Category Archives: ai

#121 – Eugenia Kuyda: Friendship with an AI Companion

Eugenia Kuyda co-founder of Replika, an AI companion. Please check out our sponsors to get a discount and to support this podcast:
– Dollar Shave Club: https://dollarshaveclub.com/lex
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– Cash App: download app & use code “LexPodcast”

Episode links:
Eugenia’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/ekuyda
Replika’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/myreplika
Replika’s Website: https://replika.ai

If you would like to get more information about this podcast go to https://lexfridman.com/podcast or connect with @lexfridman on Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, Medium, or YouTube where you can watch the video versions of these conversations. If you enjoy the podcast, please rate it 5 stars on Apple Podcasts, follow on Spotify, or support it on Patreon.

Here’s the outline of the episode. On some podcast players you should be able to click the timestamp to jump to that time.

OUTLINE:
00:00 – Introduction
06:18 – Loneliness
13:54 – Can AI alleviate loneliness?
18:13 – Love
20:49 – Russia in the 1990’s
31:47 – Chernobyl
41:35 – Communism
49:21 – Losing a friend
57:55 – Mortality
1:10:41 – Replika origin story
1:59:37 – Bringing people back to life with AI
2:05:37 – Relationship with Replika
2:18:27 – Can you form a connection with text alone?
2:27:45 – Does an AI companion need a body?
2:30:20 – Her
2:37:24 – GPT-3 for conversation
2:43:48 – We should be nice to AI
2:46:52 – Book recommendations
2:53:45 – Russian language
2:58:41 – Meaning of life

Lex Solo #2 – The Future of Neuralink

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My thoughts on 8 possible long-term futures of Neuralink after attending the August 2020 progress update. This is a solo episode #2 of the podcast. Hopefully it’s interesting to some folks. The aim is for these episodes to be focused on a particular topic, at times challenging, at times personal, at times exciting to me on a technical and philosophical level like the episode today.

Here’s the outline of the episode. On some podcast players you should be able to click the timestamp to jump to that time.

OUTLINE:
00:00 – Introduction
04:42 – 1. Alleviating Suffering
07:25 – 2. Consciousness and Intelligence
11:39 – 3. Augmented Body, Mind, and Reality
13:42 – 4. Gaming & Virtual Reality
16:25 – 5. Merging Tech & Biology
19:40 – 6. Telepathy
22:58 – 7. Memories & Immortality
28:04 – 8. Merging with AI

#120 – François Chollet: Measures of Intelligence

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François Chollet is an AI researcher at Google and creator of Keras.

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– Babbel: https://babbel.com and use code LEX
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– Cash App: download app & use code “LexPodcast”

Episode links:
Francois’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/fchollet
Francois’s Website: https://fchollet.com/
On the Measure of Intelligence (paper): https://arxiv.org/abs/1911.01547

Here’s the outline of the episode. On some podcast players you should be able to click the timestamp to jump to that time.

OUTLINE:
00:00 – Introduction
05:04 – Early influence
06:23 – Language
12:50 – Thinking with mind maps
23:42 – Definition of intelligence
42:24 – GPT-3
53:07 – Semantic web
57:22 – Autonomous driving
1:09:30 – Tests of intelligence
1:13:59 – Tests of human intelligence
1:27:18 – IQ tests
1:35:59 – ARC Challenge
1:59:11 – Generalization
2:09:50 – Turing Test
2:20:44 – Hutter prize
2:27:44 – Meaning of life

#119 – David Eagleman: Neuroplasticity and the Livewired Brain

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David Eagleman is a neuroscientist at Stanford.

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– Athletic Greens: https://athleticgreens.com/lex
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– Cash App: download app & use code “LexPodcast”

Episode links:
David’s Website: https://www.eagleman.com/
David’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/davideagleman
Livewired (book): https://amzn.to/3ba4ezv

Here’s the outline of the episode. On some podcast players you should be able to click the timestamp to jump to that time.

OUTLINE:
00:00 – Introduction
05:05 – Livewired
16:39 – Hardware vs software
25:53 – Brain-computer interfaces
35:12 – 2020 is a challenge for neuroplasticity
46:08 – Free will
50:43 – Nature of evil
58:55 – Psychiatry
1:06:28 – GPT-3
1:13:31 – Intelligence in the brain
1:21:51 – Neosensory
1:31:27 – Book recommendations
1:34:07 – Meaning of life
1:36:53 – Advice for young people

New Name: Lex Fridman Podcast

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New podcast name. New Russian hitman thumbnail. Everything else stays the same. AI is still my passion, but this gives me a bit more freedom to talk to interesting folks from all over. Thanks for the support & the love.

#118 – Grant Sanderson: Math, Manim, Neural Networks & Teaching with 3Blue1Brown

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Grant Sanderson is a math educator and creator of 3Blue1Brown.

Support this podcast by supporting our sponsors:
– Dollar Shave Club: https://dollarshaveclub.com/lex
– DoorDash: download app & use code LEX
– Cash App: download app & use code “LexPodcast”

Episode links:
3Blue1Brown: http://youtube.com/3blue1brown
Grant’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/3blue1brown

Here’s the outline of the episode. On some podcast players you should be able to click the timestamp to jump to that time.

OUTLINE:
00:00 – Introduction
05:13 – Richard Feynman
09:41 – Learning deeply vs broadly
13:56 – Telling a story with visualizations
18:43 – Topology
23:52 – Intuition about exponential growth
32:28 – Elon Musk’s exponential view of the world
40:09 – SpaceX and space exploration
45:28 – Origins of the Internet
49:50 – Does teaching on YouTube get lonely?
54:31 – Daily routine
1:00:20 – Social media
1:10:38 – Online education in a time of COVID
1:27:03 – Joe Rogan moving to Spotify
1:32:09 – Neural networks
1:38:30 – GPT-3
1:46:52 – Manim
1:51:01 – Python
1:56:21 – Theory of everything
2:03:53 – Meaning of life

#117 – Sheldon Solomon: Death and Meaning

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Sheldon Solomon is a social psychologist, a philosopher, co-developer of Terror Management Theory, co-author of The Worm at the Core.

