Shams was trained in theoretical physics before becoming an AI engineer at DeepMind and founding the company Mutable, which was acquired by Google. He is now lead engineer for Google's software agent group.
Steve and Omar discuss:
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Steve Hsu is Professor of Theoretical Physics and of Computational Mathematics, Science, and Engineering at Michigan State University. Previously, he was Senior Vice President for Research and Innovation at MSU and Director of the Institute of Theoretical Science at the University of Oregon. Hsu is a startup founder (SuperFocus.ai, SafeWeb, Genomic Prediction, Othram) and advisor to venture capital and other investment firms. He was educated at Caltech and Berkeley, was a Harvard Junior Fellow, and has held faculty positions at Yale, the University of Oregon, and MSU. Please send any questions or suggestions to manifold1podcast@gmail.com or Steve on X @hsu_steve.
Patrick McGee is a longtime FT business reporter with extensive experience reporting on China. He is the author of the highly acclaimed Apple in China: the capture of the world's greatest company. Steve and Patrick discuss the history of Apple and its impact on technology development in China.
“The best book about Apple ever written, one of the best books about China ever written, and one of the best books about tech, period.” —Ben Thompson, Stratechery.
Apple in China on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Apple-China-Capture-Greatest-Company/dp/1668053373
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Steve Hsu is Professor of Theoretical Physics and of Computational Mathematics, Science, and Engineering at Michigan State University. Previously, he was Senior Vice President for Research and Innovation at MSU and Director of the Institute of Theoretical Science at the University of Oregon. Hsu is a startup founder (SuperFocus.ai, SafeWeb, Genomic Prediction, Othram) and advisor to venture capital and other investment firms. He was educated at Caltech and Berkeley, was a Harvard Junior Fellow, and has held faculty positions at Yale, the University of Oregon, and MSU. Please send any questions or suggestions to manifold1podcast@gmail.com or Steve on X @hsu_steve.
Steve and TP discuss the implications of the recent air battle between India and Pakistan, which involved over 100 fighter jets and took place entirely beyond visual range (BVR). What is sensor fusion, and have the Pakistanis achieved it with Chinese technology? Does the PL-15 outrange and outperform Western air-to-air missiles? What are the implications for US-China military competition?
Read TP Huang on X: https://x.com/tphuang
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Steve Hsu is Professor of Theoretical Physics and of Computational Mathematics, Science, and Engineering at Michigan State University. Previously, he was Senior Vice President for Research and Innovation at MSU and Director of the Institute of Theoretical Science at the University of Oregon. Hsu is a startup founder (SuperFocus.ai, SafeWeb, Genomic Prediction, Othram) and advisor to venture capital and other investment firms. He was educated at Caltech and Berkeley, was a Harvard Junior Fellow, and has held faculty positions at Yale, the University of Oregon, and MSU. Please send any questions or suggestions to manifold1podcast@gmail.com or Steve on X @hsu_steve.
Zihan Wang is an AI researcher at Northwestern University, where he works on vision-language models, robotics, and reinforcement learning. Previously, he interned at DeepSeek, contributing to projects like DeepSeek-V2.
Zihan's homepage: https://zihanwang314.github.io/
Music used with permission from Blade Runner Blues Livestream improvisation by State Azure.
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Steve Hsu is Professor of Theoretical Physics and of Computational Mathematics, Science, and Engineering at Michigan State University. Previously, he was Senior Vice President for Research and Innovation at MSU and Director of the Institute of Theoretical Science at the University of Oregon. Hsu is a startup founder (SuperFocus.ai, SafeWeb, Genomic Prediction, Othram) and advisor to venture capital and other investment firms. He was educated at Caltech and Berkeley, was a Harvard Junior Fellow, and has held faculty positions at Yale, the University of Oregon, and MSU. Please send any questions or suggestions to manifold1podcast@gmail.com or Steve on X @hsu_steve.
Dan Collins is Founder of Tyrell Chemical. He studied at Tsinghua University and spent 20 years working for companies like General Motors in China, helping to localize automotive manufacturing. Dan and Steve discuss tariffs, deindustrialization in America, the Go-Go days of rapid economic growth in PRC, and the future of the US-China relationship.
