Speaker 1: Pushkin. Welcome back to Risky Business, a show about making
Speaker 1: better decisions. I'm Maria Kanikova.
Speaker 2: And I'm Nate Silver.
Speaker 1: Nate. We are both in Vegas. So we're going to
Speaker 1: start the show off with a little update of how
Speaker 1: our first week of the world series has been going,
Speaker 1: whether we are still as bright eyed and bushy tailed
Speaker 1: as if we were this time last week. And then
Speaker 1: we'll talk a little bit of politics, right, Yeah.
Speaker 2: We'll talk about rank choice voting its implications for the
Speaker 2: Democratic mayoral primary which is coming up in New York
Speaker 2: as well. It's a little bit more abstractifying that in
Speaker 2: terms of is this a good system, what does it
Speaker 2: reward or punish? And then we'll talk about AI a
Speaker 2: little bit, I know, a frequent topic on this show.
Speaker 2: I was recently at the Manifest conference in Berkeley, California
Speaker 2: before it came out here to Vegas. A little bit
Speaker 2: of an update on the AI twenty twenty seven report,
Speaker 2: which we talked about on a previous episode, and just
Speaker 2: kind of how we're feeling about pe doom and kind
Speaker 2: of how the Silicon Valley community is adjusting to the
Speaker 2: constant developments in the sector.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm looking forward to hearing what you learned at
Speaker 1: that conference. But let's start a little closer to home
Speaker 1: and talk about pe doom of our bank rolls. So, Wsophie,
Speaker 1: how has week one treated unit?
Speaker 2: So? I have fired fifteen bullets. I know it's a
Speaker 2: violent metaphor. We're not super PC here, but a bullet
Speaker 2: in a poker term is like an entry into a tournament. Right,
Speaker 2: So I probably entered ten tournaments, because you can enter
Speaker 2: some multiple times. I've had fifteen entrees into those ten tournaments.
Speaker 2: Of those fifteen entries, I've had three caches or twenty percent,
Speaker 2: which is pretty typical. Right. You're typically cash, depending on
Speaker 2: the tournament, twelve to fifty percent of the time. So
Speaker 2: I guess a little bit above average.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: However, here's why it's hard to make money in the
Speaker 2: short run, the medium run in poker tournaments.
Speaker 1: Right, in the short run, the medium run in the
Speaker 1: long run.
Speaker 2: Period number one, even if you outlast ninety five percent
Speaker 2: of people, you often only make broughly like two times
Speaker 2: or maybe more than that. Right, So if you invest
Speaker 2: fifteen hundred dollars in a tournament and you make it
Speaker 2: to like the ninety fourth percent diile, the prize might
Speaker 2: be for to have one hundred so net of the
Speaker 2: fifteen hundred you paid to enter, right if you entered
Speaker 2: twice and like so like. Basically, it's a very top
Speaker 2: heavy structure where you have to get into like the
Speaker 2: top two percent, or you have to run good and
Speaker 2: cash in the more expensive events. Right, So the cashes
Speaker 2: I have are in an eight hundred dollars event, fifteen
Speaker 2: hundred dollars event, a eleven hundred dollars event. I also
Speaker 2: entered a ten thousand dollars event that like quick Exit
Speaker 2: three thousand dollars event quick Exit, right, you have those
Speaker 2: Basically either have to run really really deep or have
Speaker 2: your cash as being your higher buying events. I've done either.
Speaker 2: Therefore I can say, oh, I have cash plenty. I've
Speaker 2: been in the running, been in the mix, but like
Speaker 2: still down money and that's often very typical.
Speaker 1: How about you, Maria, So I have not played nearly
Speaker 1: as many live events as you. I only have one
Speaker 1: live cash so that was the first event that I played,
Speaker 1: the eight hundred, and then I played the three thousand
Speaker 1: dollars freeze out and did not cash that and the
Speaker 1: monster stacks. As you know, Nate, that did not go
Speaker 1: well for me. That was one of the ones that
Speaker 1: you cashed. And then yesterday I played the three thousand dollars.
Speaker 1: Basically it was a turbo, and you played that as well,
Speaker 1: and neither one of us cashed. Luckily, I only had
Speaker 1: to fire one bullet. I was unable to revise, so
Speaker 1: that's good. That saved me three thousand. However, what has
Speaker 1: kind of saved my last week is online. So I
Speaker 1: fired a few of the online events, came in fifty
Speaker 1: seventh out of like twelve hundred or so in one
Speaker 1: of them for about three thousand dollars. And then last
Speaker 1: night came in seventh firing a three hundred and fifteen
Speaker 1: dollars event or three hundred and twenty. And that was
Speaker 1: very or sweet because seventh was about seven thousand dollars,
Speaker 1: which is a great ROI it was only in for
Speaker 1: one bullet, right, you pay three hundred and twenty dollars
Speaker 1: and you get seven thousand, which is amazing. First, as
Speaker 1: you know, would have been a lot more. And I
Speaker 1: was very proud of myself for getting that far because
Speaker 1: I had an incredibly short stack. Basically the entire time,
Speaker 1: I just kind of never had chips to work with,
Speaker 1: and I ended up making it quite far. But that
Speaker 1: kind of saved my my week a little bit because
Speaker 1: live has not been going well, well, it's been going
Speaker 1: you know, it's a tiny sample size, right, This is
Speaker 1: kind of what you have to understand that you need
Speaker 1: to kind of think of things in a bigger picture
Speaker 1: as opposed to touch just saying oh, I've only because
Speaker 1: I've only played four live events, right, So the fact
Speaker 1: that I, yeah, so the fact that I catched.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't. I have liked the online I've kind
Speaker 2: of sworn off online poker.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but yeah, there are definitely issue with online, but
Speaker 1: it's it's helped. It's helped me stay more even than
Speaker 1: negative for the first week.
Speaker 2: The default experience at the World Series pokers, you're always
Speaker 2: like one or two contingencies away from having like a
Speaker 2: really great world series and one or two continues away
Speaker 2: from having a really bad world series. Right. You know,
Speaker 2: I made it to the very end of day two
Speaker 2: of the Monster Stack. You are in the money, right,
Speaker 2: And then I made a huge semi bluff if you
Speaker 2: don't follow at home, some my bluff is when you
Speaker 2: are hoping to get the opponent to full, but if not,
Speaker 2: then you have a good draw that will win sometimes.
