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Yes, and I found Derek Thompson and Ezra Klein to be very credible on Lex Fridman: Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson: Politics, Trump, AOC, Elon & DOGE - https://w
by chubot 1y ago
Yes, and I found Derek Thompson and Ezra Klein to be very credible on Lex Fridman:
Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson: Politics, Trump, AOC, Elon & DOGE - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DTPSeeKokdo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DTPSeeKokdo
I like when the right and left can actually talk to each other -- solutions are more likely to emerge that way.
They had a meta-discussion of the fact that Fridman has been "coded" by the left (Thompson and Klein firmly representing the left).
I get that, because Fridman can be so uncritical that it can rise to the level of shilling.
But I also find it curious that many on the left won't sit for 3 hours with him. In contrast, Thompson and Klein sat for 3 hours, which shows me that they have something to say which stands up to scrutiny.
They have something to say that doesn't have to be carefully boxed into 30 or 60 minutes of talking points.
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Related: even though Fridman can be annoyingly uncritical, I think this also serves the purpose of journalism. Because he gets the primary sources to talk freely.
For example, IMO this part an interview with Demis Hassabis is revealing. He asks if they're worried they will run out of high quality training data:
https://youtu.be/-HzgcbRXUK8?t=3931 https://youtu.be/-HzgcbRXUK8?t=3931
From my perspective, Hassabis gives a mealy-mouthed answer about generating synthetic data of the right distribution, and then they change the subject. I would bet there's a lot more to it than that. If they had a good angle of attack, I feel like he'd be more excited to talk about it, and say something more substantive.
I guess you can argue that he's being cagey to not reveal anything to competition, but it seems like a real point of concern to me.
The rest of the interview is talking about AGI time frames and similar sales talk. Whereas my takeaway is that there's significant worry that LLMs are limited by training data, because they interpolate from it (rather than extrapolating), and are inefficient at using it.
- tptacek 1y agoFridman is on the other end of the spectrum I'm describing.
- chubot 1y agoYou said heavily processed and barely-reported If you want to say Fridman's content is "barely-reported", i.e. he barely does journalism, then I won't really argue. But the interviews are NOT heavily processed, and that's precisely why some on the left won't sit with him. (But not Thompson and Klein, because they actually have something to say.) So ironically, it kinda balances out. Being credulous attracts guests who talk almost as if they are off the record
- tptacek 1y agoI'm not making a value judgement. There are analysts and opinion writers I enjoy reading and get a lot of value from. But hosting a podcast interview with someone is basically the opposite of shoe-leather reporting. I guess if you did "stitch incoming" every couple minutes and cut to Fridman calling someone else to have conversations with other sources about whatever claim his primary guest just made, you'd be getting closer. My point is: some of the prevailing take on HN about journalism probably comes from the fact that we tend to pay much more attention to the Fridmans and much less to shoe-leather reporters. That's all! Much later: a funny thing I could point out here is that the same thing I'm saying about Fridman also applies to Ezra Klein, Thompson's "Abundance" co-author --- I like Klein a lot!
- chubot 1y agoI think there's journalistic value to showing a raw conversation on a podcast. It's closer to the primary source than calling them on the phone and writing down parts of the conversation. If the interviewer is a bit credulous, then we can take that into account. I don't need other opinions to be inserted in the same show, because it's not the only show I watch. I get different viewpoints from others. (And Klein's show happens to be a primary example of that)
- tptacek 1y agoI never said there was "no journalistic value" to anything.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- mulmen 1y agoJournalism is about presenting a topic, not about presenting a person. I don’t care about Elon Musk as a person. I don’t care about his opinions on lawn care or cooking eggs. But in a story about self driving car technology I want to hear his input and the input of Ford and GM and Waymo and Uber and suppliers and academics and regulators and users. Compiling all those sources and presenting a narrative on the topic of self driving cars is journalism. Giving one person an uncritical platform for three hours isn’t journalism. For that to resemble journalism you would have to squint so hard your eyes would be shut.