Related posts

Economics writer; author of the Noahpinion newsletter.

• Our readingkorrents.com

  A large, sustained AI capability lead by either the US or China could shift the global balance of power between them.

  China

  Their words

  If either country opens up a large, sustained lead in AI capabilities, it might upend the balance of power between the two.

  America is still beating China in the AI racenoahpinion.blog

Technical staff at METR, where she works on threat modelling and risk assessment for loss-of-control risks from advanced AI.

• Our readingkorrents.com

  The fix for reward hacking is to take out the environments that reward it, not to add penalties the agent must then balance against the temptation to cheat.

  Their words

  Like it's a more fragile and scary situation to have agents on the one hand be reinforced to desperately find cheats and hacks and on the other hand try to balance that against desperately trying to avoid negative penalties for like being caught doing these things. You ideally want their training to just not push them in the direction of cheating and hacking in the first place.

  youtube.com

Director of institutional asset management at Ritholtz Wealth Management. Writes the A Wealth of Common Sense blog and co-hosts the Animal Spirits podcast with Michael Batnick.

• Our readingkorrents.com

  Government borrowing through the financial crisis and the pandemic was a good trade, because it repaired household balance sheets.

  government

  Their words

  I think the fact that the government took on debt during two crises to help households was a good trade-off.

  My Most Contrarian Opinion Right Nowawealthofcommonsense.com

Mathematician and Senior Lecturer in the Mathematics department at Columbia University. Author of the book Not Even Wrong and of the long-running physics blog of the same name.

• Our readingkorrents.com

  Cumrun Vafa's 'dark dimension' torsion balance experiment does not amount to a genuine testable prediction of string theory.

  economists

  Their words

  This is complete nonsense, a shame that The Economist has been taken in by it.

  This Week’s Hypemath.columbia.edu

Co-founded Neuralink and founded Science Corp, which is building a retinal implant; writes about neural interfaces and biology.

From one piece From Restoring Sight to Reimagining the Brain, with Max Hodak 2 beliefs, in the piece's order there

• Our readingkorrents.com

  Vision, hearing, balance and a kilobit per second of motor control would get you halfway to the Matrix.

  Their words

  because if you can if you get vision, hearing, balance, and a kilobit per second of motor control, you're halfway to the Matrix.

  youtube.com

• Our readingkorrents.com

  Getting vision, hearing, balance and motor signals in and out of the brain is an end in itself, because the world you experience is generated in there.

  Their words

  That world is is generated by the brain. And so, if you can get visuals the visual signal, auditory signal, balance, motor, like somatic sensory motor in and out of the brain, that is that is an end in itself. That is the central object.

  youtube.com

Professor of psychology at UCLA, where he studies human memory, attention and cognitive ageing, and author of Better with Age: The Psychology of Successful Aging.

From one piece How to Improve Your Memory & Cognitive Function at Any Age | Dr. Alan Castel 2 beliefs, in the piece's order there

• Our readingkorrents.com

  Balance is highly trainable, and something as small as standing on one leg improves it measurably within a month or two.

  Their words

  What's interesting with balance is it's very trainable. And so, you know, there's parts of balance that involve visual inner ear, but if you engage in some training, and it can be as simple as standing on one leg or doing yoga or taichi, you can improve your balance considerably within a month or two.

  youtube.com

• Our readingkorrents.com

  Balance, not memory, is what middle-aged and older people should be worrying about, and almost nobody knows what state theirs is in.

  Their words

  And I think, you know, most people when they talk about aging, they're so worried about dementia and, you know, Alzheimer's disease as a specific form, but balance is even more important, I think. And most people aren't even aware of their balance.

  youtube.com

Novelist and critic, author of The Body Scout and Metallic Realms; writes the newsletter Counter Craft on fiction craft and the publishing industry.

• Our readingkorrents.com

  Nearly all fiction works through a balance of repetition and difference.

  Their words

  Regardless of genre or style, nearly all fiction works through a balancing act of repetition and difference.

  Principles of Plotting Part III: Variationcountercraft.substack.com

Writer and author of All the Wrong Moves; his newsletter covers meditation, relationships and creativity, and he co-runs a perfume line.

• Our readingkorrents.com

  A person cannot expect to find lasting balance between conflicting parts of their psychology.

  Their words

  There's no reason to believe that you will find persistent balance between these conflicting elements of your psychology.

  Without hope of resolutionsashachapin.substack.com

Co-founder and chief executive of Meta Platforms, the company he started as Facebook in 2004.

• Our readingkorrents.com

  Open-sourcing biology models is right in principle but has to be balanced against biosafety.

  open source

  Their words

  In terms of science, I think it really makes sense and we're deeply committed to open source. Um, there are obviously interesting considerations on this that are important too because there's a lot of considerations around biosafety and things like that that we're going to need to balance and think through how to how to handle.

  youtube.com

Product designer and entrepreneur; author of Mobile First and Web Form Design; formerly a product director at Google; now building AI products.