Speaker 2: So I had basically a straight flush draw and it
Speaker 2: was a turn, so you now have only one card
Speaker 2: to make your hand. And the opponent I thought was
Speaker 2: pretty strong, but I thought the odds compelled this play
Speaker 2: and I whatever, I'm there, I'm there to run deep,
Speaker 2: I'm the money. I went for it. He had a
Speaker 2: set of queens. I didn't make my death.
Speaker 1: That was not going to shold. Yes, there's it's funny.
Speaker 1: And you say it felt like the opponent was strong,
Speaker 1: and I think we've all had that feeling. You know,
Speaker 1: we're like just based on the way someone's playing, based
Speaker 1: on kind of the dynamics at the hand. You know
Speaker 1: the person is strong, but they're strong, and they're strong, right.
Speaker 1: A set of queens is a hand that's probably not
Speaker 1: going to fold. If you had like naked top hair
Speaker 1: something like that, that that might fold. And it's hard
Speaker 1: sometimes it's hard to know the difference. But you had
Speaker 1: a straight flushtraw. I think that you have to go
Speaker 1: for it in that situation. And Nate, you and I
Speaker 1: are playing for the win, not for the for them.
Speaker 1: In cash, right, we're playing to get chips and to
Speaker 1: win this thing. So let's do it, and let's have
Speaker 1: a better update for our listeners next week. So, Nate,
Speaker 1: let's turn to a totally different topic. Let's go politics
Speaker 1: and talk a little bit about ranked choice voting. This
Speaker 1: is correct me if I'm wrong, the second election in
Speaker 1: New York City where the voting has been changed, so
Speaker 1: that now we are in a situation where we have
Speaker 1: ranked choice voting instead of the usual first past the
Speaker 1: post system. So let's let's talk just a little bit
Speaker 1: about what the differences are. I am correct, right, this
Speaker 1: is the second auction where this is in play.
Speaker 2: Correct, Yeah, only for the primary. Yes, actually it's not
Speaker 2: used in the general election, which could also be chaotic.
Speaker 2: We'll probably get to that later on.
Speaker 1: Yep, all right, So normal you know, first past the post,
Speaker 1: person who gets the most votes wins, right, and there
Speaker 1: can be runoffs if no one gets the requisite majority.
Speaker 1: In ranked choice voting, it doesn't quite work the same way.
Speaker 1: You get to rank your candidates in order, you know, one, two, three, four, five.
Speaker 1: However many ranked choices you have in a given election,
Speaker 1: there's every Every election is a little bit different. So
Speaker 1: let's let's pretend that we're voting for our favorite podcasters,
Speaker 1: and just a random, random example. And let's imagine that,
Speaker 1: you know, a bunch of people get lots of votes,
Speaker 1: and I when you tally everyone else everyone up, I'm
Speaker 1: Maria come in last. So I'm going to be cut
Speaker 1: because the last person who comes in with you know,
Speaker 1: the fewest votes is going to be cut. But what's
Speaker 1: going to happen to my ballots? Well, I'm going to
Speaker 1: be cut, but the people who ranked me, who wanted me,
Speaker 1: who ranked me first, whoever they ranked after me, is
Speaker 1: going to get all of those votes. So imagine that
Speaker 1: everyone who voted for me actually put Nate after me. Right,
Speaker 1: And when you cut me between the people who voted
Speaker 1: for Nate first and the people who voted for Nate
Speaker 1: after me, all of a sudden, Nate has lots and
Speaker 1: lots of votes. And that's how ranked choice voting works. Right,
Speaker 1: Your votes get redistributed.
Speaker 2: Nate.
Speaker 1: Congratulations, I've given you all of my votes and you're
Speaker 1: going to be You're going to be zooming at those podcasts.
Speaker 2: My votes got redistributed to Ezra Klein.
Speaker 1: Apparently we tried, we tried, right, but that's actually so
Speaker 1: you know, we joke, but there is a lot of
Speaker 1: st know, there are pros, there cons and there's also
Speaker 1: strategy that comes up with ranked choice voting where people
Speaker 1: and this has actually played out in elections in the past,
Speaker 1: where people do have coalitions and try to say, okay,
Speaker 1: like let's try to band together so that if we're
Speaker 1: you know, if one of us is eliminated art bo,
Speaker 1: let's get passed to the other person. So that's kind
Speaker 1: of ranked choice in a nutshell Nate. The last time
Speaker 1: this was used in New York City, it was a
Speaker 1: little bit of a disaster.
Speaker 2: Well, it depends on who you would ask, right, So
Speaker 2: you had Eric Adams, who's a former cop in the
Speaker 2: conservative lane of the Democratic primary, not conserned relative to
Speaker 2: the US overall, but they are actually a fair number
Speaker 2: of conservatives who are Democrats in New York because there's
Speaker 2: no point in being a Republican. So therefore, you know,
Speaker 2: like fifteen percent of New York City Democrats voted for Trump,
Speaker 2: which is much higher than nationwide. You had Maya Wiley,
Speaker 2: who's the progressive candidate, and you had Catherine Garcia, who
Speaker 2: was at the time, I believe, the Sanitation commissioner, who
Speaker 2: was like the competent technocrat right. So what ranked choice
Speaker 2: voting is sort of theoretically supposed to do is produce
Speaker 2: a consensus choice where, yeah, the left likes Wiley, the
Speaker 2: right likes Adams, and the center again relative to the
Speaker 2: New York electorate, likes Garcia. However, you know, in principle,
Speaker 2: you could have what's called the condors winner. It's a
Speaker 2: French political scientist. I believe somebody condor sit where like,
Speaker 2: let's say Garcia, because she's in the middle, that all
Speaker 2: her voters. So if she were head to head against Wiley,
Speaker 2: she wins because both the moderates and the conservatives prefer her.
