#13 – Jaime Sevilla Molina on on Forecasting, Cultural Persistence, and Quantum Computing

Jaime Sevilla Molina is a visiting researcher at the Center for the Study of Existential Risk, and is beginning a PhD studying Bayesian reasoning. Previously, he was a Research Fellow at the Future of Humanity Institute, and his academic background is in mathematics and computer science. In this episode we discuss: How the social sciences infer causation from natural experiments; Evidence for 'cultural persistence', particularly in the context of the Atlantic slave trade; What is forecasting, and why does it matter? Why is good forecasting so hard to come by? What are the likely implications of quantum computing for cryptography, drug discovery, and AI? You can read much more on this episode's accompanying write-up hearthisidea.com/episodes/Jaime. If you have any feedback or suggestions for future guests, please get in touch through our website. Please also consider leaving a review on Apple Podcasts or wherever you're listening to this; we're still just starting out and it would really help listeners find us! If you want to support the show more directly, you can also buy us a beer at tips.pinecast.com/jar/hear-this-idea. Thanks for listening!