• Our readingkorrents.com

  Users split into two camps on seeing an agent's work, and the split has not faded as trust builds, so an interface has to balance both.

  Their words

  I initially assumed this was a temporary divide. New users tend to watch closely and check the system's progress, but as trust builds, that scrutiny fades and monitoring starts to feel like a chore. Yet it still seems like there's two camps (for now).

  Showing the Work of Agents in UIlukew.com

Entrepreneur and founder of Blueprint. Publishes a detailed, freely available longevity protocol documenting the food, supplements, devices and measurements he uses on himself.

• Our readingkorrents.com

  Six hours of exercise a week, split between strength, cardio, flexibility and balance, is the right dose for a healthy adult.

  Their words

  Exercise – 6 hours a week is ideal.

  Bryan's Protocolprotocol.bryanjohnson.com

Executive coach for product leaders. Previously a partner at GV (Google Ventures) and a product manager at Google. Writes at Bring the Donuts, including a standing essential-reading list for product managers.

• Recommendsaffiliate linkrcmnd.app

  Getting Things Done

  Their words

  Soon after this book was published Allen attracted an almost cult-like following. The fundamental ideas remain sound. Product managers juggle hundreds of priorities, and this book will help you balance your time.

  bringthedonuts.com

Writer living in Brooklyn and former Man Repeller features director; writes the weekly newsletter Maybe Baby on culture and consumption.

• Lovedsponsoredrcmnd.app

  Sézane x New Balance 471 sneakers

  Their words

  Full disclosure, I got these for free, but have become unexpectedly obsessed. I wear them constantly and really like how they instantly change the mood of an outfit. Can't really say why they stand out since they're pretty basic but people ask me about them all the time.

  haleynahman.substack.com

Assyriologist and curator at the British Museum; reads cuneiform, and wrote The Ark Before Noah and The First Ghosts.

• Our readingkorrents.com

  A board game conquers the world when chance and strategy are in balance in it.

  Their words

  But it has built within it, is the way I understand the game plays, a measurable quota of strategy. It’s a mix of probability and strategy.

  youtube.com

Chairman and chief executive of JPMorgan Chase, which he has led since 2005 after turning around Bank One.

• Our readingkorrents.com

  A fortress balance sheet is a way of operating rather than a capital ratio: good margins, liquidity, capital, and the most conservative accounting you can find.

  Their words

  the fortress balance sheet is that you run a company serving clients well, you have good margins, good liquidity, good capital. I'm as conservative in accounting as you can find. I don't up-front profits when I can spread them over time.

  youtube.com

Development economist; writes Global Developments, on growth, history and the numbers behind them.

• Our readingkorrents.com

  Pre-colonial statehood in East Asia carried through the colonial period and on into the post-independence era.

  Their words

  Precisely how much the ancient continuity of East Asian states matters for development is still a little murky, and the delineation with colonial legacies is still an area of active debate—but the balance of evidence suggests that the legacies of these pre-colonial states stretched through the colonial period, extending even into the post-independence era.

  global-developments.org

Co-founder and CTO of Honeycomb; previously an infrastructure engineer at Parse, Facebook and Linden Lab, and co-author of Observability Engineering.

• Our readingkorrents.com

  Hire for a person’s unique strengths rather than for their lack of weaknesses, because a team exists to cover what any one person is not.

  Their words

  you want to hire people for their unique strengths, not their lack of weaknesses. If they’re strong where you need them to be strong, it’s okay if they aren’t equally superpowered at everything — that’s why we build teams, to supplement and balance each other out.

  “Founder Mode” and the Art of Mythmakingcharity.wtf

Founder and chief executive of Pershing Square Capital Management, the activist investment firm he started in 2004.

From one piece Bill Ackman: Investing, Financial Battles, Harvard, DEI, X & Free Speech | Lex Fridman Podcast #413 2 beliefs, in the piece's order there

• Our readingkorrents.com

  Shareholder activism restored the balance of power between a company's owners and its managers, and that has been good for the US stock market.

  Their words

  And what activism has done, and I think we've helped lead this movement, is it restored the balance of power between the owners of the business and the management of the company. And that's been a very good thing for the performance of the US stock market actually.

  youtube.com

• Our readingkorrents.com

  Harvard's governance is broken because its self-perpetuating board can never be rebalanced from outside.

  Their words

  It's really a self-perpetuating board that effectively elects its own members. Once the balance tips, politically, one way or another, it can be kept that way forever. There's no kind of rebalancing system.

  youtube.com

Theoretical physicist and cosmologist, Frank B. Baird, Jr. Professor of Science at Harvard University, working on particle physics, extra dimensions and dark matter.

