Eric Bolton

Working on new platforms for collective decision-making @ Spherical Harmonics.

[Eric Bolton @edbltn]

We have our best minds on aligning the AI models, but the trickiest part is aligning the AI companies.

[Jeffrey Ladish @JeffLadish]

I really believe there’s a substantial chance we could all die from AI. I told Caitlin this, and she asked how that could happen.

Here's what I said: Because AI companies are trying to make basically a smarter species that can do everything we can do. Everything that makes humans the dominant species on the planet, and not chimpanzees or tigers — it’s because we’re smart, we have language, we can use tools. And AI companies are making that, but they’re trying to make it smarter and better at everything.
(Time stamp: 46:06)

We also discussed robots, hacking, and why strategy is a key capability that AI agents don't currently possess but would have to in order to take over.

Also, why nearly every computer has vulnerabilities that some hacker could exploit, but most computers are not hacked most of the time. And how AI will change the cybersecurity space and what you should do in response. It was a fun conversation, and I hope @caitlinquestion does a bunch more of these!

[Eric Bolton @edbltn]

Progressive thinkers need to create spaces with which to make more radical bets.

[Eric Bolton @edbltn]

Michelin food for thought.

This great video essay culminates with a stupidly simple illustrative question that we somehow collectively forgot to ask:

Can AC units, a ubiquitous and defining modern technology, be made beautiful?

[The Cultural Tutor @culturaltutor]

I’m making a show about buildings.

The concept is simple: do for the man-made world what Planet Earth did for the natural world.

But, when I pitched the idea, the answer was that nobody would watch it.

So I released a pilot episode on YouTube. It’s got 5.4 million views, 379k likes, and 23k comments.

People are interested, and now it’s time to make the full show.

Six episodes, filming in the UK, France, Belgium, Germany, Italy, and the USA, and releasing on a streaming service like HBO, Netflix, or Prime.

Why does this show matter?

First: we’re surrounded by buildings all the time. Look around yourself, right now… what do you see? Buildings are the logical conclusion of everything a society believes in. That’s the real focus of this show: not the buildings themselves, but what they say about us.

Second: there’s global dissatisfaction with modern architecture. This feeling gets written about online, but nobody’s given a voice to it on film or TV. That’s what this show will be. But this isn’t just about criticising modernity. That’s easy. This is about learning from the past in order to understand and improve the present, for everybody.

Third: there’s a drought of high-quality culture shows. When I spoke to film executives they said that only documentaries about sports, music, or true crime get funded. That’s a colossal missed opportunity. Galleries are always full, content about architecture goes viral online all the time, and people spend their precious holidays visiting beautiful cities.

Why no shows about architecture, then?

Tourists flock in their millions to see (for example) the buildings of Antoni Gaudí in Barcelona. But, if you asked those same people if they’re interested in “architecture”, they’d probably say no.

To put that another way: not many people want to watch “a show about architecture”, but lots of people want to watch a show that illuminates the real world they’re living in, each and every day.

What will the show be like?

Six episodes, going chronologically through history and arriving at the present, each focussing on the architecture and design of a specific period:

1. Middle Ages
2. Renaissance
3. Enlightenment
4. The Nineteenth Century
5. Art Nouveau & Art Deco
6. Present Day

But, in each case, the point isn’t just to learn about that era; the point is to learn about our modern world through those eras and what they’ve left behind. If you watch the pilot episode (included below) you’ll see what I mean.

So the show’s not really “about” the past; it’s about the twenty-first century.

That’s why it’s called The Modern World.

When you think of a typical history show there are loads of interviews, stock footage, archive photos, historical recreations, and graphics. We’re doing none of that. Everything will be filmed on location, because we’re telling our story only through the real world that exists right now. And, rather than going to the most obvious places, we’ll focus on buildings that aren’t well-known but should be more famous.

But that’s all big picture; what will it be like on screen?

Buildings used to look different in every country, and now they look the same. Why? Because the weather is different everywhere, and buildings were always a way of dealing with that weather, using local materials. Now we have air conditioning and we ship concrete around the world, so we don’t need to design our buildings with regard to local weather or rely on local materials.

