This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.nonzero.org0:28 Bob defends the Unabomber (kind of) 3:05 Paul nurses his Mickey-inflicted wounds 15:55 Bob deflates the GPT-5 deflation 25:19 How big a deal are LLM hallucinations? 28:10 AI's coming social and economic disruptions 35:17 How Bob and Paul use AI 39:16 The ideas of Hanno Sauer 48:15 Heading to Overtime Robert Wright (Nonzero, The Evolution of God, Why Buddhism Is True) and Paul Bloom (https://smallpotatoes.paulbloom.net, University of Toronto, The Sweet Spot, Against Empathy). Recorded August 19, 2025. Twitter: https://twitter.com/NonzeroPods
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Can Trump and Putin Make a Deal? | NonZero World feat. George Beebe
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.nonzero.org0:30 What’s at stake in Alaska 1:25 George: Don’t try to do too much 4:34 EU yes, NATO no 6:10 How to get the Ukrainians on board 10:59 Could Putin dupe Trump into a bad deal? 20:26 Sanctions: painful, but not decisive 25:19 What Russian media is saying about the talks 30:12 Are Europe & Ukraine warming to a deal?Recorded August 15, 2025. https://twitter.com/NonzeroNewshttps://twitter.com/NonzeroPods
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The Open Source AI Question (Robert Wright & Nathan Lambert)
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.nonzero.org0:28 Nathan’s work at AI2—and his p(doom) 5:00 What does “open source AI” mean? 11:01 How Nathan taught a Llama new tricks 18:05 Pros and cons of open sourcing AI 29:21 Nathan's ATOM Project to boost American open models 37:58 What's behind OpenAI's open source play? 40:20 Geoffrey Hinton's case against open models 44:27 Is the US-China open model rivalry really zero-sum? 51:32 Heading to OvertimeRobert Wright (Nonzero, The Evolution of God, Why Buddhism Is True) and Nathan Lambert (The Allen Institute for AI, https://www.interconnects.ai/). Recorded August 12, 2025.Twitter: https://twitter.com/NonzeroPods
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Jeffrey Epstein and Donald Trump (Robert Wright & Mickey Kaus)
0:28 Epstein's Israel connections 9:35 Epstein's history of blackmail 22:43 Was it suicide? 27:09 Epstein's creepy relationship with Trump 32:16 Why won’t Trump release the files? 38:59 The Israel connection(s) 51:21 Some Epstein-Wexner weirdness 57:23 What’s the deal with Ghislaine? 1:03:51 Was it suicide? (cont’d) 1:16:11 Influence operation or personal fetish operation? Or both? 1:27:18 Epstein's strangely light 2008 sentence 1:33:09 The political cost for Trump 1:37:27 How dangerous is Trump?Robert Wright (Nonzero, The Evolution of God, Why Buddhism Is True) and Mickey Kaus (kausfiles, The End of Equality). Recorded August 11, 2025.Mickey's Substack: https://kaus.substack.com/Twitter: https://twitter.com/NonzeroPods This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.nonzero.org/subscribe
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Does America’s “China Consensus” Make Sense? A Debate (Robert Wright & Jordan Schneider)
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.nonzero.org0:28 Jordan’s ChinaTalk podcast 3:01 Making sense of America’s “China consensus” 11:03 Are fears of Chinese global ambitions overblown? 29:51 The logic (or is it illogic?) of the AI arms race 33:14 China and the Ukraine War 41:30 Influence operations: Chinese vs American 46:24 China’s endgame re the US—and vice-versa 1:00:20 Is US China talk an echo chamber? 1:08:30 Heading to OvertimeRobert Wright (Nonzero, The Evolution of God, Why Buddhism Is True) and Jordan Schneider (ChinaTalk). Recorded August 05, 2025.Twitter: https://twitter.com/NonzeroPods
Conversations with a series of people who have nothing in common except that program host Robert Wright is curious about what they’re thinking. www.nonzero.org