• Our readingkorrents.com

  Being a scientist means believing strongly in your own ideas while questioning them all the time — a tightrope, not a contradiction.

  Their words

  I think the weird thing about being a scientist or an academic in general is you have to believe really strongly what you do while questioning it all the time. That’s a hard balance to have.

  youtube.com

Political scientist at the University of Chicago and the leading exponent of offensive realism; wrote The Tragedy of Great Power Politics.

From one piece John Mearsheimer: Israel-Palestine, Russia-Ukraine, China, NATO, and WW3 | Lex Fridman Podcast #401 2 beliefs, in the piece's order there

• Our readingkorrents.com

  Power is the currency of international relations, and states are driven above all to maximise how much of it they control.

  Their words

  I believe that power is the currency of international relations, and by that I mean that states are deeply interested in the balance of power and they're interested in maximizing how much power they control.

  youtube.com

• Our readingkorrents.com

  There is a good chance the Second World War would have happened even without Hitler.

  Europe

  Their words

  And I believe that there is a good chance you would've had World War II in the absence of Hitler. I believe that Germany was very powerful, it was deeply worried about the balance of power in Europe, and it had strong incentives to behave aggressively in the late 1930s, early 1940s.

  youtube.com

Deep-learning researcher and Turing Award laureate; founder of the Mila institute.

• Our reading nowkorrents.com

  AI research is on a good trajectory overall — good for science and good for society — and existential concerns will only become relevant in the distant future.

  Their words, before

  Reading the book had not changed my fundamental belief that, in balance, we were on a good trajectory with AI research: good for science and good for society with expected positive impacts in many domains.

  Their words now

  I now believe that I was wrong and short-sighted to ignore that dual-use nature. I also think I was not paying enough attention to the possibility of losing control to superhuman AIs.

Founded CD Baby in 1998 and sold it in 2008, giving the proceeds to a charitable trust for music education. Since then a writer and speaker: five books and 550+ articles, published first at sive.rs, which they hand-code and keep free of advertising.

• Likedrcmnd.app

  How Minds Change

  Their words

  The psychology of how and why we believe. How we learn and change. The craft of doubt and persuasion. Insights into the social definition of truth. Epistemology. Certainty is a feeling not based on facts. Well-written with a nice balance of story-telling and deeper dives.

  sive.rs

Writer and researcher on China, technology and industry; author of Breakneck, research fellow at Stanford, known for a widely read annual letter.

• Our readingkorrents.com

  The Chinese state today is an autocratic regime occasionally capable of economic pragmatism, not a technocratic regime that occasionally lapses into Marxism.

  China

  Their words

  And on balance I believe we should think of the Chinese state today as an autocratic regime that is occasionally capable of economic pragmatism rather than a technocratic regime that slips occasionally into Marxist faults.

  2022 letterdanwang.co

Founder of Pinboard; writes Idle Words — talks and essays on the web, aviation, politics and travel.

• Our readingkorrents.com

  Fifty years of miniaturisation have made robotic spacecraft better and cheaper explorers than astronauts.

  Their words

  But fifty years of progress in miniaturization and software changed the balance between robots and humans in space.

  Why Not Marsidlewords.com

Economist; former chief economist of the International Monetary Fund.

From one piece Fiscal Policy under Low Interest Rates 2 beliefs, in the piece's order there

• Our readingkorrents.com

  The probability of a self-fulfilling bad equilibrium in sovereign debt markets depends little on the debt level itself, but is much reduced by a rule linking the primary balance to debt service increases.

  JavaScript

  Their words

  I have argued that the probability of a bad equilibrium is only marginally influenced by the level of debt, but can be much reduced by a contingent rule making the primary balance react to an increase in debt service.

  Fiscal Policy under Low Interest Ratesdirect.mit.edu

• Our readingkorrents.com

  Central bank purchases of government bonds are not bailouts and do not automatically cause inflation, since they only change the composition of the consolidated government's liabilities, not their total.

  inflationinterest ratesgovernment

  Their words

  Governments have not been bailed out by their central banks. As I discussed earlier, central bank intervention does not reduce the overall liabilities of the consolidated government, just their composition. And it does not automatically lead to more inflation: It increases the size of the balance sheet of the central bank, but it does not increase the size of the non-interest-paying money stock.

  Fiscal Policy under Low Interest Ratesdirect.mit.edu

Obesity researcher; wrote The Hungry Brain, on why the brain overeats, and reviews nutrition evidence.

• Our readingkorrents.com

  The brain, not insulin or fat tissue, is what ultimately controls the energy balance equation.

  energy

  Their words

  However, whichever side of the energy balance equation is giving orders, the brain appears to be the commander-in-chief of the equation as a whole.

  stephanguyenet.com