Follow Dan on X: https://x.com/DanCollins2011
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Steve Hsu is Professor of Theoretical Physics and of Computational Mathematics, Science, and Engineering at Michigan State University. Previously, he was Senior Vice President for Research and Innovation at MSU and Director of the Institute of Theoretical Science at the University of Oregon. Hsu is a startup founder (SuperFocus.ai, SafeWeb, Genomic Prediction, Othram) and advisor to venture capital and other investment firms. He was educated at Caltech and Berkeley, was a Harvard Junior Fellow, and has held faculty positions at Yale, the University of Oregon, and MSU. Please send any questions or suggestions to manifold1podcast@gmail.com or Steve on X @hsu_steve.
This episode is a co-release with the podcast Seeking Truth From Facts: https://seekingtruthfromfacts.substack.com/
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Steve Hsu is Professor of Theoretical Physics and of Computational Mathematics, Science, and Engineering at Michigan State University. Previously, he was Senior Vice President for Research and Innovation at MSU and Director of the Institute of Theoretical Science at the University of Oregon. Hsu is a startup founder (SuperFocus.ai, SafeWeb, Genomic Prediction, Othram) and advisor to venture capital and other investment firms. He was educated at Caltech and Berkeley, was a Harvard Junior Fellow, and has held faculty positions at Yale, the University of Oregon, and MSU. Please send any questions or suggestions to manifold1podcast@gmail.com or Steve on X @hsu_steve.
Steve speaks with ARX-Han, an anonymous writer, about his book "Incel."
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Steve Hsu is Professor of Theoretical Physics and of Computational Mathematics, Science, and Engineering at Michigan State University. Previously, he was Senior Vice President for Research and Innovation at MSU and Director of the Institute of Theoretical Science at the University of Oregon. Hsu is a startup founder (SuperFocus.ai, SafeWeb, Genomic Prediction, Othram) and advisor to venture capital and other investment firms. He was educated at Caltech and Berkeley, was a Harvard Junior Fellow, and has held faculty positions at Yale, the University of Oregon, and MSU. Please send any questions or suggestions to manifold1podcast@gmail.com or Steve on X @hsu_steve.
Callum Williams is a senior economics writer for The Economist. He was educated at Oxford, Harvard, and Cambridge, and is the author of The Classical School: The Birth of Economics in 20 Enlightened Lives.
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Steve Hsu is Professor of Theoretical Physics and of Computational Mathematics, Science, and Engineering at Michigan State University. Previously, he was Senior Vice President for Research and Innovation at MSU and Director of the Institute of Theoretical Science at the University of Oregon. Hsu is a startup founder (SuperFocus.ai, SafeWeb, Genomic Prediction, Othram) and advisor to venture capital and other investment firms. He was educated at Caltech and Berkeley, was a Harvard Junior Fellow, and has held faculty positions at Yale, the University of Oregon, and MSU.
Misha Laskin is CEO of Reflection.ai. He was trained in theoretical physics at Yale and Chicago before becoming an AI scientist. He made important contributions in Reinforcement Learning as a researcher at Berkeley, Google DeepMind, and on the Google Gemini project.
Steve and Misha discuss:
Music used with permission from Blade Runner Blues Livestream improvisation by State Azure.
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Steve Hsu is Professor of Theoretical Physics and of Computational Mathematics, Science, and Engineering at Michigan State University. Previously, he was Senior Vice President for Research and Innovation at MSU and Director of the Institute of Theoretical Science at the University of Oregon. Hsu is a startup founder (SuperFocus.ai, SafeWeb, Genomic Prediction, Othram) and advisor to venture capital and other investment firms. He was educated at Caltech and Berkeley, was a Harvard Junior Fellow, and has held faculty positions at Yale, the University of Oregon, and MSU.
Please send any questions or suggestions to manifold1podcast@gmail.com or Steve on X @hsu_steve.
Taylor Ogan is Chief Executive Officer of Snow Bull Capital, based in Shenzhen, China. His firm invests in Chinese technology companies, with a focus on areas such as clean energy, AI, and automation.
Part 1 of this discussion, from November 2023: https://www.manifold1.com/episodes/taylor-ogan-snow-bull-capital-chinas-tech-frontier-the-view-from-shenzhen-47
Steve and Taylor discuss:
Music used with permission from Blade Runner Blues Livestream improvisation by State Azure.
