Kate Darling on Social Robotics

Kate Darling on Social Robotics

Lex Fridman interviews Kate Darling in this episode of the AI Show.

Kate Darling is a researcher at MIT, interested in social robotics, robot ethics, and generally how technology intersects with society. She explores the emotional connection between human beings and life-like machines, which for me, is one of the most exciting topics in all of artificial intelligence. This conversation is part of the Artificial Intelligence podcast.

Time index:

  • 0:00 – Introduction
  • 3:31 – Robot ethics
  • 4:36 – Universal Basic Income
  • 6:31 – Mistreating robots
  • 17:17 – Robots teaching us about ourselves
  • 20:27 – Intimate connection with robots
  • 24:29 – Trolley problem and making difficult moral decisions
  • 31:59 – Anthropomorphism
  • 38:09 – Favorite robot
  • 41:19 – Sophia
  • 42:46 – Designing robots for human connection
    47:01 – Why is it so hard to build a personal robotics company?
    50:03 – Is it possible to fall in love with a robot?
    56:39 – Robots displaying consciousness and mortality
    58:33 – Manipulation of emotion by companies
    1:04:40 – Intellectual property
    1:09:23 – Lessons for robotics from parenthood
    1:10:41 – Hope for future of robotics

Ilya Sutskever on Deep Learning

Ilya Sutskever on Deep Learning

Lex Fridman interviews Ilya Sutskever. co-founder of OpenAI.

Ilya Sutskever is the co-founder of OpenAI, is one of the most cited computer scientist in history with over 165,000 citations, and to me, is one of the most brilliant and insightful minds ever in the field of deep learning. There are very few people in this world who I would rather talk to and brainstorm with about deep learning, intelligence, and life than Ilya, on and off the mic.

This conversation is part of the Artificial Intelligence podcast.

Time index:

  • 0:00 – Introduction
  • 2:23 – AlexNet paper and the ImageNet moment
  • 8:33 – Cost functions
  • 13:39 – Recurrent neural networks
  • 16:19 – Key ideas that led to success of deep learning
  • 19:57 – What’s harder to solve: language or vision?
  • 29:35 – We’re massively underestimating deep learning
  • 36:04 – Deep double descent
  • 41:20 – Backpropagation
  • 42:42 – Can neural networks be made to reason?
  • 50:35 – Long-term memory
  • 56:37 – Language models
  • 1:00:35 – GPT-2
  • 1:07:14 – Active learning
  • 1:08:52 – Staged release of AI systems
  • 1:13:41 – How to build AGI?
  • 1:25:00 – Question to AGI
  • 1:32:07 – Meaning of life

Daphne Koller on Biomedicine and Machine Learning

Daphne Koller on Biomedicine and Machine Learning

Lex Fridman interviews Daphne Koller, a professor of computer science at Stanford University, a co-founder of Coursera with Andrew Ng and Founder and CEO of insitro, a company at the intersection of machine learning and biomedicine.

This conversation is part of the Artificial Intelligence podcast.

Time index:

  • 0:00 – Introduction
  • 2:22 – Will we one day cure all disease?
  • 6:31 – Longevity
  • 10:16 – Role of machine learning in treating diseases
  • 13:05 – A personal journey to medicine
  • 16:25 – Insitro and disease-in-a-dish models
  • 33:25 – What diseases can be helped with disease-in-a-dish approaches?
  • 36:43 – Coursera and education
  • 49:04 – Advice to people interested in AI
  • 50:52 – Beautiful idea in deep learning
  • 55:10 – Uncertainty in AI
  • 58:29 – AGI and AI safety
  • 1:06:52 – Are most people good?
  • 1:09:04 – Meaning of life

Harry Cliff on Particle Physics and the Large Hadron Collider

Harry Cliff on Particle Physics and the Large Hadron Collider

Lex Fridman interviews Harry Cliff in the latest episode of his podcast.

Harry Cliff is a particle physicist at the University of Cambridge working on the Large Hadron Collider beauty experiment that specializes in searching for hints of new particles and forces by studying a type of particle called the “beauty quark”, or “b quark”. In this way, he is part of the group of physicists who are searching answers to some of the biggest questions in modern physics. He is also an exceptional communicator of science with some of the clearest and most captivating explanations of basic concepts in particle physics I’ve ever heard. 

