# 53: Zhengdong Wang - Feeling the Wave Page: https://stenobird.com/podcast/dialectic-7102680/53-zhengdong-wang-feeling-the-wave Text version: https://stenobird.com/podcast/dialectic-7102680/53-zhengdong-wang-feeling-the-wave.md Podcast: [Dialectic](https://stenobird.com/podcast/dialectic-7102680) Published: 2026-07-29T14:47:00+00:00 Episode link: https://dialectic.fm/zhengdong Audio file: https://traffic.megaphone.fm/ICDEI3819243135.mp3 Processing state: not_requested JSON: https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/dialectic-7102680/episodes/53-zhengdong-wang-feeling-the-wave Duration seconds: 7671 ## Resource Zhengdong Wang (Website, X, LinkedIn) is an AI researcher based in London. He writes annual letters (inspired by Dan Wang), mainly about AI progress, and his 2025 letter blew me away and inspired me to meet him. In it, he describes his ‘compute theory of everything,’ and makes the case that it would be stranger if AI progress slowed down than if it continued. Put a different way, reading his letter helped me get closer to truly feeling the wave of AI progress. It took Zhengdong a long time to become “AGI-pilled,” despite years of feeling like he was late to AI and working as a research engineer for the last five. I talked to him about what it will take for the rest of us to see what he sees, and feel what he feels. We also discuss why AGI may be a hazier target than simply seeing AI progress as “the model does the eval,” and why recursive self-improvement may be both happening and less fantastical than it may seem. ZD makes the case that based on the rate of progress and scaling, skeptics will simply be proven right or wrong soon. We talk a bit through what narrative and political challenges the AI industry faces ahead of this transition. Then there are the implications of all of this—namely how AI progress accelerates the question of what we each value, how we will spend our time, and where we will find or create meaning. ZD takes a stab at some of those impossible questions and shares some other favorite miscellanea that is reflective of the range of his letters. I hope this conversation helps you feel the wave a bit yourself, and that you remember that, regardless of how much change lies ahead, we still get to make our meaning. We get to choose. Full transcript and all links: dialectic.fm/zhengdong --- Dialectic is presented by Notion. Notion is an AI… ## Actions - request_transcript: `POST https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/dialectic-7102680/episodes/53-zhengdong-wang-feeling-the-wave/transcription-requests` — Idempotently request low-priority transcript generation for this episode. - read_markdown: `GET https://stenobird.com/podcast/dialectic-7102680/53-zhengdong-wang-feeling-the-wave.md` — Read the agent-friendly Markdown representation of this episode resource. A page view does not enqueue transcription. Agents should invoke `request_transcript` explicitly when they need this episode processed. ## Transcript Full transcripts are not published on public pages unless there is a clear rights basis.