Decoding The Gurus patreon

Gurometer: Sean Carroll

🕑 Added 2024-03-04 00:34:43 +0000 UTC

Comments

Jonathan Cano

transcript of the episode covered https://www.preposterousuniverse.com/podcast/2023/11/27/258-solo-ai-thinks-different/ a few choice quotes from the transcript: ```...Why do they make such radically different assessments? So I am not an expert on AI in the technical sense. I've never written a large language model. I do very trivial kinds of computer coding myself. I use them, but not in a sort of research level way. I don't try to write papers about artificial intelligence or anything like that. So why would I do a whole podcast on it?...``` ```...for the episode, I will include links to some technical level papers by actual researchers in this field unlike myself, so you can read about it and decide for yourself...``` ```...Okay. That was a lot of examples, I hope you could pass through them. None of this is definitive, by the way. This is why I'm doing a solo podcast, not writing an academic paper about it. I thought about writing an academic paper about it, actually, but I think that there are people who are more credentialed to do that. No, more knowledgeable about the background. I do think that even though I should be talking about it and should have opinions about this stuff, I don't quite have the background knowledge of previous work and data that has been already collected, et cetera, et cetera, to actually take time out and contribute to the academic literature on it. ...``` paraphrasing the above, he is saying: "I thought about writing a paper but decided I'm not qualified (I don't know the literature)" and he has made it clear across episodes that if you want to be taken seriously as an outsider to a field you need to know the literature. so no, definitely a 1 on Galaxy Brainedness IMESHO.

Jonathan Cano

many world https://www.wondrium.com/the-many-hidden-worlds-of-quantum-mechanics

Daniel

He should've gotten a 2 on Galaxy Brainedness, in my opinion, for even entertaining the thought that he should write a paper on AI, which is not his area of research and expertise. Kind of bigheaded to have an idea about something in another field and think, "I should write a paper on that." Physicists, in particular, are sometimes guilty of this.

Ymirsdreams

Kelly J Keen (Poise Parker), Rhoda Patrick; Louise Perry; Marie Forleo; Gretchen Rubin; Elizabeth Gilbert (Eat, Pray, Love)? (I think that female gurus may lean into 'alternative spirituality' and present as less 'secular' as more as there's a larger audience there among women -- but I'd suggest 'spiritual' and 'secular' aren't necessarily antonyms in all instances. I would also suggest that perhaps the outcome is often the same: their 'spiritual advice' ends up as materially actioned 'secular' advice?)

Christopher Kavanagh

Maybe!

Linda Sears

My feeling is that there are fewer female secular gurus because women tend to not have the same confidence as men since we are socialized to be demure.

Sujeet Akula

It would be really great to contrast Sean Carroll with Sabine Hossenfelder, who occupies a similar space, but definitely lands on the polemicist end of the spectrum. I've also noticed that her content has veered further and further into pointlessly contrarian takes: "Hmm, maybe 5G really does give you cancer!" or "Experimentalists are lying to get more funding for their wasteful experiments!"

Kat

I haven't watched it yet. Let me make a guess, you rated him 0 on the gurometer scale. Edit: Watched it! I nailed it! On a scale of 1-5, Sean Carroll got a 0