Time Index:

  • 0:00 – Introduction
  • 3:51 – LHC and particle physics
  • 13:55 – History of particle physics
  • 38:59 – Higgs particle
  • 57:55 – Unknowns yet to be discovered
  • 59:48 – Beauty quarks
  • 1:07:38 – Matter and antimatter
  • 1:10:22 – Human side of the Large Hadron Collider
  • 1:17:27 – Future of large particle colliders
  • 1:24:09 – Data science with particle physics
  • 1:27:17 – Science communication
  • 1:33:36 – Most beautiful idea in physics
  • AI
  • 0
  • Closed
  • 1 min read

Turing Test: Can Machines Think?

Turing Test: Can Machines Think?

Lex Fridman talks about the most impactful computer science paper in history.

Discussion of the 1950 paper by Alan Turing that proposed what is now called the Turing Test. This is one of the most impactful papers in the history of AI and the first paper in the AI paper club on our Discord.

Join here: https://discord.gg/lex-ai   

Time index:

  • 0:00 – Introduction
  • 1:02 – Paper opening lines
  • 3:11 – Paper overview
  • 7:39 – Loebner Prize
  • 11:36 – Eugene Goostman
  • 13:43 – Google’s Meena
  • 17:17 – Objections to the Turing Test
  • 17:29 – Objection 1: Religious
  • 18:07 – Objection 2: “Heads in the Sand”
  • 19:18 – Objection 3: Godel Incompleteness Theorem
  • 19:51 – Objection 4: Consciousness
  • 20:54 – Objection 5: Machines will never do X
  • 21:47 – Objection 6: Ada Lovelace
  • 23:22 – Objection 7: Brain in analog
  • 23:49 – Objection 8: Determinism
  • 24:55 – Objection 9: Mind-reading
  • 26:34 – Chinese Room thought experiment
  • 27:21 – Coffee break
  • 31:42 – Turing Test extensions and alternatives
  • 36:54 – Winograd Schema Challenge
  • 38:55 – Alexa Prize
  • 41:17 – Hutter Prize
  • 43:18 – Francois Chollet’s Abstraction and Reasoning Challenge (ARC)
  • 49:32 – Takeaways
  • 56:51 – Discord community
  • 57:56 – AI Paper Reading Club

Dmitry Korkin on the Computational Biology of Coronavirus

Dmitry Korkin on the Computational Biology of Coronavirus

Lex Fridman interviews Dmitry Korkin on the latest episode of his podcast.

Dmitry Korkin is a professor of bioinformatics and computational biology at Worcester Polytechnic Institute, where he specializes in bioinformatics of complex disease, computational genomics, systems biology, and biomedical data analytics. I came across Dmitry’s work when in February his group used the viral genome of the COVID-19 to reconstruct the 3D structure of its major viral proteins and their interactions with human proteins, in effect creating a structural genomics map of the coronavirus and making this data open and available to researchers everywhere. We talked about the biology of COVID-19, SARS, and viruses in general, and how computational methods can help us understand their structure and function in order to develop antiviral drugs and vaccines. This conversation is part of the Artificial Intelligence podcast. 

Time Index:

  • 0:00 – Introduction
  • 2:33 – Viruses are terrifying and fascinating
  • 6:02 – How hard is it to engineer a virus?
  • 10:48 – What makes a virus contagious?
  • 29:52 – Figuring out the function of a protein
  • 53:27 – Functional regions of viral proteins
  • 1:19:09 – Biology of a coronavirus treatment
  • 1:34:46 – Is a virus alive?
  • 1:37:05 – Epidemiological modeling
  • 1:55:27 – Russia
  • 2:02:31 – Science bobbleheads
  • 2:06:31 – Meaning of life

Stephen Wolfram on Cellular Automata, Computation, and Physics

Stephen Wolfram on Cellular Automata, Computation, and Physics

Lex Fridman interviews Stephen Wolfram: computer scientist, mathematician, and theoretical physicist who is the founder and CEO of Wolfram Research, a company behind Mathematica, Wolfram Alpha, Wolfram Language, and the new Wolfram Physics project.

He is the author of several books including A New Kind of Science, which on a personal note was one of the most influential books in my journey in computer science and artificial intelligence. This conversation is part of the Artificial Intelligence podcast.

