I think in some ways we talk about Silicon Valley leaders in this like objective points based system. Elon musk being a trillionaire must have the highest IQ, maybe Steve Jobs was second highest, Dario Amodei is number three right now.
I’m not sure I think anyone believes this outright but a lot of the time we talk about it like we do. And that means because Elon musk has the highest iq he must be more right about most things than most people.
I think a better mental model is that these folks are a combination of somewhat remarkable ability (99.9th percentile? Maybe 99.99th?) combined with something that could be described a negative - an
99.99th percentile level of obsession with an idea. There’s obviously a huge difference between Elon musk and a guy who stands on the street corner shouting at people for sinning, or a cult leader to group suicide his cult - but maybe that difference is what happens outside the obsession, the trait is remarkably similar.
The point is - the level of obsession it takes to convince thousands of the smartest people on the planet to work for you, and collect billions of dollars from investors is the same obsession that gives you a blind spot into where the bottlenecks are between say here and fast takeoff.
Dario is probably not wrong about what he knows about AI, it’s probably everything around it is where his blind spots are.
Previously: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49672281 (42 comments, [flagged])
Good read thanks, quite well documented!
The model I’m circling around is -
I think in some ways we talk about Silicon Valley leaders in this like objective points based system. Elon musk being a trillionaire must have the highest IQ, maybe Steve Jobs was second highest, Dario Amodei is number three right now.
I’m not sure I think anyone believes this outright but a lot of the time we talk about it like we do. And that means because Elon musk has the highest iq he must be more right about most things than most people.
I think a better mental model is that these folks are a combination of somewhat remarkable ability (99.9th percentile? Maybe 99.99th?) combined with something that could be described a negative - an 99.99th percentile level of obsession with an idea. There’s obviously a huge difference between Elon musk and a guy who stands on the street corner shouting at people for sinning, or a cult leader to group suicide his cult - but maybe that difference is what happens outside the obsession, the trait is remarkably similar.
The point is - the level of obsession it takes to convince thousands of the smartest people on the planet to work for you, and collect billions of dollars from investors is the same obsession that gives you a blind spot into where the bottlenecks are between say here and fast takeoff.
Dario is probably not wrong about what he knows about AI, it’s probably everything around it is where his blind spots are.