Manifold Discord Channel: Live Q&A with Steve — #90

Manifold has its own Discord channel! https://discord.gg/dvcHS6NX The purpose of the channel is to create a community of listeners with shared interests. It developed from a series of in-person meetups with Steve in cities like SF, NYC, Singapore, Beijing, Shanghai. Chapter markers:

(00:00) - Manifold Discord Channel, Live Q&A

(02:36) - Genomics and Predictive Genetics

(09:28) - Trump Administration, Epstein, and Political Commentary

(29:42) - Missile Defense Systems: Historical Challenges and Modern Realities

(36:48) - Failures and Cover-Ups in Missile Defense

(45:23) - Developing Intellectual Taste and Productivity Tips

Links related to Q&A:Best genomic predictor for cognitive ability: https://x.com/hsu_steve/status/1936401098345980207 Ted Postol on missile defense: https://www.manifold1.com/episodes/theodore-a-postol-nuclear-weapons-missile-technology-and-u-s-diplomacy-12 Sputnik moment: https://x.com/hsu_steve/status/1873541234125316367

China-US comparisons: https://www.manifold1.com/episodes/letter-from-beijing-with-han-feizi-72 https://www.manifold1.com/episodes/letter-from-shanghai-reflections-on-china-in-2024-73 https://x.com/hsu_steve/status/1934216476560388250

Music used with permission from Blade Runner Blues Livestream improvisation by State Azure. – Steve Hsu is Professor of Theoretical Physics and of Computational Mathematics, Science, and Engineering at Michigan State University. Previously, he was Senior Vice President for Research and Innovation at MSU and Director of the Institute of Theoretical Science at the University of Oregon. Hsu is a startup founder (SuperFocus.ai, SafeWeb, Genomic Prediction, Othram) and advisor to venture capital and other investment firms. He was educated at Caltech and Berkeley, was a Harvard Junior Fellow, and has held faculty positions at Yale, the University of Oregon, and MSU. Please send any questions or suggestions to [email protected] or Steve on X @hsu_steve.

Announcing this for some friends at Mechanize - a startup that builds environments for training and evaluating frontier LLMs. Its customers include the top AI labs, and it has contributed to the breakthrough in coding capabilities of frontier models.

Mechanize is hiring! https://mechanize.work/b/hsu

Compensation is extremely competitive. For technical roles, $300-500k. They are also seeking smart generalists.

For example:

Research Engineer, Alignment: Build evals that test for misaligned model behaviors $500K salary

Puzzle Maker: Design interesting and original puzzles that LLMs can’t yet solve $300K salary

Mechanize understands that my readership is highly selected. There is a VERY GOOD CHANCE you will be interviewed if you apply via the link above.