Time Index:

  • 0:00 – Introduction
  • 4:16 – Communicating with an alien intelligence
  • 12:11 – Monolith in 2001: A Space Odyssey
  • 29:06 – What is computation?
  • 44:54 – Physics emerging from computation
  • 1:14:10 – Simulation
  • 1:19:23 – Fundamental theory of physics
  • 1:28:01 – Richard Feynman
  • 1:39:57 – Role of ego in science
  • 1:47:21 – Cellular automata
  • 2:15:08 – Wolfram language
  • 2:55:14 – What is intelligence?
  • 2:57:47 – Consciousness
  • 3:02:36 – Mortality
  • 3:05:47 – Meaning of life

Eric Weinstein on Geometric Unity and the Call for New Ideas, Leaders & Institutions

Eric Weinstein on Geometric Unity and the Call for New Ideas, Leaders & Institutions

Lex Fridman interviews Eric Weinstein in the latest episode of his podcast.

Eric Weinstein is a mathematician with a bold and piercing intelligence, unafraid to explore the biggest questions in the universe and shine a light on the darkest corners of our society. He is the host of The Portal podcast, a part of which, he recently released his 2013 Oxford lecture on his theory of Geometric Unity that is at the center of his lifelong efforts in arriving at a theory of everything that unifies the fundamental laws of physics. This conversation is part of the Artificial Intelligence podcast.

Time Index:

  • 0:00 – Introduction
  • 2:08 – World War II and the Coronavirus Pandemic
  • 14:03 – New leaders
  • 31:18 – Hope for our time
  • 34:23 – WHO
  • 44:19 – Geometric unity
  • 1:38:55 – We need to get off this planet
  • 1:40:47 – Elon Musk
  • 1:46:58 – Take Back MIT
  • 2:15:31 – The time at Harvard
  • 2:37:01 – The Portal
  • 2:42:58 – Legacy

Richard Dawkins: Evolution, Intelligence, Simulation, and Memes

Richard Dawkins: Evolution, Intelligence, Simulation, and Memes

Lex Fridman interviews the one and only Richard Dawkins.

Richard Dawkins is an evolutionary biologist, and author of The Selfish Gene, The Blind Watchmaker, The God Delusion, The Magic of Reality, The Greatest Show on Earth, and his latest Outgrowing God. He is the originator and popularizer of a lot of fascinating ideas in evolutionary biology and science in general, including funny enough the introduction of the word meme in his 1976 book The Selfish Gene, which in the context of a gene-centered view of evolution is an exceptionally powerful idea. He is outspoken, bold, and often fearless in his defense of science and reason, and in this way, is one of the most influential thinkers of our time. This conversation is part of the Artificial Intelligence podcast.

Time Index:

  • 0:00 – Introduction
  • 2:31 – Intelligent life in the universe
  • 5:03 – Engineering intelligence (are there shortcuts?)
  • 7:06 – Is the evolutionary process efficient?
  • 10:39 – Human brain and AGI
  • 15:31 – Memes
  • 26:37 – Does society need religion?
  • 33:10 – Conspiracy theories
  • 39:10 – Where do morals come from in humans?
  • 46:10 – AI began with the ancient wish to forge the gods
  • 49:18 – Simulation
  • 56:58 – Books that influenced you
  • 1:02:53 – Meaning of life

David Silver on AlphaGo, AlphaZero, and Deep Reinforcement Learning

David Silver on AlphaGo, AlphaZero, and Deep Reinforcement Learning

Lex Fridman interviews David Silver for the Artificial Intelligence podcast..

David Silver leads the reinforcement learning research group at DeepMind and was lead researcher on AlphaGo, AlphaZero and co-lead on AlphaStar, and MuZero and lot of important work in reinforcement learning.

Time Index:

  • 0:00 – Introduction
  • 4:09 – First program
  • 11:11 – AlphaGo
  • 21:42 – Rule of the game of Go
  • 25:37 – Reinforcement learning: personal journey
  • 30:15 – What is reinforcement learning?
  • 43:51 – AlphaGo (continued)
  • 53:40 – Supervised learning and self play in AlphaGo
  • 1:06:12 – Lee Sedol retirement from Go play
  • 1:08:57 – Garry Kasparov
  • 1:14:10 – Alpha Zero and self play
  • 1:31:29 – Creativity in AlphaZero
  • 1:35:21 – AlphaZero applications
  • 1:37:59 – Reward functions
  • 1:40:51 – Meaning of life