Many Minds | 25 January 2023 | 0h 55m | Listen Later |
Podcasts | Spotify
Interview with Murray Shanahan about his paper Talking about Large Language Models. Argues that it’s not appropriate to talk about large language models in anthropomorphic terms. Discusses the rapid rise of large language models and the basics of how they work; how a model that simply does “next-word prediction” can be engineered into a savvy chatbot like ChatGPT; why ChatGPT lacks genuine “knowledge” and “understanding”; and what it might take for these models to eventually possess richer, more human-like capacities.
Saskia Snyder on A Brilliant Commodity
Historically Thinking | 14 November 2022 | 0h 57m | Listen Later |
Podcasts | Spotify
Interview with Saskia Coenen Snyder about her book A Brilliant Commodity: Diamonds and Jews in a Modern Setting. Discusses the involvement of Jews in the late 19C Amsterdam diamond processing factories, fields of South Africa, in London and in the growing United States consumer market.
Simon Conway Morris on Evolution, Convergence, and Theism
Sean Carroll’s Mindscape | 8 August 2022 | 1h 16m | Listen Later |
Podcasts | Spotify
Interview with Simon Conway Morris about his book From Extraterrestrials to Animal Minds: Six Myths of Evolution. Makes the case for evolutionary convergence and adaptationism – even when there is a mass extinction, the resulting shake-up simply accelerates the developments that evolution would have made anyway. Also discusses the possible role of God in an evolutionary worldview.
Walling Versus Bridging feat. Glenn Hubbard
unSILOed with Greg LaBlanc | 25 January 2022 | 0h 50m | Listen Later |
Podcasts | Spotify
Interview with Glenn Hubbard about his book The Wall and the Bridge: Fear and Opportunity in Disruption’s Wake. Advocates building bridges to opportunity to assist those negatively impacted by economic growth, rather than building walls to protect them from further harm.
Huygens: Europe’s Greatest Scientist
Not Just the Tudors | 1 December 2022 | 0h 37m | Listen Later |
Podcasts | Spotify
Interview with Hugh Aldersey-Williams about his book Dutch Light: Christiaan Huygens and the Making of Science in Europe. Discusses the life and work of Christiaan Huygens, who made contributions to astronomy, mathematics, physics and timekeeping.
Tyler Cowen on AI and China
ChinaTalk | 9 January 2023 | 1h 21m | Listen Later |
Podcasts | Spotify
Interview with Tyler Cowen discussing how AI is going to change art, education, politics and human relationships; why he tried to write a book to explain America to the PRC; how babies born in 2023 will see their educations changed by AI; playing chess against the computer and creativity in the AI era; religion, American antisemitism, and the movie Her; writing a book about America for Chinese people; and why China is one of the hardest countries to predict.
Patrick Radden Keefe – True Stories of Killers, Grifters, and Crooks
How To Academy | 12 August 2022 | 1h 00m | Listen Later |
Podcasts | Spotify
Interview with Patrick Radden Keefe about his book Rogues: True Stories of Grifters, Killers, Rebels and Crooks. Discusses his reporting on the drug lord Chapo Guzman, the Harvard-educated neurobiologist turned mass shooter Amy Bishop, the anti-death-penalty lawyer representing the worst of the worst, and more. Includes an update on recent events with the Sackler family and their role in the opioid crisis – the subject of his previous book.
Caroline Elkins on Legacy of Violence
Baillie Gifford Prize | 4 November 2022 | 0h 29m | Listen Later |
Podcasts | Spotify
Interview with Caroline Elkins about her book Legacy of Violence: A History of the British Empire. Discusses how the British Empire used liberal rhetoric to justify repeated violence against its colonies.