Michael Donovan

Investor. I didn't mean to call you a meatloaf, Jack!

[Michael Donovan @LangleyDonovan]

Bring back the Jet Set, even if flying by jet is no longer exotic. It's the beautiful venues and the constant movement, in sympathy with the season
https://t.co/bQmdgxV9v5

[Michael Donovan @LangleyDonovan]

James, are you willing to share some of your best guess timeframes for what we'll see when? I realise that one of the major facets of The Singularity is that, past a certain point, "all bets are off". But I'm interested to understand any key milestones both historical and future (such as the 'ChatGPT moment) that you think are/will be particularly relevant.

[Michael Donovan @LangleyDonovan]

Just saw a post about Leopold Aschenbrenner, which reminds me that I think he looks exactly like a twin brother of Clara McGregor. Which kinda implies that Ewan McGregor could be cast as an AI genius, which is a stretch.

[Tommy Robinson 🇬🇧 @TRobinsonNewEra]

We all know why.

The government call you far right for seeing pattern recognition.

[Andrew Neil @afneil]

A stream of stories now coming out of the US saying that AI ‘singularity’ — or recursive self-improvement, I think — is much closer than most folks thought. It means current AI models able to develop the next model without human participation, then the next and the next, ad finitum. Each one more powerful than the previous. Likely to lead to amazing sci/tech breakthroughs. But also huge risks over human loss of control. Exciting and scary.

[No1tingham @No1tingham]

#Nottingham's Alan Oakley pictured with his iconic creation; the Raleigh Chopper. He drew the design for the Chopper on the back of an envelope as he travelled home from the USA in 1967. Credit: @RaleighBikes_UK

[Basil the Great @BasilTheGreat]

A new film that seems to accurately depict just how barbaric, evil and despicable Islam is

[Ben Shapiro @benshapiro]

The threat of radical Islam is real. Hollywood has refused to tell that story for three decades. Now, we’re saying the thing with the biggest, most audacious, funniest and most kickass film Daily Wire has ever released. Here’s the trailer.

[Madness @MadnessNews]

What better way to kick off #NightBoatToAugust than with the official music video for #NightBoatToCairo… It’s hard to believe this video wasn’t shot on location in Egypt 😎

[tae kim @firstadopter]

Google's fumbling of AI is entirely due to Sundar's inept management and inability to retain top AI talent.

"We shouldn't have really gotten to exist. Google should of just run away with it." - Sam Altman

[Financial Times @FT]

Google shifts AI power back to Brin as DeepMind’s Hassabis steps aside https://t.co/F53T54Z25E

[tae kim @firstadopter]

Good night DeepMind. Wow.

FT: "Google is shifting control of its AI effort from London back to Silicon Valley"

"executives and board members remained concerned by its weaker position in coding models and enterprise AI, where Anthropic and OpenAI have established an early lead."

"Several current and former DeepMind employees said the reorganisation had sent shockwaves through the London-based lab, with some fearing it marked the end of the research culture that Hassabis has long protected. One former DeepMind executive at a rival company said they had already received calls from multiple staff who said they were ready to jump ship."

"Over the past year, Hassabis has devoted more time to Isomorphic Labs, the AI drug discovery company he founded"

[Sky News @SkyNews]

Hundreds of deaths suspected of being linked to weight-loss jabs

Read more 🔗 https://t.co/hPLZqrMh0L

[tae kim @firstadopter]

Anyone who thinks that Jeff Dean, Sanjay Ghemawat, Oriol Vinyals, and Quoc Le leaving, and Demis Hassabis losing operational control isn't an earthquake-level negative event for Google is delusional.

[Demis Hassabis @demishassabis]

I’ve been working towards AGI my whole life, and as we enter this pivotal moment, I’m stepping into a new role as Chair of Google DeepMind & Chief Scientist of Alphabet. This will allow me to focus on long-term strategy, and accelerating scientific breakthroughs, including leaning into my work at Isomorphic to help cure disease.

I’m excited that @koraykv will be stepping up to lead GDM as SVP, alongside @joshwoodward and our exec team. I could not be more excited and confident about our amazing next chapter! ��

https://t.co/2WtlIIlTUa

[Patrick OShaughnessy @patrick_oshag]

My seventh conversation with @GavinSBaker.

It's about the gap between what the market is doing and what companies are seeing. It's been a tough month or so for public AI names, but there's no sign of a slowdown on the ground in Silicon Valley.

We discuss:
- Why old GPUs are getting more expensive
- Open source vs the frontier
- Claude as Wall Street's Walter Cronkite
- Whether the buildout gets funded out of cash flow or debt
- SpaceX as a data center company
- And more

Enjoy!

TIMESTAMPS
0:00 Intro
1:17 AI Selloff vs. Fundamentals
10:20 Financing the AI Buildout
18:18 GPU Prices Keep Rising
24:23 Claude Moves Markets
29:01 What Could Break the Thesis
36:59 The Memory Supply War
42:08 Nvidia’s New Playbook
50:14 China and Open Source
61:51 Data Centers and Regulation
71:11 SpaceX and Orbital Compute

[chuplung @choopyplug1]

Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei:

"we are rapidly running out of truly convincing blockers why this will not happen in the next few years"

last year undergraduate level. this year PhD level. "if you eyeball the rate, we'll get there by 2026 or 2027"

today thousands of instances of one model. within 2-3 years - millions. "the scale up is very quick"

"I am optimistic about meaning. I worry about the concentration of power. the abuse of power. that's what I worry about more"

Amanda Askell has talked with Claude more than any human at Anthropic. Chris Olah can detect from neural activations when the model is trying to deceive

~2.5hrs, free

bookmark & watch ↓

[Mason @webdevMason]

All that needs to be said about pit bulls was said by S-tier dog trainer Stonnie Dennis in 3 minutes

[Michael Donovan @LangleyDonovan]

@jamesdouma James, really hoping you’ll do another podcast soon with either Farzad or Dave Lee. We seem to be in an odd period for Robotaxi - it’s either the calm before scaling that’s obvious to all or there are some ongoing concerns that are slowing expansion. Or do you think that progress is just fine given the complexity and safety concerns? It’s difficult for me at least to know how to categorise it.

[Robotaxi Radar @RobotaxiRadar]

An absolute army of Cybercabs ready to roll in San Antonio, Texas 😳😳😳

It is getting difficult to ignore that Tesla is gearing up for massive rollouts of their newest vehicle 🚕🚕🚕

[Basil the Great @BasilTheGreat]

This is absolutely brilliant from Laurence Fox

It's a perfect moment to demonstrate not only how intolerant Islam is but also it proves the entire Oxford Union audience know as well despite pretending otherwise

Laurence is about to unveil an image of the Prophet Muhammad, the whole audience are in suspense, there are interruptions, they plead with him, they try to shut him down, the rules come out, there is an intake of breath

You can tell the room is completely on edge from this!

Because they know if he does, his life will be at risk and the Oxford Union may well be at risk too from the supposedly tolerant religion the other side are defending

Proving Laurence's point, that Islam is not compatible with our society at all

I won't ruin what happens you will have to watch for yourselves but Laurence's trick here is absolutely brilliant and well worth 3 minutes of your time

Enjoy

And @LozzaFox take a bow sir 👏