The deadpan delivery and lack of personality, the arrogant attitude, the poor quality of the questions that he asks, the fact that he reads questions from a sheet in front of him instead of listening to his guests and having a real conversation with them, the way in which he comes across as disingenuous in most interactions... I could go on (and I know that a lot of this is subjective).
Lex here. I hear you. I'm working hard to improve. The parts about arrogance and disingenuousness I hope are not true, but I appreciate comments like this because they help me reflect on it, and see that there might be truth to it. Your words hurt but in the end are a gift, so thank you. I'll do my best to improve.
I wondered who'd call themselves AlanTuring on HN :-)
I think you come across very genuine, not arrogant at all. And it shows that you do your best to reflect, don't worry about that. However, while the philosopher (and sensationalist) in me want to disagree: yes, be more technical! You have a unique audience and guests to cater to, I can't imagine the pressure.
That being said, it's your podcast, and it wouldn't be where it's at if it wasn't for your character and honset curiosity, and its appreciated for exactly what it is. Cheers!
I just did. I'm more of a lurker on HN, but might as well be open. I get criticism sometimes, but I it's probably good to just take it, accept it, and grow from it.
The deadpan delivery and lack of personality, the arrogant attitude,
Interesting. I don't see much in the way of arrogance when I watch these. What you call "deadpan delivery and lack of personality" I attribute to his being Russian, and just having a somewhat stereotypically Russian style of delivery.
Lex here. Yep. Russian. Underneath the cold stare and the suit is possibly some personality and a bit of humor. Then again it's like past or present life on Mars. Many astrobiologists believe it was at least once there, but no proof has been found yet.
Underneath the cold stare and the suit is possibly some personality and a bit of humor.
I have a close friend who is Russian, and I've found that, at least in his case, there definitely is a sense of humor there, despite the stereotypes. I just find his Russian humor to be very subtle and even after all these years I don't always pick up on when he's joking and when he isn't. From watching your interviews, I get a very similar vibe. I suspect you have a fine sense of humor, but that not all Americans will appreciate or recognize it easily.
How can you say he has both a lack of personality and an arrogant attitude?
I don't know how you could possibly listen to his interview with George Hotz (one of my favourites) and say that he has no personality.
I think you have assumed the worst, that his entire personality is an act, and this has coloured your view of everything else. Once you realize that he's being sincere, I think you will find it much more enjoyable.
For me it's the questions. He gets these incredible guests with deep understanding of their respective fields and yet they keep being asked nonsensical question they can't possible give a meaningful answer to.
For example almost every guest some variation of "Do you think one day we'll have superhuman AI?" Then the guest is struggling to come up with some platitude, because there is nothing else to say. It's a waste of time.
He is self-aware too, he sometimes apologizes for asking, yet he keeps doing it anyway.
Yeah, in the interview with Kahneman he doesn't even really get into any of his work in cognitive psychology and behavioral economics, instead he wastes half the show on hypotheticals about AGI.
We're as close to AGI today as we were 10-30 years ago, as in really far away. There's nothing that any of his guests can add to that debate that hasn't been covered in countless scifi novels. I don't care what Vsauce or Bjarne Stroustrup have to say about it.
To be fair though, it's quite clear that AGI is the intended overarching theme of the podcast. I'd argue that regardless of how any individual interview goes, Lex is creating incredible value by getting all of these top-notch thinkers to join a shared long-term conversation on what this technology means to us all.
It's not a problem in of itself. I think the main issue is these are questions frequently asked by other podcast hosts already, and the people here are hoping for something more in-depth on topics the guests are more qualified to discuss.