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I think, overall, interview podcasts are some of the worst (and popular) ways to convey information that we as humans have come up with.


They're bad because the goal isn't to convey information in an efficient way.

Think of it as a conversation that you can listen in on if you want to.


But that's terrible, because it seems like a good way to learn about OpenAI. It presents as if you can listen to this to gain insight into how OpenAI operates.

But you can't. What you get is a hour long PR fluff piece about a man related to OpenAI. But you listen anyway, and because it's appearing as this useful thing, your normal skepticism guards are down. So you swallow what could be abject nonsense.

And that's why they're Bad, not bad.


Think about it as learning how Sam thinks about things rather than how OpenAI operates. There is an unbelievable amount of info in the conversation.


But I don't think you get that, what you get is how Sam presents as thinking. Very, wildly different.


More meta but thats all conversations. You never know how "vulnerable" someone is being no matter the medium, so again, it's up to you to understand that and gather the information that is there.


No, I think podcast interviews like this are particularly dangerous, given their reach.


That depends how autistic you are. You can read people's motivations by how they present their motivations.


What? Autism? I’m not sure what that has to do with anything.


It has to do with how much you can infer by listening to a conversation.


No it doesn’t? Inference is what you make it; you can think a podcast person is agreeing with you when they really aren’t.

Autism doesn’t really play into this; no human gets intuition correct, due to bias.


It absolutely has something to do with it. One of the symptoms of autism is a weak theory of mind, i.e. the inability to see the world through the perspective of another person, i.e. to understand their motivations.


Yes but being deaf would also be relevant; there are lots of other things that could alter your listening experience.

What I said is applied to people in generally good health and free from any kind of impairment.

It’s not generally considered relevant to list out all the conditions and diseases that could alter one’s experience…


This is a great way to phrase it.


Exactly right


Disagree. In podcasts I love interviews and conversations rather than monologues. I think the pauses and speakers taking turns, make listening less monotonous and also cognitively probably helps absorb info better


Monologues aren’t a realistic alternative, no podcast I know of is just one person speaking constantly. That sounds more like political radio shows, and those are also terrible.


Well actually the popular Huberman Labs podcast is usually a monologue. But yes most are dialogues I agree


Podcasts may not be a particularly efficient way to convey information, but they make up for it in convenience. You can listen while doing other things like walking the dog and make use of otherwise wasted time.




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