Speaker 2: If she's head to head against Eric Adams, she wins
Speaker 2: because like all the moderates and the progressives prefer her. Right. However,
Speaker 2: if the previous round is like if she's stuck in
Speaker 2: the middle in third place, if it's you know, forty
Speaker 2: percent Atoms, forty percent Wiley again, Conservative progressive, twenty percent Garcia,
Speaker 2: then she's eliminated before she has a chance to beat
Speaker 2: the other candidates one on one. What actually happened is
Speaker 2: she just barely beat Wiley in the penultimate round and
Speaker 2: then just barely lost to Adams in the final round. Right,
Speaker 2: And so what you almost had happen is that the
Speaker 2: candid who what have been the winner had to head
Speaker 2: almost got elimina because she didn't have enough like first
Speaker 2: choice votes after other votes were redistributed. I know that
Speaker 2: sounds kind of crazy, but number one, I want to
Speaker 2: emphasize that, Like, you know, one thing that helped her
Speaker 2: was that she had agreed with Andrew Yang, who at
Speaker 2: one point had been their frontrunner and then faded out.
Speaker 2: You know, we're going to mutually endorse one another. Right.
Speaker 2: It's a big burden on voters to have to list
Speaker 2: five candides.
Speaker 1: Yeah. No, So we've talked a lot on the show
Speaker 1: about cognitive load, right, like how many things you can
Speaker 1: keep in mind? Like we're busy people. People's attention is
Speaker 1: an incredibly finite resource, Like just how much of your
Speaker 1: time are you investing in following politics and following all
Speaker 1: the candidates you know and trying to get into the
Speaker 1: weeds and kind of figure out, Okay, who stands where
Speaker 1: who do I believe in? It's much easier to say, oh, okay,
Speaker 1: like I like this guy or this woman right then
Speaker 1: to say okay, this in order these are my five
Speaker 1: preferences and so, and people can get confused as well, right,
Speaker 1: if they don't quite understand how ranked choice voting works.
Speaker 1: They might think that it's like, oh, I'm giving points, right,
Speaker 1: because you know, sometimes you have these voting systems where
Speaker 1: you allocate different points to different people, and that's just
Speaker 1: basically how it works, right, Like, oh, I gave most
Speaker 1: of my points to Nate, I gave second most points
Speaker 1: to Maria, like, and everyone's going to get those points
Speaker 1: talied up. That's not how ranked choice voting works. But
Speaker 1: people sometimes they you know, especially if you've never done
Speaker 1: it before, it is it can be confusing. It seems
Speaker 1: straightforward ranked five, but it's not because ranked voting systems
Speaker 1: do differ and we're not used to it, right, We're
Speaker 1: not used to the system where like, I don't know
Speaker 1: any other voting in your life where you vote and
Speaker 1: like your votes get redistributed to your second choice, right, Like,
Speaker 1: that's that's not something that you that's not a situation
Speaker 1: you commonly encounter. And so unless like, you know, and
Speaker 1: you can think through the strategy of okay, what does
Speaker 1: that mean for hand, do I rank candidates? Then you
Speaker 1: can get an outcome that you didn't actually mean to happen.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I know. I mean there are systems. They're alternatives,
Speaker 2: like what is called approval voting, where you just list
Speaker 2: as many you vote for, as many candidates you want, right,
Speaker 2: as many candidates you like you think would be a
Speaker 2: good mayor good president, whatever, just check the box. Like
Speaker 2: that's a little bit more straightforward and not subject to manipulation.
Speaker 2: You know. Also, like, guess which people take the time
Speaker 2: to carefully think through their five preferences in New York
Speaker 2: you get five listings, right, it's the college educated professional
Speaker 2: class who read the New York Times in New York,
Speaker 2: right and like and research all the candidates and do
Speaker 2: their duty and like. So it kind of like quasi
Speaker 2: disenfranchises voters that might be struggling a bit more or
Speaker 2: might not be kind of as news consuming. I'm not sure,
Speaker 2: like at quite so much, right, you know here, I mean,
Speaker 2: so to discuss the problem, we have a good freelance
Speaker 2: article silver Bolting about this last week, right, but like, so,
Speaker 2: what problem is you have? Like zo Ran Mamdani a
Speaker 2: former or current member of the Democratic Socialist of America right,
Speaker 2: so quite left ring but has left wing but has
Speaker 2: run like a attractive campaign. I mean he has good commercials.
Speaker 2: He's good looking, good looking guy. Right, he has some energy.
Speaker 2: He's young in a political environment where there's too many
Speaker 2: fucking old people. Right, you know, is quite far left. Yeah,
Speaker 2: is quite far left. But has proposals like free bus service,
Speaker 2: like city run grocery stores in food deserts, a thirty
Speaker 2: dollars an hour minimum wager. Thirty five are really high
Speaker 2: or something like that. Right, but like it's actually stuff
Speaker 2: that like kind of like poll tests pretty well, like
Speaker 2: a rent freeze, Like economists hate this idea, but like,
Speaker 2: but he has made it a very competitive race since Cuomo.
Speaker 2: But there are plenty of voters who think, I don't
Speaker 2: like either one. Right, Cuomo hasn't lived in New York
Speaker 2: in thirty years. He's a meat too stuff. He's a
Speaker 2: carp bagger. He's domineering. We don't want our own Trump.
Speaker 1: He eats Bagel's the wrong way.
Speaker 2: Zoran is too far to the left. People have issues
Speaker 2: with him on Israel if they're pro Israel, they is
Speaker 2: with him on budgeting and taxes and a lack of experience. Right,
Speaker 2: and you have like all these like technocrats like running
Speaker 2: in the center lane, Brad Lander, Adrian Adams, Scott Stringer,
Speaker 2: Zilar myrie. Right, you have a hedge funder named Whitney Tilson,
Speaker 2: I think, and so like. So you have like all
Speaker 2: these technocrats running, and what's going to happen is that,
Speaker 2: like you know, one of the technocrats are probably finished
Speaker 2: in third place and be eliminated, even though in principle
Speaker 2: you could have like an Adrian Adams or a Brad
Speaker 2: Lander who would win head to head against these two
Speaker 2: polarizing candidates.
Speaker 1: And we'll be back right after this.
Speaker 2: Now, the New York Times did something interesting, right, which
Speaker 2: is they they said, yeah, the Times declared a year
Speaker 2: or so ago that we're near going to endorse in
Speaker 2: local races, right.
Speaker 1: Which is bizarre. Right, Well, I don't.
Speaker 2: Think newspapers should make endorsements. I think it's not that Yeah.