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– Cash App: download app & use code “LexPodcast”

Episode links:
Sheldon’s Website: https://www.skidmore.edu/psychology/faculty/solomon.php
The Worm at the Core (book): https://amzn.to/31hQAXH
Denial of Death (book): https://amzn.to/329Zxl4

Here’s the outline of the episode. On some podcast players you should be able to click the timestamp to jump to that time.

OUTLINE:
00:00 – Introduction
05:34 – Role of death in life
22:57 – Jordan Peterson
53:02 – Humans are both selfish and cooperative
56:57 – Civilization collapse
1:10:07 – Meditating on your mortality
1:16:10 – Kierkegaard and Heidegger
1:33:25 – Elon Musk
1:36:56 – Thinking deeply about death
1:45:53 – Religion
1:56:59 – Consciousness
2:03:39 – Why is Ernest Becker not better known
2:07:09 – AI and mortality
2:21:07 – Academia should welcome renegade thinkers
2:36:33 – Book recommendations
2:43:23 – Advice for young people
2:48:17 – Meaning of life

#116 – Sara Seager: Search for Planets and Life Outside Our Solar System

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Sara Seager is a planetary scientist at MIT, known for her work on the search for exoplanets.

Support this podcast by supporting our sponsors. Click links, get discount:
– Public Goods at https://publicgoods.com/lex and use code LEX
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– Cash App (App Store): https://apple.co/2sPrUHe
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Episode links:
Sara’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/profsaraseager
Sara’s Website: https://www.saraseager.com/
The Smallest Lights in the Universe (book): https://amzn.to/3g3LfHA

If you would like to get more information about this podcast go to https://lexfridman.com/ai or connect with @lexfridman on Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, Medium, or YouTube where you can watch the video versions of these conversations. If you enjoy the podcast, please rate it 5 stars on Apple Podcasts, follow on Spotify, or support it on Patreon.

Here’s the outline of the episode. On some podcast players you should be able to click the timestamp to jump to that time.

OUTLINE:
00:00 – Introduction
05:32 – Falling in love with the stars
09:55 – Are we alone in the universe?
15:27 – Seager equation for number of habitable planets
27:48 – Exoplanets
34:44 – Earth-like exoplanets
40:43 – Intelligent life
52:34 – Number of planets per star
55:09 – Space exploration
57:36 – Traveling to Proxima Centauri
1:00:52 – Starshade
1:07:34 – Using the sun as a gravitational lens
1:09:44 – Starshot
1:12:45 – Rogue planets
1:15:44 – The Smallest Lights in the Universe
1:30:15 – Book recommendations
1:37:48 – Advice for a young person
1:39:29 – Meaning of life

#115 – Dileep George: Brain-Inspired AI

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Dileep George is a researcher at the intersection of neuroscience and artificial intelligence, co-founder of Vicarious, formerly co-founder of Numenta. From the early work on Hierarchical temporal memory to Recursive Cortical Networks to today, Dileep’s always sought to engineer intelligence that is closely inspired by the human brain.

Support this channel by supporting our sponsors. Click links, get discount:
– Babbel: https://babbel.com and use code LEX
– MasterClass: https://masterclass.com/lex
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Here’s the outline of the episode. On some podcast players you should be able to click the timestamp to jump to that time.

OUTLINE:
0:00 – Introduction
4:50 – Building a model of the brain
17:11 – Visual cortex
27:50 – Probabilistic graphical models
31:35 – Encoding information in the brain
36:56 – Recursive Cortical Network
51:09 – Solving CAPTCHAs algorithmically
1:06:48 – Hype around brain-inspired AI
1:18:21 – How does the brain learn?
1:21:32 – Perception and cognition
1:25:43 – Open problems in brain-inspired AI
1:30:33 – GPT-3
1:40:41 – Memory
1:45:08 – Neuralink
1:51:32 – Consciousness
1:57:59 – Book recommendations
2:06:49 – Meaning of life

#114 – Russ Tedrake: Underactuated Robotics, Control, Dynamics and Touch

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Russ Tedrake is a roboticist and professor at MIT and vice president of robotics research at TRI. He works on control of robots in interesting, complicated, underactuated, stochastic, difficult to model situations.

Support this podcast by supporting our sponsors. Click links, get discount:
– Magic Spoon: https://magicspoon.com/lex & use code LEX at checkout
– BetterHelp: https://betterhelp.com/lex
– ExpressVPN: https://www.expressvpn.com/lexpod

Here’s the outline of the episode. On some podcast players you should be able to click the timestamp to jump to that time.

OUTLINE:
00:00 – Introduction
04:29 – Passive dynamic walking
09:40 – Animal movement
13:34 – Control vs Dynamics
15:49 – Bipedal walking
20:56 – Running barefoot
33:01 – Think rigorously with machine learning
44:05 – DARPA Robotics Challenge
1:07:14 – When will a robot become UFC champion
1:18:32 – Black Mirror Robot Dog
1:34:01 – Robot control
1:47:00 – Simulating robots
2:00:33 – Home robotics
2:03:40 – Soft robotics
2:07:25 – Underactuated robotics
2:20:42 – Touch
2:28:55 – Book recommendations
2:40:08 – Advice to young people
2:44:20 – Meaning of life