Dwarkesh Patel Wants People to Learn Things and Has a New Book on AI

We flipped the tables on Dwarkesh Patel this week and turned the podcaster into the podcastee. Over the past few years, Patel has made a name for himself as a stellar interviewer of interesting people. Whether questioning a scientist, historian or tech engineer, Patel always goes deep with the subject and refuses to dumb things down for any audience. This is a blessing in an era of our attention being seized by 30-second blips and bloops on our phones and social apps. Patel had done a particularly excellent job on the AI front. He’s interviewed most of the major players in the AI field as large language models have risen to the fore. To that end, this podcast brings news. Patel and his co-author Gavin Leech are putting out a new book on AI through Stripe Press. Called The Scaling Era: An Oral History of AI, the book is an oral history of the recent AI era. You can buy it in digital form now and later in hardback. (https://www.stripe.press/scaling) (Look at that Stripe Press website, publishers. Know what you’re capable of with some effort.) I received an early copy, and it really is a wonderful way to understand current AI technology and its implications. In this episode, Patel and I, of course, talk AI, but we also delve into his life and sudden rise as a podcasting force. We recorded the program together in Patel’s San Francisco podcasting lair. I enjoyed his beard. You will enjoy the show. Subscribe to watch more Core Memory videos https://www.youtube.com/@CoreMemoryVideos/videos Check out our podcasts https://www.youtube.com/@CoreMemoryVideos/podcasts Find Ashlee Vance at www.corememory.com https://www.instagram.com/ashlee.vance/ https://x.com/ashleevance Timestamps 0:00 – Intro: AI’s explosive evolution 1:30 – The “Scaling Era” & making the book 3:00 – Oral history as an art form 4:45 – Why scaling laws are mysterious 6:40 – Old soul in a young body 8:10 – Podcasting as a learning engine 11:00 – Debating, early influences & the beard 13:00 – AI needs a multidisciplinary lens 15:20 – Dwarkesh’s intellectual growth through podcasting 18:00 – Startup dreams & origin story 21:00 – Debate legacy & reflection on public speaking 24:00 – What models still struggle with 26:00 – AI’s future: RL environments & bottlenecks 29:00 – How scale might hit a wall 32:20 – Can labs fast-follow superintelligence? 34:00 – The arms race for AGI dominance 38:00 – Will the first lab to AGI dominate forever? 40:00 – Automation of R&D: hype or real edge? 44:00 – Deep discussion on reasoning models 47:00 – Economic impact of true AI agents 50:00 – Finding overlooked genius guests 53:00 – Sarah Paine & accidental podcast hits 55:00 – The power of mentorship (Tyler Cowen) 57:00 – Outro: Growth, learning, and the hivemind