Speaker 1: Fine, so if you don't think they should make an
Speaker 1: endorsements period, that makes sense. But if they're making endorsements
Speaker 1: in national elections, they.
Speaker 2: Do in local rates. I mean even mostly The New
Speaker 2: York Times endorse both Amyklobishar and Elizabeth Warren in the
Speaker 2: twenty twenty Democratic primary, right, which did neither any favors
Speaker 2: I don't think, right, and they do not use ranked
Speaker 2: choice voting in most states in the primary this time,
Speaker 2: they're like, don't vote for Zoran and rank Cuomo somewhere.
Speaker 2: But then like rank like Lander or Tilson first, and
Speaker 2: like I put the editorial through like different large language
Speaker 2: models AI models, Right, so we're like, yeah, it's tell
Speaker 2: you to vote for Brad Lander and then put Cuomo fifth.
Speaker 2: So like so if it comes down to Cuomo versus
Speaker 2: O run that he will he will prevail, right, but
Speaker 2: others were confused, right, these events almost like they kind
Speaker 2: of say all these mean things about Cuomo and the
Speaker 2: state of vote for him anyway, right, so very very
Speaker 2: weird and half assed. And then Lander has crossed endorsed
Speaker 2: mam donnie, and so it just kind of like it
Speaker 2: adds an element of randomness that to be fair, Cuomo
Speaker 2: is almost certain to win the first choice vote. Right,
Speaker 2: So in a normal Marri election, because there is kind
Speaker 2: of an anti Cuomo anybody but Cuomo coalition which is
Speaker 2: pretty broad right and have different flavors of it, right,
Speaker 2: and a normal election, Cuomo just wins, goes to the
Speaker 2: general election and so forth Right here, Ma'm Donnie has
Speaker 2: a decent chant. He's at twenty five percent on polymarket.
Speaker 2: Where as you probably know, I'm an advisor. And by
Speaker 2: the way, I was into Mam Donnie early. I thought, like,
Speaker 2: you know, here's a guy running a pretty energetic campaign
Speaker 2: at a moment when like, I don't think New York
Speaker 2: is like suddenly having some like progressive spawn. I think,
Speaker 2: like people are sick of the establishment, and no one's
Speaker 2: a bigger figure of the establishment than Cuomo, right, and
Speaker 2: he and he, you know, and he's running a campaign
Speaker 2: that feels a little bit different, and I think in
Speaker 2: in city elections it doesn't have to be so ideological anyway.
Speaker 2: Like I'm to his right, I would I wouldn't be
Speaker 2: terrified by his mayorship by any means at all. Right,
Speaker 2: but he's he's overperformed, almost underperformed. As a result, he
Speaker 2: has a real shot. The general election is a mess, however,
Speaker 2: because like all these candidates basically have vehicles that can
Speaker 2: run with various minor parties in the general election. Right,
Speaker 2: so you'll have already the current incumbent mayor, Eric Adams
Speaker 2: is running as an independent. You'll have Republican County. I
Speaker 2: think Curtis Silba, who's like the former Guardian Angel die right,
Speaker 2: and you could have both like Mam Donnie if he loses,
Speaker 2: could run on the working Famili's ticket Quoma if you lose.
Speaker 2: I think there's some special vehicle third party that could run.
Speaker 2: So rarely usually just a matter of the Democratic primary
Speaker 2: mattering we're going to have a competitive general election in
Speaker 2: New York too, it looks like and then it's very weird.
Speaker 2: Then you get into things where like then it's no
Speaker 2: longer ranked choice voting, and you have Cuomo and Adams
Speaker 2: have these kind of overlap right, and so you could
Speaker 2: see like mom Donnie wim with a plurality, even though
Speaker 2: he probably would lose with ranked choice voting. When you
Speaker 2: bring the more conservative voters in play, then there's probably
Speaker 2: in anybody but Buzo run coalition. So it's it's all
Speaker 2: kind of a mess. We like messes in.
Speaker 1: New York, Maria, but this particular mess, it is a
Speaker 1: particular mess. And you know something that I've seen that's
Speaker 1: kind of interesting because normally, you know, you have people
Speaker 1: like endorse candidates and say, you know, this is why
Speaker 1: you vote for this one in New York because of
Speaker 1: what happened last time, And because people don't quite get
Speaker 1: ranked choice all the time, I've been seeing a lot
Speaker 1: of people instead of saying, you know, vote for Zoron
Speaker 1: or whatever it is, they say, don't rank Cuomo, right, Like,
Speaker 1: that's the messaging has shifted to, like, just do not
Speaker 1: put him as any of your top five choices, even
Speaker 1: if you like would marginally like prefer him to someone else.
Speaker 1: And so that's like game theory, game theory, game theorifying.
Speaker 1: How do you do that game theorifying it to the
Speaker 1: next level right now? Telling people like, don't only rank
Speaker 1: this person, do not rank this person anywhere because we
Speaker 1: don't want votes to trickle down there. And yeah, so
Speaker 1: that's it's kind of an interesting way of figuring out, Okay,
Speaker 1: how do we game this. I'm very interested to see
Speaker 1: how it all plays out. Obviously I'm not voting in
Speaker 1: it because I'm in about a resident, but because you know,
Speaker 1: I have been a New York resident for many years
Speaker 1: and still still spend a lot of time there. It
Speaker 1: is something that is near and dear to my heart.
Speaker 2: And I'm not voting because I am a Rechester. I
Speaker 2: think I've told this story on the show I'm much
Speaker 2: in Republican in New York because I want to write
Speaker 2: you here to build against Donald Trump in twenty sixteen,
Speaker 2: were my vote matter more? It's very hard to change
Speaker 2: your vote. By the way, we do some breaking news here.
Speaker 2: This podcast is not produced in real time. One of
Speaker 2: the Maryle candidates, Brad Lander, the city comptroller, was just
Speaker 2: arrested outside of an immigration Here. City Comptroller Brad Landers
Speaker 2: and New York was arrested and accosted by massed federal
Speaker 2: agents at an immigration court in Lower Manhattan. Is the
Speaker 2: photo caption I'm reading. There is a photo of him
Speaker 2: looking I don't know, dramatically kind of in like a
Speaker 2: I guess it's not quite a chokehold or is it.
