when i was a baby my dad was driving me late at night and a drunk driver asleep at the wheel hit us head-on. my dad was in a coma for weeks. i needed hundreds of stitches. i still have a massive scar. many years later, i got to work at waymo during the first few years we were

You guys have no idea how weird the average guy working in the SCIF really is

Singapore’s Foreign Minister on why he cannot accept negotiating with Iran for safe passage of ships. Definitely worth listening to:

More trade has real costs, but the benefits are vastly greater. For rich countries, the benefits outweigh costs 7x. For the world's poorer half, benefits are an astounding 95x higher. Peer-reviewed #SDGs research published by Cambridge University Press: cambridge.org/core/journals/…

We live in fascinating times

The permanent underclass/NGMI posts have always grossed me out, but I think the current and coming conflicts over AI were inevitable, and we can't blame nihilistic zoomers (even though I want to). E.g., the campaigns against data centers are not secretly about preventing AGI.

I am delighted and more honored than I can possibly say - the Emergent Ventures program at the Mercatus Center has offered me a grant of $175,000 with no requirements of any kind in the way of publicity, attendance at meetings, or anything else.

Sorry, I’m ready for Waymo.

Very good.

At long last, Part III! Even if you've disagreed with me on AI (or not), I hope you'll read this one. It took the longest to write, so even if it's not the best of the three, it's certainly the most human. popularbydesign.org/p/academics-ne…

And she’s live

"[A] successful society should seem sane and functional at most stages of life."

My wife and I kept our respective last names. We have been together for 11 years, and the current health of our relationship suggests we are going to grow old together (and hopefully die together, just like in The Notebook).

This piece was a joy to edit. Andy is doing so much with AI, and has great ideas for doing even more. As Alexander Kustov has been arguing, there is a place for AI in higher education: making more knowledge.

great piece by Andy Hall in Roots of Progress Institute on how AI is speeding up social science research in his lab and beyond. jives with my own experience of replicating my dissertation over break newsletter.rootsofprogress.org/p/ai-is-alread…

For anyone aged 18-22, Works in Progress (part of Stripe) is hosting Invisible College: a week-long residential seminar for thirty promising 18–22-year-olds from around the world, in Cambridge. Anyone from anywhere in the world can apply worksinprogress.co/invisiblecolle…