against chat interfaces ✦ a brief history of artificial intelligence ✦ and the (worthwhile) problem of other minds

Richard Sutton is the father of reinforcement learning, winner of the 2024 Turing Award, and author of The Bitter Lesson. And he thinks LLMs are a dead end. After interviewing him, my steel man of Richard’s position is this: LLMs aren’t capable of learning on-the-job, so no matter how much we scale, we’ll need *some* new architecture to enable continual learning. And once we have it, we won’t need a special training phase — the agent will just learn on-the-fly, like all humans, and indeed, like all animals. This new paradigm will render our current approach with LLMs obsolete. In our interview, I did my best to represent the view that LLMs might function as the foundation on which experiential learning can happen… Some sparks flew. A big thanks to the Alberta Machine Intelligence Institute for inviting me up to Edmonton and for letting me use their studio and equipment. Enjoy! 𝐄𝐏𝐈𝐒𝐎𝐃𝐄 𝐋𝐈𝐍𝐊𝐒 * Transcript: https://www.dwarkesh.com/p/richard-sutton * Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/richard-sutton-father-of-rl-thinks-llms-are-a-dead-end/id1516093381?i=1000728584744 * Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/episode/3zAXRCFrHPShU4MuuIx4V5?si=c9f4bf24fb4c43e3 𝐒𝐏𝐎𝐍𝐒𝐎𝐑𝐒 * Labelbox makes it possible to train AI agents in hyperrealistic RL environments. With an experienced team of applied researchers and a massive network of subject-matter experts, Labelbox ensures your training reflects important, real-world nuance. Turn your demo projects into working systems at https://labelbox.com/dwarkesh * Gemini Deep Research is designed for thorough exploration of hard topics. For this episode, it helped me trace reinforcement learning from early policy gradients up to current-day methods, combining clear explanations with curated examples. Try it out yourself at https://gemini.google.com/ * Hudson River Trading doesn’t silo their teams. Instead, HRT researchers openly trade ideas and share strategy code in a mono-repo. This means you’re able to learn at incredible speed and your contributions have impact across the entire firm. Find open roles at https://hudsonrivertrading.com/dwarkesh To sponsor a future episode, visit https://dwarkesh.com/advertise 𝐓𝐈𝐌𝐄𝐒𝐓𝐀𝐌𝐏𝐒 00:00:00 – Are LLMs a dead end? 00:13:51 – Do humans do imitation learning? 00:23:57 – The Era of Experience 00:34:25 – Current architectures generalize poorly out of distribution 00:42:17 – Surprises in the AI field 00:47:28 – Will The Bitter Lesson still apply after AGI? 00:54:35 – Succession to AI

The more time I spend using LLMs for code, the less I worry for my career - even as their coding capabilities continue to improve. Using LLMs as part of …

Posted on Thursday 3 Jul 2025. 1,012 words, 10 links. By Matt Webb.

We're this far into reasoners and neither hypesters nor skeptics really understand their significance. Also: Read Toulmin.

Last week I participated in a panel discussion on AI as part of a private event in New Zealand.

We asked some of the world’s foremost experts an impossible question. Amazingly, they answered.

Nicholas Carlini, previously deeply skeptical about the utility of LLMs, discusses at length his thoughts on where the technology might go. He presents compelling, detailed arguments for both ends of …

What exactly is consciousness, and why is it such a hard problem to solve? Neil deGrasse Tyson and co-hosts Chuck Nice and Gary O’Reilly take you deep into the mysteries of consciousness and objective reality, David Chalmers, a philosopher and cognitive scientist. How do we understand the core of subjective experience? We explore the philosophical and neuroscientific angles of consciousness. Why do some experts believe consciousness arises from the sensory cortex, while others point to the prefrontal cortex? And what does this mean for how we understand animals, AI, or even the very nature of our own minds? We question how consciousness evolved to discussions about the levels of consciousness in animals, babies, and humans under anesthesia. As the conversation turns to AI, the group contemplates the future of artificial consciousness. Could large language models, like today's AI, eventually develop consciousness? If not now, will they in the near future? And if we can simulate human consciousness in machines, are we creating philosophical zombies—entities that behave like us but lack awareness? These questions spiral into debates about reality, VR, and whether we're already living in a simulation. Could there be laws of consciousness waiting to be discovered, like the laws of physics? Or is consciousness simply an illusion, as some scientists propose? What are the core features of consciousness that scientists agree on? Buckle up for a fascinating journey that will leave you questioning not just what consciousness is, but whether any of this is even real. Thanks to our Patrons Jay, Gregory Aronoff, Tom B. Night, Barnsley, Glenn, Hibachi Flamethrower, Crescencio Maximilian joseph Martinez, Micheal Gomez, Matthew Deane, James, Joe Chillemi, Thomas van Cleave, Kelsey Plugge, Jeff Jones, William Hamilton, and Kevin Cosg. for supporting us this week. Check out our second channel, @StarTalkPlus Get the NEW StarTalk book, 'To Infinity and Beyond: A Journey of Cosmic Discovery' on Amazon: https://amzn.to/3PL0NFn Support us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/startalkradio FOLLOW or SUBSCRIBE to StarTalk: Twitter: http://twitter.com/startalkradio Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/StarTalk Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/startalk About StarTalk: Science meets pop culture on StarTalk! Astrophysicist & Hayden Planetarium director Neil deGrasse Tyson, his comic co-hosts, guest celebrities & scientists discuss astronomy, physics, and everything else about life in the universe. Keep Looking Up! #StarTalk #neildegrassetyson Timestamps: 00:00 - Introduction: David Chalmers 04:00 - What is Consciousness? 06:50 - Where is the Seat of Consciousness? 14:30 - Are Large Language Models Conscious? 22:47 - The Laws of Consciousness 31:40 - Does Consciousness Really Exist? 34:50 - The Reality of Virtual Reality 42:40 - The Future of Reality

Terence Tao, the world’s greatest living mathematician, has a vision for AI.

The fracking to AI pipeline is a crime. And the crime is homicide.

More details on the science of training large autoregressive language models.