Speaker 2: But he's arrested in a somewhat violent struggle. And this
Speaker 2: is important because now Brad Lander is a going to
Speaker 2: generate headlines and now he's a focal point. I mean,
Speaker 2: now he kind of got the quasi New York Times
Speaker 2: endorsement and like now Brad Landers and the news, right,
Speaker 2: that's interesting. That could affect things. Yeah, I don't know
Speaker 2: if it was deliberate.
Speaker 1: If it's deliberate, it's incredibly smart because you just mentioned
Speaker 1: a term that I actually think we should just talk
Speaker 1: about a little bit when it comes to rank choice voting,
Speaker 1: which is focal points. Right, when you have to rank
Speaker 1: five candidates, when you have all this cognitive load, and
Speaker 1: it's really difficult to figure out, Okay, where do I
Speaker 1: actually stand? Focal points matter, right, So it's actually incredibly important,
Speaker 1: like who can command the attention, who can be in
Speaker 1: your mind?
Speaker 2: Right?
Speaker 1: We have recency effects, We have those types of biases
Speaker 1: that like if someone is on your mind for whatever
Speaker 1: reason and has like a slightly positive bent for you
Speaker 1: might not even remember that it was because of this arrest.
Speaker 1: I mean, obviously now you will because it's so close
Speaker 1: to the election, but it will make you much more
Speaker 1: likely to be like, oh, you know, I have a
Speaker 1: good feeling about this person. I'm going to rank them,
Speaker 1: even if it actually has nothing to do with the election. Right, Like,
Speaker 1: if you think about it, he didn't suddenly become a
Speaker 1: better or a worse candidate just because of this one thing,
Speaker 1: But in your mind, something shifts, and all of a
Speaker 1: sudden those votes shift as well. Really interesting psychological phenomenon,
Speaker 1: which is why if this was actually on purpose, it's
Speaker 1: kind of a brilliant strategy. If it wasn't on purpose,
Speaker 1: it still might actually work out, what's polymarket saying night,
Speaker 1: So he's.
Speaker 2: Up to two percent from like zero percent.
Speaker 1: That's a big that's a big move in just a
Speaker 1: few minutes.
Speaker 2: And he's already had again this kind of New York Times.
Speaker 2: They kind of whistled out of making an actual endorsement, right,
Speaker 2: but they kind of implicitly endorsed him. And now if
Speaker 2: it's Machiavelian politics and good job brand Lander, you just
Speaker 2: gave yourself a shot.
Speaker 1: Yeah you did, indeed. Yeah, And this is the kind
Speaker 1: of stuff that actually ends up mattering because we're human
Speaker 1: and you know this is the way the brain works.
Speaker 2: No, Like just you know, name recognition is useful, right,
Speaker 2: because you want to be listened somewhere, right, Like like
Speaker 2: there's tons ofs around poster stuff in my neighborhood all
Speaker 2: over the city. It's like, oh, I know this guy
Speaker 2: is and I like, I like Lander or whatever, right,
Speaker 2: but like I've heard of this guy, and I feel
Speaker 2: I'll be able to listen five people and I've heard
Speaker 2: of this guy. I'm not gonna go for somebody I
Speaker 2: didn't know, right, So, like so this is this is interesting.
Speaker 2: Maybe I don't. Yeah, I'm not quite sure if it's
Speaker 2: a three way race now, but like it's it's well, well.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we'll see what happens.
Speaker 2: And we'll be right back after this break.
Speaker 1: So, Nate, a few weeks ago you were at the
Speaker 1: Manifest Conference and you had some interesting takeaways about AI
Speaker 1: twenty twenty seven, which we've talked about on the show before,
Speaker 1: and you know, before we get into all of that,
Speaker 1: do you just want to let our listeners know what
Speaker 1: exactly the Manifest Conference is because it's kind of a
Speaker 1: big deal in the AI community, right.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, just a week ago. I mean it feels like
Speaker 2: I've been in Vegas for like three weeks. It's just
Speaker 2: been eight days. I think it's by eight.
Speaker 1: Time warps during the World Series of Fucker.
Speaker 2: Yeah. The Manifest Conference is held by a prediction market
Speaker 2: called Manifold, which is a market where you trade for
Speaker 2: free trade for a world called mana are kind of
Speaker 2: like credibility points basically, but people take it very seriously. However,
Speaker 2: it's like kind of the de facto and there are
Speaker 2: other conferences that I don't go to in the Bay Area.
Speaker 2: It's like the de facto grouping of like this overlap
Speaker 2: of prediction market nerds plus other adjacent people rationalists, effective
Speaker 2: vutru withs. Some listeners will know what all these terms
Speaker 2: mean if you read my book. There's a big detailed
Speaker 2: schema of like what these different groups are, right, you know,
Speaker 2: various nerledgses. Like a poker tournament there that I preicipaid
Speaker 2: in some years. You know, it's kind of like effective
Speaker 2: altruists meet degenerate gamblers, right, you know it's sponsored by.
Speaker 1: Sorry, I'm just gonna interject, it's not defective altruists and
Speaker 1: degenerate gamblers. But I think it was last year's Manifest
Speaker 1: conference maybe the year before, where there was a market
Speaker 1: on the chances of an orgy happening, and then the
Speaker 1: market went to one hundred after the orgy happened. So
Speaker 1: so you know, it's people have fun there.
Speaker 2: There's lots of stuff. It's a weird enviigronment. Right. You're
Speaker 2: on this actually quite pretty little campus in Berkeley called
Speaker 2: light Haven, Right, but like everything kind of takes place
Speaker 2: inside light Haven, and like there's like a like a
Speaker 2: cuddle party at some point, and there's like a there you.
Speaker 1: Go cuddle party listeners, cuddle party, I have big air
Speaker 1: quotes in my.
Speaker 2: There's all this discussion about like, uh, will the world
Speaker 2: then because of AI? And is that? Is that good
Speaker 2: or bad? Right? It's uh. In other way, it's a
Speaker 2: pretty street list cloud by my friends and I the
Speaker 2: Substack crew and I Substack is a sponsor, as is
Speaker 2: probably Market, both of which I am an investor in.
Speaker 2: So I'm over determined to be at this conference. So
Speaker 2: you know we have to like sneak sneak some wine in.
Speaker 2: We're like, you got to bring on more wine, right,
Speaker 2: people are socializing here, you gotta bring out some more wine.
