Dwarkesh Podcast

<p>Read the essay <a target="_blank" href="https://www.dwarkesh.com/p/thoughts-on-ai-progress-dec-2025-video">here</a>.</p><p>Timestamps</p><p>00:00:00 What are we scaling?</p><p>00:03:11 The value of human labor</p><p>00:05:04 Economic diffusion lag is cope00:06:34 Goal-post shifting is justified</p><p>00:08:23 RL scaling</p><p>00:09:18 Broadly deployed intelligence explosion</p> <br/><br/>Get full access to Dwarkesh Podcast at <a href="https://www.dwarkesh.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&#38;utm_campaign=CTA_4">www.dwarkesh.com/subscribe</a>

<p>This is the final episode of the Sarah Paine lecture series, and it’s probably my favorite one. Sarah gives a “tour of the arguments” on what ultimately led to the Soviet Union’s collapse, diving into the role of the US, the Sino-Soviet border conflict, the oil bust, ethnic rebellions and even the Roman Catholic Church. As she points out, this is all particularly interesting as we find ourselves potentially at the beginning of another Cold War.</p><p>As we wrap up this lecture series, I want to take a moment to thank Sarah for doing this with me. It has been such a pleasure.</p><p>If you want more of her scholarship, I highly recommend checking out the books she’s written. You can find them <a target="_blank" href="https://www.amazon.com/stores/S.-C.-M.-Paine/author/B001HCVOTG">here</a>.</p><p>Watch on <a target="_blank" href="https://youtu.be/FdkpWrlR5zg">YouTube</a>; read the <a target="_blank" href="https://www.dwarkesh.com/p/sarah-paine-cold-war">transcript</a>.</p><p>Sponsors</p><p>* <a target="_blank" href="https://labelbox.com/dwarkesh">Labelbox</a> can get you the training data you need, no matter the domain. Their Alignerr network includes the STEM PhDs and coding experts you’d expect, but it also has experienced cinematographers and talented voice actors to help train frontier video and audio models. Learn more at <a target="_blank" href="http://labelbox.com/dwarkesh">labelbox.com/dwarkesh</a>.</p><p>* <a target="_blank" href="https://sardine.ai/dwarkesh">Sardine</a> doesn’t just assess customer risk for banking & retail. Their AI risk management platform is also extremely good at detecting fraudulent job applications, which I’ve found useful for my own hiring process. If you need help with hiring risk—or any other type of fraud prevention—go to <a target="_blank" href="https://sardine.ai/dwarkesh">sardine.ai/dwarkesh</a>.</p><p>* <a target="_blank" href="https://gemini.google.com">Gemini’s</a> Nano Banana Pro helped us make many of the visuals in this episode. For example, we used it to turn dense tables into clear charts so that’d it be easier to quickly understand the trends that Sarah discusses. You can try Nano Banana Pro now in the Gemini app. Go to <a target="_blank" href="https://gemini.google.com">gemini.google.com</a>.</p><p>Timestamps</p><p>(00:00:00) – Did Reagan single-handedly win the Cold War?</p><p>(00:15:53) – Eastern Bloc uprisings & oil crisis</p><p>(00:30:37) – Gorbachev’s mistakes</p><p>(00:37:33) – German unification and NATO expansion</p><p>(00:48:31) – The Gulf War and the Cold War endgame</p><p>(00:56:10) – How central planning survived so long</p><p>(01:14:46) – Sarah’s life in the USSR in 1988</p> <br/><br/>Get full access to Dwarkesh Podcast at <a href="https://www.dwarkesh.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&#38;utm_campaign=CTA_4">www.dwarkesh.com/subscribe</a>

<p>Ilya & I discuss SSI’s strategy, the problems with pre-training, how to improve the generalization of AI models, and how to ensure AGI goes well.</p><p>Watch on <a target="_blank" href="https://youtu.be/aR20FWCCjAs">YouTube</a>; read the <a target="_blank" href="https://www.dwarkesh.com/p/ilya-sutskever-2">transcript</a>.</p><p>Sponsors</p><p>* <a target="_blank" href="https://gemini.google">Gemini 3</a> is the first model I’ve used that can find connections I haven’t anticipated. I recently wrote a blog post on RL’s information efficiency, and Gemini 3 helped me think it all through. It also generated the relevant charts and ran toy ML experiments for me with zero bugs. Try Gemini 3 today at <a target="_blank" href="https://gemini.google">gemini.google</a></p><p>* <a target="_blank" href="https://labelbox.com/dwarkesh">Labelbox</a> helped me create a tool to transcribe our episodes! I’ve struggled with transcription in the past because I don’t just want verbatim transcripts, I want transcripts reworded to read like essays. Labelbox helped me generate the <em>exact</em> data I needed for this. If you want to learn how Labelbox can help you (or if you want to try out the transcriber tool yourself), go to <a target="_blank" href="https://labelbox.com/dwarkesh">labelbox.com/dwarkesh</a></p><p>* <a target="_blank" href="https://sardine.ai/dwarkesh">Sardine</a> is an AI risk management platform that brings together thousands of device, behavior, and identity signals to help you assess a user’s risk of fraud & abuse. Sardine also offers a suite of agents to automate investigations so that as fraudsters use AI to scale their attacks, you can use AI to scale your defenses. Learn more at <a target="_blank" href="https://sardine.ai/dwarkesh">sardine.ai/dwarkesh</a></p><p>To sponsor a future episode, visit <a target="_blank" href="https://www.dwarkesh.com/advertise">dwarkesh.com/advertise</a>.</p><p>Timestamps</p><p>(00:00:00) – Explaining model jaggedness</p><p>(00:09:39) - Emotions and value functions</p><p>(00:18:49) – What are we scaling?</p><p>(00:25:13) – Why humans generalize better than models</p><p>(00:35:45) – SSI’s plan to straight-shot superintelligence</p><p>(00:46:47) – SSI’s model will learn from deployment</p><p>(00:55:07) – How to think about powerful AGIs</p><p>(01:18:13) – “We are squarely an age of research company”</p><p>(01:20:23) – Self-play and multi-agent</p><p>(01:32:42) – Research taste</p> <br/><br/>Get full access to Dwarkesh Podcast at <a href="https://www.dwarkesh.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&#38;utm_campaign=CTA_4">www.dwarkesh.com/subscribe</a>

