ACX Everywhere 2023 - Austin Edition - A.I. Optimism and Pro-Natalist Propaganda

ACX Everywhere 2023

Hello, and Welcome to ACX Everywhere 2023.

I’m Andrew Willsen, and this episode is a series of candid conversations recorded at an ACX Everywhere Meetup in Austin, Texas, in September of 2023. There are two main topics of conversation in this episode, and both are on the optimistic side. The first part is a conversation about AGI and how we might get there, with some interesting takes from Peter Voss of Aigo.ai. The second part of this episode explores pro-natalism how being part of a rationalist community can be incredibly helpful for people thinking about having children. There is a post-cynical optimism that pervades both conversations, something I'm a big fan of. Big thanks to Silas, the ACX Austin Meetup coordinator.

If you're new here, ACX stands for Astral Codex Ten, which is a rationalist blog written by Scott Alexander. Scott is a doctor on the US West Coast, and is currently working on new models for mental health care at Lorien Psychiatry.

I'm doing this podcast because it's hard to know what an ACX meetup is if you've never been to one, mostly because people don't believe you when you tell them about it. My hope is that these recordings will make it easier for people to discover ACX and to hopefully get a sense of whether or not ACX might be for them. And, just to make it more personal, if you want more high quality conversations in your life, ACX might be for you.

If you’re interested in attending an ACX Meetup in Fall of 2023, click here. You will find a list of over 170 meetups happening around the world in September and October of 2023, hopefully there is one near you.

Thanks for checking out these conversations, I hope you find them as interesting as I do. If you are interested in hearing more conversations about ideas associated with Rationalism check out the podcast Rationally Speaking, with Julia Galef, it's great.

Cheers,

Andrew