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Steve Hsu is Professor of Theoretical Physics and of Computational Mathematics, Science, and Engineering at Michigan State University. Previously, he was Senior Vice President for Research and Innovation at MSU and Director of the Institute of Theoretical Science at the University of Oregon. Hsu is a startup founder (SuperFocus.ai, SafeWeb, Genomic Prediction, Othram) and advisor to venture capital and other investment firms. He was educated at Caltech and Berkeley, was a Harvard Junior Fellow, and has held faculty positions at Yale, the University of Oregon, and MSU. Please send any questions or suggestions to manifold1podcast@gmail.com or Steve on X @hsu_steve.
Ken Liu (born 1976) is an American author of science fiction and fantasy. Liu has won multiple Hugo and Nebula Awards for his novel translations and original short fiction. Liu's short story "The Paper Menagerie" is the first work of fiction, of any length, to win all of the Nebula, Hugo, and World Fantasy Awards. Besides his original work, Liu's translation of Liu Cixin's Chinese language novel The Three-Body Problem (the first in the Remembrance of Earth's Past trilogy) won the 2015 Hugo Award for Best Novel, making it the first translated novel to have won the award.
He studied English Literature and Computer Science at Harvard College, and graduated from Harvard Law School.
Steve and Ken discuss:
00:00 Meet Ken Liu: Acclaimed Sci-Fi and Fantasy Writer
04:25 The Immigrant Experience and Cultural Perspectives
09:22 Harvard, MSFT, HLS, Litigation
15:01 The Art of Storytelling and Technology
34:03 Controversy in AI Reasoning
34:31 Technology Outstripping Science
35:22 AI and the Arts
38:30 The Future of AI in Art
42:44 AI's Role in Creative Processes
50:04 Art, Automation, and Society
57:31 Favorite Science Fiction and Fantasy
01:03:06 The Genius of Philip K. Dick
Music used with permission from Blade Runner Blues Livestream improvisation by State Azure.
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Steve Hsu is Professor of Theoretical Physics and of Computational Mathematics, Science, and Engineering at Michigan State University. Previously, he was Senior Vice President for Research and Innovation at MSU and Director of the Institute of Theoretical Science at the University of Oregon. Hsu is a startup founder (SuperFocus.ai, SafeWeb, Genomic Prediction, Othram) and advisor to venture capital and other investment firms. He was educated at Caltech and Berkeley, was a Harvard Junior Fellow, and has held faculty positions at Yale, the University of Oregon, and MSU. Please send any questions or suggestions to manifold1podcast@gmail.com or Steve on X @hsu_steve.
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Steve Hsu is Professor of Theoretical Physics and of Computational Mathematics, Science, and Engineering at Michigan State University. Previously, he was Senior Vice President for Research and Innovation at MSU and Director of the Institute of Theoretical Science at the University of Oregon. Hsu is a startup founder (SuperFocus, SafeWeb, Genomic Prediction, Othram) and advisor to venture capital and other investment firms. He was educated at Caltech and Berkeley, was a Harvard Junior Fellow, and has held faculty positions at Yale, the University of Oregon, and MSU. Please send any questions or suggestions to manifold1podcast@gmail.com or Steve on X @hsu_steve.
Relevant links:
Chapters:
Joscha Bach is a German cognitive scientist, AI researcher, and philosopher known for his work on cognitive architectures, artificial intelligence, mental representation, emotion, social modeling, multi-agent systems, and the philosophy of mind.
Links of interest:
Steve and Joscha discuss:
Music used with permission from Blade Runner Blues Livestream improvisation by State Azure.
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Steve Hsu is Professor of Theoretical Physics and of Computational Mathematics, Science, and Engineering at Michigan State University. Previously, he was Senior Vice President for Research and Innovation at MSU and Director of the Institute of Theoretical Science at the University of Oregon. Hsu is a startup founder (SuperFocus.ai, SafeWeb, Genomic Prediction, Othram) and advisor to venture capital and other investment firms. He was educated at Caltech and Berkeley, was a Harvard Junior Fellow, and has held faculty positions at Yale, the University of Oregon, and MSU. Please send any questions or suggestions to manifold1podcast@gmail.com or Steve on X @hsu_steve.