Speaker 2: And it's like missed crowd and like, yeah, it's a
Speaker 2: very interesting. It's weird kind of going from that environment
Speaker 2: to the poker world where like I think I kind
Speaker 2: of have so I castually talked about it last week,
Speaker 2: but like the Bay Area feels distant to me, right,
Speaker 2: I don't mean that in a pejorative way. I mean
Speaker 2: like the fact that AI is so top of mind
Speaker 2: for people, and that you have people who think that
Speaker 2: like we are on the verge of an intelligence explosion
Speaker 2: or singularity or artificial superintelligence. Right, these they're all like
Speaker 2: slightly different terms, but that's a commonly held belief in
Speaker 2: that community, Whereas you adventure outside of that community and
Speaker 2: people would think you were fucking crazy to think that
Speaker 2: we're gonna be building Dyson spheres or whatever in a
Speaker 2: few years. Right now, I feel like I'm a little
Speaker 2: bit of a hinge point between the kind of normy
Speaker 2: crowd and the AI tech rationalist crowd. Like relative to
Speaker 2: people at Manifest, I'm like, Okay, I think we're geting
Speaker 2: a little bit ahead of ourselves, which is assuming that,
Speaker 2: like we are on the verge of artificial super intelligence, right,
Speaker 2: we can discuss that or not, right. And I'm also like,
Speaker 2: I'm not so sure, Like what the fucker I mean,
Speaker 2: you know, you're transforming all of society. Shouldn't society get
Speaker 2: a say in that, even if you think it's good? Right?
Speaker 2: Whereas relative to norm people think, okay, you're sleeping on
Speaker 2: the fact that we are maybe on the verge of
Speaker 2: profound changes even from artificial general intelligence disruptions to how
Speaker 2: people live, how people work, certainly how people perceive the world.
Speaker 2: And so like, I'm kind of a bridge observation there,
Speaker 2: but like, yeah, so we talked about the AI twenty
Speaker 2: twenty seven report on this podcast before when it came out,
Speaker 2: which is a kind of forecast, a scenario, kind of
Speaker 2: somewhere between. They call it like a forecaster or a prediction.
Speaker 2: It's like a deterministic prediction conditional on fairly fast AI development,
Speaker 2: and kind of presents one scenario where AI decides even
Speaker 2: being Seria a threat to its growth and sends out
Speaker 2: drones and kills every human sometime I think in the
Speaker 2: mid to late twenty thirties, and then one scenario where
Speaker 2: we agree to de escalate with China and the world
Speaker 2: is profoundly transformed into an AI utopiatopia that some people
Speaker 2: might also call a dystopia. But at least we survive
Speaker 2: as the AI's concubines or whatever. We are exactly right,
Speaker 2: which apparently they think is the happy ending. Right. It
Speaker 2: was interesting that, like at that conference though, I went
Speaker 2: to an update and they were kind of pushing back
Speaker 2: the timelines. Right, They're like things a little bit slower
Speaker 2: than we thought, right, you know, one big benchmark, so
Speaker 2: ais that are agentic that for can example, search the
Speaker 2: web to do tasks like that's still not implemented. I'm
Speaker 2: sure it will be at some point, But maybe I
Speaker 2: should back up, right, Like I am skeptical of claims.
Speaker 2: So the different terms here, right, Right now, we have
Speaker 2: what I would call spikey or patchy general intelligence for
Speaker 2: like desk jobs, right jobs, And you know, we're not
Speaker 2: near having like an AI plumber. We do have AI
Speaker 2: automated driving, but that required and it's pretty good in
Speaker 2: my opinion, but still only in a handful of cities,
Speaker 2: require a lot of very dedicated devotion to that particular task. Right,
Speaker 2: That's some important technology, right, But like, so first of all,
Speaker 2: we're mostly restricting us to things in the realm of
Speaker 2: single manipulation computer, remote desk job type of stuff, right,
Speaker 2: and that's already kind of patchy. There are many things
Speaker 2: that AI is already much better than humans at. But
Speaker 2: like it can't really can't really search the web, It
Speaker 2: can't really book a flight or make a restaurant reservation
Speaker 2: for you, can't play poker, can't play chess. Right, The
Speaker 2: image generation capabilities are pretty good, but you know, show
Speaker 2: some AI artis facts, right, But yeah, you know I
Speaker 2: think too, you know, with they but is that eventually
Speaker 2: AIS will learn to program themselves, right, and you'll have
Speaker 2: recursive improvement toward toward not just artificial general intelligence, but
Speaker 2: then artificial superintelligence, right where it's discovering things that like
Speaker 2: human beings have not discovered and and you know, become
Speaker 2: hyper persuasive. And I am skeptical of this for various reasons, right,
Speaker 2: One which I just think it's like kind of like
Speaker 2: it's kind of underdetermined, right, like their uganizations like, hey, look,
Speaker 2: so far we've been on a on a exactly a
Speaker 2: logarithmic right, but as you add more compute, you have
Speaker 2: these scaling laws laws, quote unquote, right, Whereas you have
Speaker 2: more compute, things get more intelligent. And it's been a
Speaker 2: fairly predictable trajectory so far, and so far the progress
Speaker 2: is remarkable. Right if you had told somebody what chet
Speaker 2: rept or Claude or Google Gemini can do, if you
Speaker 2: told them that ten years ago, to be fucking amazed
Speaker 2: that it can do many of these things quite well,
Speaker 2: and some things excellently with natural language, and like they're
Speaker 2: very very impressive, right, But like, but kind of when
Speaker 2: it comes down to it, the argument is basically just
Speaker 2: and I know I don't sound rigorous, so I start
Speaker 2: a lot of time thinking about this, they're just like, well,
Speaker 2: air linees going up, line will keep going up, and
Speaker 2: if line keeps going up, then that inevitably means that
Speaker 2: we pass super intelligence, right, And I don't think it's
Speaker 2: in nonemble the line keeps going up, because I've seen
Speaker 2: a lot of lines that keep going up until they don't.