<p>As part of this interview, Satya Nadella gave Dylan Patel (founder of <a target="_blank" href="https://semianalysis.com/">SemiAnalysis</a>) and me an exclusive first-look at their brand-new Fairwater 2 datacenter.</p><p>Microsoft is building multiple Fairwaters, each of which has hundreds of thousands of GB200s & GB300s. Between all these interconnected buildings, they’ll have over 2 GW of total capacity. Just to give a frame of reference, even a single one of these Fairwater buildings is more powerful than any other AI datacenter that currently exists.</p><p>Satya then answered a bunch of questions about how Microsoft is preparing for AGI across all layers of the stack.</p><p>Watch on <a target="_blank" href="https://youtu.be/8-boBsWcr5A">YouTube</a>; read the <a target="_blank" href="https://www.dwarkesh.com/p/satya-nadella-2">transcript</a>.</p><p>Sponsors</p><p>* <a target="_blank" href="https://labelbox.com/dwarkesh">Labelbox</a> produces high-quality data at massive scale, powering any capability you want your model to have. Whether you’re building a voice agent, a coding assistant, or a robotics model, Labelbox gets you the exact data you need, fast. Reach out at <a target="_blank" href="https://labelbox.com/dwarkesh">labelbox.com/dwarkesh</a></p><p>* <a target="_blank" href="https://coderabbit.ai/">CodeRabbit</a> automatically reviews and summarizes PRs so you can understand changes and catch bugs in half the time. This is helpful whether you’re coding solo, collaborating with agents, or leading a full team. To learn how CodeRabbit integrates directly into your workflow, go to <a target="_blank" href="https://coderabbit.ai/">coderabbit.ai</a></p><p>To sponsor a future episode, visit <a target="_blank" href="https://www.dwarkesh.com/advertise">dwarkesh.com/advertise</a>.</p><p>Timestamps</p><p>(00:00:00) - Fairwater 2</p><p>(00:03:20) - Business models for AGI</p><p>(00:12:48) - Copilot</p><p>(00:20:02) - Whose margins will expand most?</p><p>(00:36:17) - MAI</p><p>(00:47:47) - The hyperscale business</p><p>(01:02:44) - In-house chip & OpenAI partnership</p><p>(01:09:35) - The CAPEX explosion</p><p>(01:15:07) - Will the world trust US companies to lead AI?</p> <br/><br/>Get full access to Dwarkesh Podcast at <a href="https://www.dwarkesh.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&#38;utm_campaign=CTA_4">www.dwarkesh.com/subscribe</a>

<p>In this lecture, military historian Sarah Paine explains how Russia—and specifically Stalin—completely derailed China’s rise, slowing them down for over a century.</p><p>This lecture was particularly interesting to me because, in my opinion, the Chinese Civil War is 1 of the top 3 most important events of the 20th century. And to understand why it transpired as it did, you need to understand Stalin’s role in the whole thing.</p><p>Watch on <a target="_blank" href="https://youtu.be/RH_ycZYH8-s">YouTube</a>; read the <a target="_blank" href="https://www.dwarkesh.com/p/sarah-paine-russo-chinese">transcript</a>.</p><p><strong>Sponsors</strong></p><p><a target="_blank" href="https://mercury.com">Mercury</a> helps you run your business better. It’s the banking platform we use for the podcast — we love that we can see our cash balance, AR, and AP all in one place. Join us (and over 200,000 other entrepreneurs) at <a target="_blank" href="https://mercury.com">mercury.com</a></p><p><a target="_blank" href="https://labelbox.com/dwarkesh">Labelbox</a> scrutinizes public benchmarks at the single data-row level to probe what’s really being evaluated. Using this knowledge, they can generate custom training data for hill climbing existing benchmarks, or design new benchmarks from scratch. Learn more at <a target="_blank" href="https://mercury.com">labelbox.com/dwarkesh</a></p><p>To sponsor a future episode, visit <a target="_blank" href="https://www.dwarkesh.com/advertise">dwarkesh.com/advertise</a>.</p><p><strong>Timestamps</strong></p><p>(00:00:00) – How Russia took advantage of China’s weakness</p><p>(00:22:58) – After Stalin, China’s rise</p><p>(00:33:52) – Russian imperialism</p><p>(00:45:23) – China’s and Russia’s existential problems</p><p>(01:04:55) – Q&A: Sino-Soviet Split</p><p>(01:22:44) – Stalin’s lessons from WW2</p> <br/><br/>Get full access to Dwarkesh Podcast at <a href="https://www.dwarkesh.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&#38;utm_campaign=CTA_4">www.dwarkesh.com/subscribe</a>