This episode is an interview I did with the new podcast Information Theory. The host of Information Theory is an anonymous technologist trained in physics and machine learning.
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Steve Hsu is Professor of Theoretical Physics and of Computational Mathematics, Science, and Engineering at Michigan State University. Previously, he was Senior Vice President for Research and Innovation at MSU and Director of the Institute of Theoretical Science at the University of Oregon. Hsu is a startup founder (SuperFocus, SafeWeb, Genomic Prediction, Othram) and advisor to venture capital and other investment firms. He was educated at Caltech and Berkeley, was a Harvard Junior Fellow, and has held faculty positions at Yale, the University of Oregon, and MSU. Please send any questions or suggestions to manifold1podcast@gmail.com or Steve on X @hsu_steve.
Pascal Lottaz is Associate Professor at Kyoto University’s Faculty of Law & Hakubi
Center. His research area is Neutrality Studies - the study of neutrality as a concept in international relations, sociology, international law, diplomacy, political science, security, and history.
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Steve Hsu is Professor of Theoretical Physics and of Computational Mathematics, Science, and Engineering at Michigan State University. Previously, he was Senior Vice President for Research and Innovation at MSU and Director of the Institute of Theoretical Science at the University of Oregon. Hsu is a startup founder (SuperFocus, SafeWeb, Genomic Prediction, Othram) and advisor to venture capital and other investment firms. He was educated at Caltech and Berkeley, was a Harvard Junior Fellow, and has held faculty positions at Yale, the University of Oregon, and MSU. Please send any questions or suggestions to manifold1podcast@gmail.com or Steve on X @hsu_steve.
Links to X posts made during my trip - check out the whole timeline
during this period.
PPP and US vs PRC Real GDP
https://x.com/hsu_steve/status/1851653168158949492
PhD student asks me whether Jews control US politics:
https://x.com/hsu_steve/status/1852179736035778768
Note to retards, on "Chicoms":
https://x.com/hsu_steve/status/1852195575434715645
Yu Min and the Chinese H-bomb:
https://x.com/hsu_steve/status/1852497112635671016
https://x.com/hsu_steve/status/1852497765353558371
Me and He Jiankui:
https://x.com/hsu_steve/status/1852693355601199262
Dali:
https://x.com/hsu_steve/status/1853239642075648356
https://x.com/hsu_steve/status/1853247317840629820
https://x.com/hsu_steve/status/1853301562480718195
Lijiang:
https://x.com/hsu_steve/status/1854395254105047484
https://x.com/hsu_steve/status/1854503079669838057
MAGA on the Mountain:
https://x.com/hsu_steve/status/1854015799901495674
Business-class lie flat seats on HSR:
https://x.com/hsu_steve/status/1855042439280791977
Kumming:
https://x.com/hsu_steve/status/1855050351755641106
https://x.com/hsu_steve/status/1855409317937098864
https://x.com/hsu_steve/status/1855748351855071433
https://x.com/hsu_steve/status/1856215080637215222
https://x.com/hsu_steve/status/1856239700362834006
https://x.com/hsu_steve/status/1856533059509653578
https://x.com/hsu_steve/status/1856634646160683273
Shanghai:
https://x.com/hsu_steve/status/1857282310099386857
https://x.com/hsu_steve/status/1857391783770276314
https://x.com/hsu_steve/status/1857574060122845381
https://x.com/hsu_steve/status/1857653348557603255
https://x.com/hsu_steve/status/1858033981276467535
Music used with permission from Blade Runner Blues Livestream improvisation by State Azure.
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Steve Hsu is Professor of Theoretical Physics and of Computational Mathematics, Science, and Engineering at Michigan State University. Previously, he was Senior Vice President for Research and Innovation at MSU and Director of the Institute of Theoretical Science at the University of Oregon. Hsu is a startup founder (SuperFocus, SafeWeb, Genomic Prediction, Othram) and advisor to venture capital and other investment firms. He was educated at Caltech and Berkeley, was a Harvard Junior Fellow, and has held faculty positions at Yale, the University of Oregon, and MSU. Please send any questions or suggestions to manifold1podcast@gmail.com or Steve on X @hsu_steve.