Look at really old clocks and you’ll notice something: they don’t have a second hand… because it was only invented 300 years ago! Then you look at the present and you realise we’re surrounded by timers, by seconds ticking down and ticking up relentlessly. If we’re looking for a cause of our anxiety-inducing culture, that might be it.

When you spend time with the sun-softened bricks and time-warped timbers of old cities you notice that synthetic materials like plastic have taken over. When we’re surrounded by things that feel temporary, how do you think it makes us feel?

It’s only by seeing 19th century train stations, designed like cathedrals, that you realise tradition and technology aren’t enemies. New things don’t have to look boring: if the Victorians had designed AI data centres, they’d look like Medieval castles.

In the 1920s, at the zenith of Art Deco, people believed technology would uplift humanity. That’s why they decorated their buildings with statues inspired by electricity. Only by seeing their enthusiasm can we realise our own cynicism, and perhaps begin to fix it.

All of that… and much, much more.

But, above all else, this show is about a way of seeing. If you want to understand any society then you need to look at what it creates, not what it says about itself.

There’s a worldview in every single object; our skyscrapers are designed the same way as our phones. Learn to look at this world, to notice its details, and everything else starts to make sense.

What now?

I’ve been quiet online recently because I’ve been researching and working on scripts for six full-length episodes. Production begins when we’ve raised the funding.

The Modern World is coming.

[Skyler Higley @skyler_higley]

dude who made this is a real reader cause this is how it is

[Hagov Berlin 🇦🇷🇩🇪 @hagov_berlin]

Totalmente enamorado de esta propuesta de bandera planetaria. Un circulo azul para representar nuestro planeta, y el resto transparente para que el fondo sea parte de la bandera

[Eric Bolton @edbltn]

Taking a ride.

[Eric Bolton @edbltn]

@isaac_schorr 2000 still counts as the 20th century / 1.5% in the popular vote?

[Eric Bolton @edbltn]

@ESYudkowsky It’s more down to an imagined Zorkulon scenario — when economic activity can no longer sustain basic survival. At that point society would descend into war. The relative austerity following a crash is simply the realization that we were getting too close to that for comfort.

[Eric Bolton @edbltn]

@cremieuxrecueil I mean... H, right?

[Eric Bolton @edbltn]

Wow. 4o.

[Eric Bolton @edbltn]

@elonmusk Birds don't use jet fuel to fly

[Eric Bolton @edbltn]

@serioussam909 @chesscom My favorite is French: the fool

[Eric Bolton @edbltn]

@EndWokeness Her reflex isn't wrong. What he did was growth hacking, and it came from his background in tech: he applied the PayPal mafia playbook to US politics.

The $270M he spent on stunts like the $1M giveaways probably went a lot further than the billions Kamala Harris & allies spent.

[Eric Bolton @edbltn]

@Acyn The first words out of Zelenskyy's mouth in this meeting were "thank you so much Mr. President, thank you for your invitation."

[Eric Bolton @edbltn]

@TheKevinDalton As folks like yourself know well and have shown, information warfare is far more integral to how opinions are shaped than real action.

DYOR, but it's clear to me the charge into information warfare (via opinionated TV shows, podcasts, vlogs, posts) has been led by the far right.

[Eric Bolton @edbltn]

@mediocregolfing @SRamirez68083 Yes, and sorry if this gets lost in the subtlety of short tweets, I don't disagree with you on recent successes.
My argument isn't about where things are now – it's about the turn they took to get where they are now (the premise of the first tweet)

[Eric Bolton @edbltn]

@mediocregolfing @SRamirez68083 The result: (source: Reuters)

[Eric Bolton @edbltn]

@mediocregolfing @SRamirez68083 Yes, he's done good for the Argentine peso. But for the sake of argument, here's the Argentine unemployment rate, source Moody's, crude annotation mine.

Not exactly a "billions must die" gap, but deeply harmful at the margin we are talking about (the poorest workers)