Paras Chopra, Author at Inverted Passion

Artificial general intelligence is risky by default

February 17, 2021April 6, 2021Paras ChopraPodcast

Should we worry about AI?

Connor Leahy is an AI researcher at EleutherAI, a grass-roots collection of open-source AI researchers. Their current ambitious project is GPT-Neo, where they’re replicating currently closed-access GPT-3 to make it available to everyone.

Connor is deeply interested in the dangers posed by AI systems that don’t share human values and goals. I talked to Connor about AI misalignment and why it poses a potential existential risk for humanity.

All sophisticated solutions start extremely simple

February 13, 2021April 6, 2021Paras ChopraMental Models

There’s always a temptation to launch a fully built product with more features and capabilities than existing competitors. It’s exciting to build the next Google, the next iPhone or the next SpaceX, isn’t it?

This temptation is dangerous because even the most successful products in a market had simple beginnings. No product arrives in the market fully fleshed out. The company behind a successful product has developed its internal capabilities and know-how about various tiny but important details over a long period of time. On day 1, a startup simply cannot match such capabilities. ... Read the entire post →

Is the world becoming better?

February 5, 2021April 6, 2021Paras ChopraNotes and Summaries, Philosophy, Systems

This essay is inspired by the book Factfulness where the key idea explored is that the world has witnessed significant progress over the last few decades, but most people are unaware of that fact because they hold distorted views.

For example, most people overestimate the percentage of the human population living in extreme poverty (which is defined as having an income of less than $2/mo). It's 10% (as of 2017) but even the most educated people get it wrong.

Reality is an evolved illusion

February 1, 2021April 6, 2021Paras ChopraPodcast

Do we see reality as it is?

I discuss this question with Donald Hoffman who is professor emeritus at the University of California, Irvine. He studies consciousness and perception from an evolutionary point of view. His research has led him to make a bold claim that while we do not yet know what the underlying reality could be like. Rather, reality as we know it now - including space, time, and objects - is a useful fiction that evolution invented for us.

People don’t like using technology

January 23, 2021April 6, 2021Paras ChopraMental Models

There’s an inherent tension between how an engineer sees the product under development and how a potential user sees it. Engineers get excited by the technological advances and configurability of the gadget. A user sees all such complexity as overwhelming and off-putting. It's easy for a creator to forget that the user has a life to live and using their product isn’t a highlight of her life. Rather, it’s likely a chore.

Most surgeries are ineffective

January 21, 2021April 6, 2021Paras ChopraPodcast

Do surgeries work? Most of us assume they do, but is there any scientific evidence that they do?

In this episode, I talk to Dr Ian Harris who is a Professor of Orthopaedic Surgery at the University of New South Wales in Australia. He is a practicing orthopedic surgeon specializing in trauma surgery. Outside his practice, his research interests broadly cover the topic of surgical effectiveness and clinical research.

Define your market as narrowly as possible

January 18, 2021April 6, 2021Paras ChopraMental Models

It’s common for entrepreneurs to cast a wide net early on and imagine their market to be huge. The logic goes something like this: if the market is worth a hundred billion dollars, then even if 1% of it is captured, the company will be making a billion dollars.

All this sounds good in theory but in practice, it never works this way.

We may be alone in the universe

January 12, 2021April 6, 2021Paras ChopraPodcast

In the first episode of Bold Conjectures podcast, I talk to Dr Anders Sandberg who is a Senior Research Fellow at Future of Humanity Institute, Oxford University. His academic collaborators include nanotechnology pioneer Eric Dexler and the philosopher Nick Bostrom.

How money works

January 6, 2021January 6, 2021Paras ChopraNotes and Summaries

A massive, 100-part essay.

I recently finished this excellent short book titled What Has Government Done To Our Money. It's available on the Internet for free and I highly recommend reading it. But in case you want the key insights, here are my notes.

20 lessons from 2020

December 28, 2020April 6, 2021Paras ChopraNotes and Summaries

Determined to never let a crisis go to waste, I and rest of the leaders at my company reflected on how the year went by for us and the lessons that stood out. I decided that it'll be a good idea to publicly share these learnings, so here they are.