Han Feizi is the pseudonym of a columnist for Asia Times, who covers the Chinese economy, technology, and US-China competition. The author lives in Beijing, and has an extensive background in finance and investment banking.
Han Feizi's articles for Asia Times: https://asiatimes.com/author/han-feizi/
Chapters:
00:00 Introduction to the guest: Han Feizi
01:39 What it's like in Beijing right now
06:38 Modern Conveniences in Beijing
12:11 What the economy feels like for ordinary people
19:09 China's economic structure: consumption, infrastructure investment, Michael Pettis
30:32 Currency Valuation and PPP: real PRC is significantly larger than US economy
31:45 US high living standards and manufacturing competitiveness
34:13 Globalization and its discontents
40:15 Reversing globalization and the myth of American exceptionalism
45:58 China's increasingly high quality standards and quality of life
58:09 Whither China? Xi Jinping
Music used with permission from Blade Runner Blues Livestream improvisation by State Azure.
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Steve Hsu is Professor of Theoretical Physics and of Computational Mathematics, Science, and Engineering at Michigan State University. Previously, he was Senior Vice President for Research and Innovation at MSU and Director of the Institute of Theoretical Science at the University of Oregon. Hsu is a startup founder (SuperFocus, SafeWeb, Genomic Prediction, Othram) and advisor to venture capital and other investment firms. He was educated at Caltech and Berkeley, was a Harvard Junior Fellow, and has held faculty positions at Yale, the University of Oregon, and MSU. Please send any questions or suggestions to manifold1podcast@gmail.com or Steve on X @hsu_steve.
This is a crossover episode with the Seeking Truth From Facts podcast.
Links:
Iran ballistic missiles and missile defense
https://stevehsu.substack.com/p/iran-vs-israel-implications-for-missile
Pershing 2 Missile
https://x.com/hsu_steve/status/1843450614552113316
Russia-Ukraine war and Iran blowback
https://x.com/hsu_steve/status/1844551899103863154
India development
https://x.com/hsu_steve/status/1814994391502667953
https://x.com/hsu_steve/status/1815047688829706279
Music used with permission from Blade Runner Blues Livestream improvisation by State Azure.
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Steve Hsu is Professor of Theoretical Physics and of Computational Mathematics, Science, and Engineering at Michigan State University. Previously, he was Senior Vice President for Research and Innovation at MSU and Director of the Institute of Theoretical Science at the University of Oregon. Hsu is a startup founder (SuperFocus, SafeWeb, Genomic Prediction, Othram) and advisor to venture capital and other investment firms. He was educated at Caltech and Berkeley, was a Harvard Junior Fellow, and has held faculty positions at Yale, the University of Oregon, and MSU. Please send any questions or suggestions to manifold1podcast@gmail.com or Steve on X @hsu_steve.
Samo Burja founded Bismarck Analysis, a consulting firm that investigates the political and institutional landscape of society. He is a Senior Research Fellow in Political Science at the Foresight Institute where he advises on how institutions can shape the future of technology. Since 2024, he has chaired the editorial board of Palladium Magazine, a non-partisan publication that explores the future of governance and society through international journalism, long-form analysis, and social philosophy. From 2020 to 2023, he was a Research Fellow at the Long Now Foundation where he studied how institutions can endure for centuries and millennia.
Samo writes and speaks on history, institutions, and strategy with a focus on exceptional leaders that create new social and political forms. Image has systematized this approach as “Great Founder Theory.”
Steve and Samo discuss:
Music used with permission from Blade Runner Blues Livestream improvisation by State Azure.
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Steve Hsu is Professor of Theoretical Physics and of Computational Mathematics, Science, and Engineering at Michigan State University. Previously, he was Senior Vice President for Research and Innovation at MSU and Director of the Institute of Theoretical Science at the University of Oregon. Hsu is a startup founder (SuperFocus, SafeWeb, Genomic Prediction, Othram) and advisor to venture capital and other investment firms. He was educated at Caltech and Berkeley, was a Harvard Junior Fellow, and has held faculty positions at Yale, the University of Oregon, and MSU.
Please send any questions or suggestions to manifold1podcast@gmail.com or Steve on X @hsu_steve.
