Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity
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Search complete. 11 mentions across 6 episodes found for "Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity".
Oct 16, 2026
Emile TorresHOST
Um, and he had a position at the Future of Humanity Institute for a while, published a, a widely cited paper on existential risk.
Emile TorresHOST
And then he went and became the director of IARPA, the sister organization of DARPA.
Emile TorresHOST
And then he co-founded this, this organization, CSET, uh, with I think it was fifty-five million from Open Philanthropy, another EA organization.
Emile TorresHOST
And the goal of CSET was to take EAs like him and place them in high-level government positions, [laughs] right?
Kate WillettHOST
Crazy.
Emile TorresHOST
And I think they have been unbelievably successful.
Emile TorresHOST
I mean, Matheny himself not only was the director of IARPA but then had a number of really high-level positions in the Biden administration and then eventually left, uh, government and is the CEO of Rand Corporation.
Emile TorresHOST
Um, so yeah, it's just really worth emphasizing that, that...
Ira PastorHOST
He originally studied mathematics, physics, neuroscience and philosophy, University of Toronto.
Ira PastorHOST
Went on to, to, you know, earn advanced [laughs] degrees in mathematical physics, pursued doctoral work in quantum algorithms and statistical physics at USC, and his work was both supported by DARPA and ultimately, uh, the Army's Disruptive Technology Office, what became the IARPA folks.
Ira PastorHOST
And from there, Dr. Geraci's, uh, career moved progressively closer to biology through mathematical oncology, bioinformatics, pharmacogenomics, uh, as well as other topics in depression research and neuroscience.
Ira PastorHOST
Uh, and today, you know, uh, he's exploring, you know, uh, sort of a deceptively simple but very complex question.
Tony EveridgeGUEST
collaboration, collaboration.
Jamie ParksHOST
All right, your biography mentions extensive collaboration with innovation-focused agencies like DARPA and IARPA.
Jamie ParksHOST
How has working with these agile, high-risk organizations influenced your approach to procuring emerging technologies and fostering innovation within the more established AFMC structure?
Tony EveridgeGUEST
Yeah, I was really very, very fortunate to get to work with both of those organizations.
Tony EveridgeGUEST
So again, that got me some great experience from the DARPA side.
Tony EveridgeGUEST
Later on, because of that DARPA experience, I was asked to leave the DARPA office in AFRL, which we did a lot of joint technology things together there.
Tony EveridgeGUEST
At the same time, the intelligence community was starting to stand up IARPA, which they wanted to model after DARPA, but doing research and things for the intelligence community.
Tony EveridgeGUEST
So I was asked to come over and help them stand up their acquisition and contracting process.
Emile P. TorresGUEST
There's even, uh, at, I believe at Georgetown, an organization which is, uh, abbreviated CSET, uh, which was co-founded by, uh, Jason Matheny, uh, a longtermist EA guy.
Emile P. TorresGUEST
And the, the goal of CSET was to take EA longtermists and place them in high-level government positions, right? Jason Matheny himself ran IARPA, the sister organization to, to DARPA, uh, and then had a bunch of, like, high-level positions within the Biden ad-administration, and now is the CEO of RAND Corporation, right? So the...
Emile P. TorresGUEST
I, I, I'm not surprised that EAs have had, um, so much success because they have, you know, tens of billions of dollars in funding or, or committed funding, and they have a, a, th-they specifically have this goal of gaining as much, uh, political influence as possible to shape the, the trajectory of, uh, you know, our, our civilization towards their particular vision of a cosmic post-human utopia.
Emile P. TorresGUEST
So I think if the ban on superintelligence bill succeeds in passing and then slowing down Uh, the AI companies, you know, p-putting some kind of tentacles, uh, on them such that they, they just cannot behave as recklessly as they have been.
Annie JacobsenGUEST
That's a totally different directorate.
Annie JacobsenGUEST
And we can get into that because that's DARPA, IARPA.
Annie JacobsenGUEST
That really links back to what I was talking about with ISR.
Annie JacobsenGUEST
the lead component, I believe, of the agency's mission that covers both its analysts and its paramilitary is really ISR.
2 HRS 23 MINS LATER
Annie JacobsenGUEST
And I talked to a lot of different people in these different procurement lanes and they have different.
Annie JacobsenGUEST
different situations they're focused on, you know.
Annie JacobsenGUEST
And then there's, as we were talking about earlier, there's the CIA has its own DARPA model, which is called IARPA.
Annie JacobsenGUEST
That's focused almost, not entirely, I should say, my knowledge of it is that it is focused on sensor technology, really being able to read biometrics at a distance.
Mark ParrottGUEST
He wrote Super Forecasting, brilliant man.
Mark ParrottGUEST
He actually won the inaugural IARPA award that CIA gave out to see if human beings could out-CIA the CIA.
Mark ParrottGUEST
He won it.
Mark ParrottGUEST
But his research suggests, that's PhD code for this is a fact as best I can muster one, His research suggests that you're either in investigation mode or prosecution mode.