Science is learning from start-ups (with Adam Marblestone)

<p><a href="https://podcast.clearerthinking.org/episode/157/#transcript">Read the full transcript here.</a> </p><div class="notes-inner"><p>What are focused research organizations? Which kinds of research projects lend themselves to the FRO model? Researchers in academia frequently complain about the incentive structures around funding and publishing; so how do FROs change those dynamics? Why must FROs be time-limited, especially if they're successful? Who's in charge in an FRO? How does "field-building" help to improve science? What effects might large language models have on science?</p><p>Adam Marblestone is the CEO of <a href="https://www.convergentresearch.org/">Convergent Research</a>. He's been launching <a href="https://fas.org/day-one-project/">Focused Research Organizations (FROs)</a> such as <a href="https://e11.bio/">E11 bio</a> and <a href="https://www.cultivarium.org/">Cultivarium</a>. He also serves on the boards of several non-profits pursuing new methods of funding and organizing scientific research including <a href="https://norn.group/">Norn Group</a> and <a href="https://newscience.org/">New Science</a>. Previously, he was a Schmidt Futures Innovation Fellow, a consultant for the Astera Institute, a Fellow with the Federation of American Scientists (FAS), a research scientist at Google DeepMind, Chief Strategy Officer of the brain-computer interface company Kernel, a research scientist at MIT, a PhD student in biophysics with George Church and colleagues at Harvard, and a theoretical physics student at Yale. He also previously helped to start companies like BioBright and advised foundations such as the Open Philanthropy Project. His work has been recognized with a Technology Review 35 Innovators Under 35 Award (2018), a Fannie and John Hertz Foundation Fellowship (2010), and a Goldwater Scholarship (2008). Learn more about him at <a href="http://adammarblestone.org">adammarblestone.org</a>.</p> </div><div>[<a href="https://podcast.clearerthinking.org/episode/157/adam-marblestone-science-is-lea