain secret sauce behind the "flat" podcast host.
    - lordswork 2y ago
      My earlier comparison was basically saying now that high-profile guests are talking to a much better interviewer (Dwarkesh), we no longer have to rely on Lex as the only podcast with long-form interviews of these guests.
    - octodog 2y ago
      Yes, of course. His guests love being able to come on and present their view with very little critical analysis of what they are saying. It is fantastic PR for them. Interviewers shouldn't be aggressive, antagonistic or clickbaity but they should put opposing views to their guests so that the guest can respond. Testing ideas like this is a fundamental way of learning and establishing an understanding of a topic.
- chaoz_ 2y ago
  indeed my thoughts, especially with first Dario Amodei's interview. He was able to ask all the right questions and discussion was super fruitful.

I can't express how good Dwarkesh's podcast is in general.

by chaoz_ 2y ago

I can't express how good Dwarkesh's podcast is in general.

lordswork 2y ago

Lex walked so that Dwarkesh could run. He runs the best AI podcast around right now, by a long shot.

bearjaws 2y ago
I feel like Lex has gone full 'both sides' at this point, waiting for him to have Alex Jones on at this point. There is no real commentary to pull from his interviews, at best you get some interesting stories but not the truth.
- bigstrat2003 2y ago
  That is a strength, not a weakness. It's valuable to see why people, even those with whom we disagree, think the way they do. There's already far too much of a tendency to expel heretics in today's society, so the fact that Lex just patiently listens to people is a breath of fresh air.
  - Workaccount2 2y ago
    I felt that way until he had Carlson on. Carlson is a grade A TV talking head grifter who just spins up sensationalist narratives to drive views. No background, no expertise, just a guy who mastered which buttons to push to get average joe's raging. Lex says he wants open honest conversation, but Carlson was just doing the same stunningly dishonest grift he does every time he has a mic in front of him. So dumb.
  - glenstein 2y ago
    >That is a strength, not a weakness The trouble is self-styled "both sides" types believe that since they take the both sides approach, they have insulated themselves from the kinds of politicization that compromises the extremes. But the manner in which you position yourself relative to those extremes is every bit as politicized and every bit as liable to the same cognitive biases and rationalizations. Misinformed climate skeptics often regard themselves in this way, as not taking one side or the other on global warming. They mistakenly believe that this orientation has elevated them above equivalently offensive extremes, but in truth they have compromised their own media literacy by orienting themselves in that manner. There are numerous instances of this all over the political spectrum, Cornell West talking to left-wing academics in left-wing academic language about how "nobody" thinks Obama is truly left-wing. Journalists during the Iraq war had a both sides approach that cashed out as extremely hawkish and apologetic in defense of the Iraq war. The Lex Friedman version is a "centrist" in a specific kind of media environment that lends disproportionate visibility towards its own set of boutique topics. The combination of optimism about technology and trends especially around AI and crypto and some libertarian leaning politics surrounding it, which at its periphery finds itself disproportionately saturated by right-wing memeing and politics. And so it's a form of centerism that's in the center of a world as described by those things. But for him and his viewers it's something they consider a perfectly neutral state of nature that's free of any adornment of ideology.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  - drngdds 2y ago
    How? It's fine to have on people with all different viewpoints, including awful ones, but I think pushing back when they're on some bullshit is good and necessary. Otherwise you're just uncritically spreading fake junk to a huge audience, which leads to more people believing in fake junk.
aster0id 2y ago
I agree that it is the best AI podcast. I do have a few gripes though, which might just be from personal preference. A lot of the time the language used by both the host and the guests is unnecessarily obtuse. Also the host is biased towards being optimistic about LLMs leading to AGI, and so he doesn't probe guests deep enough about that, more than just asking something along the lines of "Do you think next token prediction is enough for AGI?". Most of his guests are biased economically or academically to answer yes. This is then taken as the premise of the discussion following. Having said that, I do agree that it is much better and deeper than other podcasts about AI.
- Smaug123 2y ago
  I struggle to blame people for speaking in whatever way is most natural to them, when they're answering hard questions off the cuff. "I apologize for such a long letter - I didn't have time to write a short one."
- HarHarVeryFunny 2y ago
  There's a difference to being a good chatshow/podcast host and a journalist holding someone's feet to the fire! Dwarkesh is excellent at what he does - lots of research beforehand (which is how he lands these great guests), but then lets the guest do most of the talking, and encourages them to expand on what they are saying. It you are critisizing the guest or giving them too much push back, then they are going to clam up and you won't get the best out of them.
  - mrtranscendence 2y ago
    I haven't listened to Dwarkesh, but I take the complaint to mean that he doesn't probe his guests in interesting ways, not so much that he doesn't criticize his guests. If you aren't guiding the conversation into interesting corners then that seems like a problem.
    - aster0id 2y ago
      Agree
mrtranscendence 2y ago
I don't know Dwarkesh but I despise Lex Fridman. I don't know how a man that lacks the barest modicum of charisma has propelled himself to helming a high-profile, successful podcast. It's not like he tends to express interesting or original thoughts to make up for his paucity of presence. It's bizarre. Maybe I'll check out Dwarkesh, but even seeing him mentioned him in the same breath as Fridman gives me pause ...
- chaoz_ 2y ago
  I agree with you so much, but he has a solid programmatic approach, where some of the guests uncover. Maybe that's the whole role of an interviewer.
- forrestthewoods 2y ago
  The question you should ask is: why are high-profile guests willing to talk to Lex Fridman but not others? The short answer, imho, is trust. No one gets turned into an embarrassing soundbite talking to Lex. He doesn't try to ask gotcha questions for clickbait articles. Generally speaking "the press" are not your friend and they will twist your words. You have to walk on egg shells. Lex doesn't need to express original ideas. He needs to get his guests to open up and share their unique perspectives and thoughts. He's been extremely successful in this. An alternative question is why hasn't someone more charismatic taken off in this space? I'm not sure! Who knows, there might be some lizard brain secret sauce behind the "flat" podcast host.
  - lordswork 2y ago
    My earlier comparison was basically saying now that high-profile guests are talking to a much better interviewer (Dwarkesh), we no longer have to rely on Lex as the only podcast with long-form interviews of these guests.
  - octodog 2y ago
    Yes, of course. His guests love being able to come on and present their view with very little critical analysis of what they are saying. It is fantastic PR for them. Interviewers shouldn't be aggressive, antagonistic or clickbaity but they should put opposing views to their guests so that the guest can respond. Testing ideas like this is a fundamental way of learning and establishing an understanding of a topic.
chaoz_ 2y ago
indeed my thoughts, especially with first Dario Amodei's interview. He was able to ask all the right questions and discussion was super fruitful.