Speaker 2: That's one thing, right. Also, because it's trained on human data,
Speaker 2: and so it seems like if it's trained on human
Speaker 2: data and has human reinforcement, very importantly, without human reinforcement,
Speaker 2: these things get pretty wacky, right, best Ti, I'm very
Speaker 2: underwhelmed by the case for like how quickly this wollth
Speaker 2: transformed in the physical world and how quickly it achieves
Speaker 2: beyond human capabilities, And I feel like a heathen in
Speaker 2: the AI community to be skeptical about this. But this
Speaker 2: very long winded anecdote and the other reason too, I'm
Speaker 2: sorry I'm babbling on for ye I do that sometimes, right, honestly,
Speaker 2: Like they're not like really describing political constraints, like you know,
Speaker 2: Sam Altman wrote, and Essa, I'm going probably write about
Speaker 2: at the newsletter soon where it's like we're gonna have
Speaker 2: a singularity, meaning we have this explosion of new technology
Speaker 2: and intelligence, right, but it'll all feel pretty normal and
Speaker 2: well cove right. I'm like, no, Sam, no, it's not
Speaker 2: gonna happen. Right, We're not gonna have a fucking singularity
Speaker 2: where we have as much technological progress in three years
Speaker 2: as we had in the entire hundreds of thousands of
Speaker 2: years of human and proto human species, right where she's like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 2: sits look different. No one has a job anymore, right,
Speaker 2: And you know, yeah, no, it's not gonna be just
Speaker 2: a gentle singularity that doesn't make any fucking sense. And
Speaker 2: the reason why it's used to go to conferences like
Speaker 2: Manifest is that you realize that, like people are out
Speaker 2: on a bit of an island, the Bay Area is
Speaker 2: far away from the rest of the country, right, it's
Speaker 2: a little insular and so like. And that affects my
Speaker 2: views a bit because like, you're not I think sufficiently
Speaker 2: counting for like societal political constraints, backlash and so forth.
Speaker 2: So I at a great time at the conference, go
Speaker 2: to connect with people who have because of course I'm
Speaker 2: online before they've never met in person. And but yeah,
Speaker 2: that was my experience. I went on for like ten minutes.
Speaker 2: Maria so it's your turn to tell me what I'm
Speaker 2: full of shit about.
Speaker 1: No, well, well I'm not sure since I was obviously
Speaker 1: not at the conference, but I'm actually quite curious. So
Speaker 1: the you know, you said that the authors of the
Speaker 1: AI twenty twenty seven report were there and that they
Speaker 1: have kind of modified their timeline a little bit. Did
Speaker 1: you get a chance to kind of get at whether
Speaker 1: they're thinking has fundamentally changed as well, or whether they
Speaker 1: now just think that, okay, it might be a little
Speaker 1: bit slower.
Speaker 2: Well, so for one thing, it's a little bit hard
Speaker 2: to know, like are they making a prediction that they
Speaker 2: would like bet on or are they trying to like
Speaker 2: draw attention to what they view as a plausible scenario.
Speaker 2: And there probably is some incentive you're trying to draw
Speaker 2: attention to, like to produce more in dramatic I mean,
Speaker 2: it's a story they had Scott Alexander, who is one
Speaker 2: of my favorite writers. Yeah, writes format for Slate, Star
Speaker 2: Codecs now at astrostar Codecs to like just punch up
Speaker 2: the writing and it's a beautifully written, interesting document, right,
Speaker 2: But like, but there's a little bit of like we
Speaker 2: want to get attention. They let me have a chat
Speaker 2: with them before and gave me a preview of the report, right,
Speaker 2: and like so, like, I think you can probably like
Speaker 2: discount a little bit based on the incentive to like
Speaker 2: painted more robust picture and not just hedge a bit.
Speaker 2: And like, I just think that, like I have become
Speaker 2: increasingly unpersuaded why people think we can make this leap
Speaker 2: from agi, which I think people will have things people
Speaker 2: call artificial general that basically you can do most desk
Speaker 2: jobs people, some people say all dusk jobs. Right, Let's
Speaker 2: say you can do the large majority of dusk jobs
Speaker 2: as well or better than the large majority of human beings. Right,
Speaker 2: I think that's a pretty safe assumption, hedging now with
Speaker 2: saying the large majority as opposed to all, and then
Speaker 2: we're not that far from that. Well, we can debate that, right,
Speaker 2: the leap to the physical world and to super intelligence.
Speaker 2: I just I've read all these reports, I've talked to
Speaker 2: lots of people. I just think they take that too
Speaker 2: much for granted, and I think they need to like
Speaker 2: treat it as a possibility. But like, I think it's
Speaker 2: really underdetermined as far as like a persuasive explanation of that.
Speaker 2: For me conditional upon that. Then I think these reports
Speaker 2: like underestimate like the societal piece, society resists and pushes back,
Speaker 2: I mean like yeah.
Speaker 1: Well not just resisting and pushing back. I mean I
Speaker 1: think this kind of like almost dismissive attitude, like what
Speaker 1: you were saying with Sam Altman, like yeah, it's going
Speaker 1: to happen and we'll cope. Like no, this is going
Speaker 1: to cause if it does happen, even to some extent,
Speaker 1: there's going to be massive disruption, right, and it's not
Speaker 1: going to be peaceful. People do not like their jobs
Speaker 1: being taken away. And you know, it's interesting because we
Speaker 1: talked on the show before where there were you know,
Speaker 1: union workers striking at ports where some of their jobs
Speaker 1: we were getting automated and that was basically less work
Speaker 1: for them, and so technically it was actually kind of better,
Speaker 1: but practically speaking, they were like no way, right, Like
Speaker 1: you're taking away jobs, you're taking away hours, Like we
Speaker 1: don't want this kind of marginal efficiency from these robotic things.
Speaker 1: We want, you know, we want our workers getting money.
Speaker 1: And they were effective, right, like they stopped working. The
Speaker 1: strikes actually worked, and that's kind of one one very
Speaker 1: small piece of it and in a place where, like
Speaker 1: the disruption, it's not like they were all going to
Speaker 1: be out of jobs. It was just kind of it
Speaker 1: was relatively small, probably didn't feel relatively small to them,
Speaker 1: but it was a relatively small piece of this larger mosaic.
Speaker 1: But if you get those kinds of protests, even with
Speaker 1: something like that, imagine the pushback that you're going to
Speaker 1: get in different in different areas if that starts becoming.
