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Philosophy

Dwarkesh Podcast

Deeply researched interviews www.dwarkesh.com

Episodes

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China is killing the US on energy. Does that mean they’ll win AGI? — Casey Handmer

15 Aug 2025
1h 8m
AI processed

Dwarkesh Patel interviews Casey Handmer about the future of AI and energy, particularly focusing on solar power. They discuss whether the U.S. can compete with China in the AI industrial race, the potential for synthetic fuels, and the role of solar energy in powering data centers. Handmer argues that solar is the futu...

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Artificial meat is harder than artificial intelligence — Lewis Bollard

07 Aug 2025
1h 8m
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In this episode, Dwarkesh interviews Lewis Bollard, the Farm Animal Welfare Program Director at Open Philanthropy, about the challenges and potential solutions to factory farming. They discuss the efficiency of factory farming, the cultural and political obstacles to alternative proteins like cultivated meat, and the i...

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Sarah Paine — How Imperial Japan defeated Tsarist Russia & Qing China

25 Jul 2025
1h 55m
AI processed

The podcast features a lecture on the historical reversal of power between China and Japan, focusing on the Meiji generation's modernization and strategic decisions that led to Japan's rise as a dominant power in Asia, particularly during the Russo-Japanese War. The lecture uses a framework of thesis, counterargument, ...

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Stephen Kotkin — How Stalin became the most powerful dictator in history

10 Jul 2025
2h 12m
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In this interview, Stephen Kotkin discusses the Tsarist regime, its level of repression, and the motivations behind the Russian Revolution, highlighting the dilemma of autocratic regimes needing modernization while suppressing political freedoms. He contrasts the Russian and German experiences, attributing the success ...

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Why I don’t think AGI is right around the corner

03 Jul 2025
14m
AI processed

In this monologue podcast, the speaker narrates a blog post from June 2025, outlining their perspective on the timeline for achieving Artificial General Intelligence (AGI). The speaker expresses skepticism about AGI being imminent, particularly due to the current limitations of Large Language Models (LLMs) in continuou...

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A billion years of evolution in a single afternoon — George Church

26 Jun 2025
1h 33m
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In this interview, Dwarkesh Patel interviews George Church, a pioneer in biology, covering a wide range of topics from the future of biotechnology and its potential to extend human lifespan, to the ethical considerations of synthetic biology and biodefense. They discuss the possibility of achieving "escape velocity" in...

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Why China's manufacturing economy is dominating — Arthur Kroeber

19 Jun 2025
2h 26m
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In this interview, Dwarkesh engages with Arthur Kroeber, a China economy expert, to discuss the implications of China's economic growth and its impact on the global order. They explore whether China's economic model is sustainable and fair, and the potential political consequences of China becoming as wealthy as the Un...

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"China is digging out of a crisis. And America’s luck is wearing thin." — Ken Rogoff

12 Jun 2025
1h 36m
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In this interview podcast, Dwarkesh speaks with Ken Rogoff, a Harvard professor and former chief economist at the IMF, about China's economic challenges, leadership competence, and potential future crises, drawing from Rogoff's experiences and insights from his book. The conversation covers the shift in Chinese leaders...

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Xi Jinping’s paranoid approach to AGI, debt crisis, & Politburo politics — Victor Shih

29 May 2025
1h 29m
AI processed

In this interview podcast, Dwarkesh engages with Victor Shih, director of the 21st Century China Center, to discuss China's economic and political systems, elite politics, and its approach to AI. They explore the decentralization of China's fiscal system, the backgrounds and competence of Politburo members, and the inf...

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Is RL + LLMs enough for AGI? — Sholto Douglas & Trenton Bricken

22 May 2025
2h 24m
AI processed

In this panel discussion, Dwarkesh, Sholto Douglas, and Trenton Bricken delve into the advancements and future of AI, particularly focusing on reinforcement learning (RL) and its applications in software engineering, computer use, and scientific research. They discuss the importance of feedback loops, the challenges of...

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What will automated firms look like?

01 May 2025
10m
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This episode explores the transformative potential of Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) on future businesses. Against the backdrop of current limitations in human hiring and training, the speaker posits that AGI's digital nature allows for near-limitless replication of skilled "digital employees," fundamentally al...

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Mark Zuckerberg — AI will write most Meta code in 18 months

29 Apr 2025
1h 15m
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This episode explores the advancements in open-source AI models, specifically focusing on Meta's Llama 4 series and its implications for the broader AI landscape. Against the backdrop of a rapidly evolving field, Mark Zuckerberg discusses the improvements in Llama 4 compared to its predecessor, highlighting the "intel...

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Why Rome actually fell: plagues, slavery, & ice age — Kyle Harper

24 Apr 2025
1h 23m
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This episode explores the profound impact of disease and climate change on the trajectory of human history, particularly focusing on the Roman Empire's decline. The conversation begins with the surprising role of diseases, like the bubonic plague, in shaping human population dynamics over millennia, illustrated by sig...

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AGI is still 30 years away — Ege Erdil & Tamay Besiroglu

17 Apr 2025
3h 8m
AI processed

This episode explores the timeline and nature of artificial general intelligence (AGI) development, contrasting the views of those who predict a near-term AGI "explosion" with those who hold more conservative timelines. Against the backdrop of rapid advancements in AI capabilities like large language models, the panel...

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AI 2027: month-by-month model of intelligence explosion — Scott Alexander & Daniel Kokotajlo

03 Apr 2025
3h 4m
AI processed

This episode explores the potential trajectory of artificial intelligence (AI) development through 2027 and beyond, focusing on the possibility of an intelligence explosion. Against the backdrop of current AI capabilities, the hosts and guests discuss a scenario where AI agents significantly improve coding abilities, ...

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AMA: career advice given AGI, how I research ft. Sholto & Trenton

25 Mar 2025
49m
AI processed

This episode explores the capabilities and limitations of current large language models (LLMs), particularly their ability to make connections across disparate fields of knowledge, and the implications for career choices in the age of rapidly advancing artificial general intelligence (AGI). The discussion begins with ...

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Joseph Henrich — Humans defeated smarter species with cultural evolution

12 Mar 2025
1h 52m
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This podcast features an interview with Joseph Henrich, a professor of human evolutionary biology at Harvard University, discussing his research on cultural evolution and the factors contributing to the rise of WEIRD societies. The conversation begins with a question about a specific genetic finding regarding a popula...

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Notes on China

05 Mar 2025
19m
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This podcast episode recounts the speaker's two-week trip to China, focusing on observations about the country's scale, urban development, and public sentiment. The speaker details his experiences in various cities, noting the immense size of infrastructure and contrasting it with the aesthetic quality of the building...

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Satya Nadella — Microsoft’s AGI plan & quantum breakthrough

19 Feb 2025
1h 16m
AI processed

This podcast features an interview with Dwarkesh, a Microsoft executive, discussing Microsoft's recent breakthroughs in AI and quantum computing. The conversation begins by comparing current technological shifts to those of the 1990s, then delves into the future of AI, focusing on the role of hyperscalers and the pote...

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Jeff Dean & Noam Shazeer — 25 years at Google: from PageRank to AGI

12 Feb 2025
2h 14m
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This podcast features an interview with Jeff Dean and Noam Shazeer, two leading figures in AI at Google DeepMind, focusing on their experiences, the evolution of AI systems, and future directions. The discussion covers their career paths at Google, the impact of Moore's Law on AI development, the shift towards special...

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