Speaker 2: So, we just came off a weekend in which we
Speaker 2: had mass political protests and no King's protest. Right, you
Speaker 2: have maybe most importantly of all, Israel bombing Iran because
Speaker 2: of technology. Right. I don't want to take a very
Speaker 2: serious situation and make too cute an analogy, but like
Speaker 2: here you have technology that like iran suclear program, that
Speaker 2: Israel feels could be threatening to its interest or to
Speaker 2: global interest, right, and they're bombing the hell out of
Speaker 2: Iran right now. Right, So to think that like you're
Speaker 2: going to have these profound transformations and the world kind
Speaker 2: of stands idly by, right, And the fact that people
Speaker 2: kind of in what I call the river, right, the
Speaker 2: DC types are often clueless and dismissive about AI. It's
Speaker 2: actually a reason to think that the political reaction is
Speaker 2: not priced in, right, It's kind of intuitive, but because
Speaker 2: eventually it will be people when when they're jobs, if
Speaker 2: and when, if and when, if and when their jobs
Speaker 2: are threatened, if and when it profoundly rebalances power, if
Speaker 2: and when it potentially makes the US and China be
Speaker 2: huge hedgemonds relative to the rest of the world. It's
Speaker 2: all too superpowers. But if now Europe and the Middle
Speaker 2: East and everyone else is behind, right, Like, what's that
Speaker 2: going to mean? And so like, yeah, not wrestling, And
Speaker 2: they're two ways to read that. One way to read
Speaker 2: it is that like, okay, that means they're not pricing
Speaker 2: in the constraints society, the legal system, resource constraints. It
Speaker 2: just kind of seems incongruous to have this world where
Speaker 2: the Middle East is at war. Who knows when China
Speaker 2: and Taiwama go to war. Ukraine's still at war, right democracy.
Speaker 2: I don't want to be overly dramatic, right, but like,
Speaker 2: but you know, Trump presents certain threats for the US. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and it's like, you know, global world, it's like kind
Speaker 2: of what are we it is that going to be a.
Speaker 1: Smooth so you'll, I mean, no, none of this is smooth.
Speaker 1: And I think that you also cannot underestimate humans survival instinct, right,
Speaker 1: and they're kind of their their desire not just to survive,
Speaker 1: but to like they don't like having things taken away
Speaker 1: from them. And you know, at some point like this
Speaker 1: is you know, if we if we look at the
Speaker 1: kind of big theories histories of the world, like none
Speaker 1: none of those transitions were ever smooth, right, and and
Speaker 1: people do start rising up and rebelling, and we're seeing
Speaker 1: unrest all over the world and as you say, Nate,
Speaker 1: you know, climate change, all of these things. We are
Speaker 1: not living in a nice, peaceful, like sunny moment in
Speaker 1: time where like everything is just going well and people
Speaker 1: have become complacent. We were, but now I think that
Speaker 1: that complacency is fading, and a lot of that angst
Speaker 1: and frustration is boiling up in different ways to the surface.
Speaker 1: So I think that this is Yeah, I think that
Speaker 1: this is going to be profoundly disruptive. And so we'll
Speaker 1: just see how that plays out, right and at what point,
Speaker 1: Because I think you made a good point at the
Speaker 1: beginning of our conversation about this that San Francisco is
Speaker 1: a little bit of an island, and I'm putting San
Speaker 1: Francisco here in quotes because letting it stand in for
Speaker 1: kind of that community. And it's an echo chamber, right,
Speaker 1: because you have these people who are all together, all
Speaker 1: in the same place, going to the same events, talking
Speaker 1: to each other, reinforcing each other's ideas. And when that happens,
Speaker 1: like that's that's never good, right, Like the best things,
Speaker 1: best ideas, best businesses, best transitions happen where you have
Speaker 1: more outsiders and people who are open to kind of
Speaker 1: different views, different backgrounds, you know, just different types of
Speaker 1: people coming together. And that's not what's happening in this
Speaker 1: little It is a little bit of a bubble. And
Speaker 1: so I think that that's just really important to keep
Speaker 1: in mind in terms of what we're seeing now and
Speaker 1: also what we're likely to see unless something changes, because
Speaker 1: you know, unless that bubble pops, like they're thinking, will
Speaker 1: still be reinforcing each other for for a while.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Look, it's frustrat because I don't know as much
Speaker 2: about AI as sure as people do, right, and they're
Speaker 2: kind of COMMUNI accusation. Well, we sent more time thinking
Speaker 2: about this. Well, I know more about politics than they
Speaker 2: do than any of them do, right, And so like
Speaker 2: I'm trying to like, I'm trying to serve as a
Speaker 2: bridge between these two kinds of communities, so to speak.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, let's let's see how it all plays out, Nate.
Speaker 1: I'm very curious, you know, once you get invest invested,
Speaker 1: once you get invited into the Manifest conference next year,
Speaker 1: what happens and how that how that thinking might shift.
Speaker 1: Let's definitely, you know, I think this is a topic
Speaker 1: that we come back to often for a good reason,
Speaker 1: and I think it's something that we have to keep
Speaker 1: revisiting to see what's changed or hasn't changed, and how
Speaker 1: we feel about that. On that note, let's leave the
Speaker 1: world of AI behind and enter our other bubble, Nate,
Speaker 1: of poker, and best of luck to the two of
Speaker 1: us as we hit the tables this week. Let's let's
Speaker 1: try to reclaim some of our poker glory.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's no poker on the show next week. That
Speaker 2: means we sucked.
Speaker 1: Yes, if we don't talk about it, you know how
Speaker 1: it's going. Good luck to the two of us night,
Speaker 1: see you at the tables. See let us know what
Speaker 1: you think of the show. Reach out to us at
Speaker 1: Risky Business at pushkin dot fm. And by the way,
Speaker 1: if you're a Pushkin Plus subscriber, we have some bonus
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Speaker 1: Risky Business is hosted by me Maria Kanikova and by
Speaker 1: me Nate Silver.
Speaker 2: The show is a co production of Pushkin Industries and iHeartMedia.
Speaker 2: This episode was produced by Isabelle Carter. Our associate producer
Speaker 2: is Sonia Gerwitz, Sally helm As our editor, and our
Speaker 2: executive producer is Jacob Goldstein. Mixing by Sarah Bruger.
Speaker 1: Thanks so much for tuning in.