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Steven Pinker: AI in the Age of Reason | Lex Fridman Podcast #3
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are close to certainty, such as climate change, and distinguish those from ones that are merely
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https://karpathy.ai/lexicap/0003-large.html#00:27:52.480
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Steven Pinker: AI in the Age of Reason | Lex Fridman Podcast #3
|
imaginable but with infinitesimal probabilities. And we have to take into account people's worry
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https://karpathy.ai/lexicap/0003-large.html#00:27:58.160
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Steven Pinker: AI in the Age of Reason | Lex Fridman Podcast #3
|
budget. You can't worry about everything. And if you sow dread and fear and terror and fatalism,
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https://karpathy.ai/lexicap/0003-large.html#00:28:05.280
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Steven Pinker: AI in the Age of Reason | Lex Fridman Podcast #3
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it can lead to a kind of numbness. Well, these problems are overwhelming, and the engineers are
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https://karpathy.ai/lexicap/0003-large.html#00:28:12.480
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Steven Pinker: AI in the Age of Reason | Lex Fridman Podcast #3
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just going to kill us all. So let's either destroy the entire infrastructure of science, technology,
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https://karpathy.ai/lexicap/0003-large.html#00:28:17.280
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Steven Pinker: AI in the Age of Reason | Lex Fridman Podcast #3
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or let's just enjoy life while we can. So there's a certain line of worry, which I'm worried about
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https://karpathy.ai/lexicap/0003-large.html#00:28:26.640
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Steven Pinker: AI in the Age of Reason | Lex Fridman Podcast #3
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a lot of things in engineering. There's a certain line of worry when you cross, you're allowed to
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https://karpathy.ai/lexicap/0003-large.html#00:28:32.560
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Steven Pinker: AI in the Age of Reason | Lex Fridman Podcast #3
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cross, that it becomes paralyzing fear as opposed to productive fear. And that's kind of what
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https://karpathy.ai/lexicap/0003-large.html#00:28:36.800
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Steven Pinker: AI in the Age of Reason | Lex Fridman Podcast #3
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you're highlighting. Exactly right. And we've seen some, we know that human effort is not
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https://karpathy.ai/lexicap/0003-large.html#00:28:44.240
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Steven Pinker: AI in the Age of Reason | Lex Fridman Podcast #3
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well calibrated against risk in that because a basic tenet of cognitive psychology is that
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https://karpathy.ai/lexicap/0003-large.html#00:28:50.160
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Steven Pinker: AI in the Age of Reason | Lex Fridman Podcast #3
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perception of risk and hence perception of fear is driven by imaginability, not by data. And so we
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https://karpathy.ai/lexicap/0003-large.html#00:28:58.160
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Steven Pinker: AI in the Age of Reason | Lex Fridman Podcast #3
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misallocate vast amounts of resources to avoiding terrorism, which kills on average about six
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https://karpathy.ai/lexicap/0003-large.html#00:29:05.680
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Steven Pinker: AI in the Age of Reason | Lex Fridman Podcast #3
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Americans a year with one exception of 9 11. We invade countries, we invent entire new departments
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https://karpathy.ai/lexicap/0003-large.html#00:29:11.360
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Steven Pinker: AI in the Age of Reason | Lex Fridman Podcast #3
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of government with massive, massive expenditure of resources and lives to defend ourselves against
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https://karpathy.ai/lexicap/0003-large.html#00:29:18.640
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Steven Pinker: AI in the Age of Reason | Lex Fridman Podcast #3
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a trivial risk. Whereas guaranteed risks, one of them you mentioned traffic fatalities and even
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https://karpathy.ai/lexicap/0003-large.html#00:29:25.120
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Steven Pinker: AI in the Age of Reason | Lex Fridman Podcast #3
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risks that are not here, but are plausible enough to worry about like pandemics, like nuclear war,
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https://karpathy.ai/lexicap/0003-large.html#00:29:34.720
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Steven Pinker: AI in the Age of Reason | Lex Fridman Podcast #3
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receive far too little attention. In presidential debates, there's no discussion of how to minimize
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https://karpathy.ai/lexicap/0003-large.html#00:29:45.920
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Steven Pinker: AI in the Age of Reason | Lex Fridman Podcast #3
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the risk of nuclear war. Lots of discussion of terrorism, for example. And so I think it's
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https://karpathy.ai/lexicap/0003-large.html#00:29:51.440
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Steven Pinker: AI in the Age of Reason | Lex Fridman Podcast #3
|
essential to calibrate our budget of fear, worry, concern, planning to the actual probability of
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https://karpathy.ai/lexicap/0003-large.html#00:29:58.240
|
Steven Pinker: AI in the Age of Reason | Lex Fridman Podcast #3
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harm. Yep. So let me ask this question. So speaking of imaginability, you said it's important to think
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https://karpathy.ai/lexicap/0003-large.html#00:30:08.080
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Steven Pinker: AI in the Age of Reason | Lex Fridman Podcast #3
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about reason and one of my favorite people who likes to dip into the outskirts of reason through
|
https://karpathy.ai/lexicap/0003-large.html#00:30:15.840
|
Steven Pinker: AI in the Age of Reason | Lex Fridman Podcast #3
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fascinating exploration of his imagination is Joe Rogan. Oh yes. So who has through reason used to
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https://karpathy.ai/lexicap/0003-large.html#00:30:23.840
|
Steven Pinker: AI in the Age of Reason | Lex Fridman Podcast #3
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believe a lot of conspiracies and through reason has stripped away a lot of his beliefs in that
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https://karpathy.ai/lexicap/0003-large.html#00:30:32.000
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Steven Pinker: AI in the Age of Reason | Lex Fridman Podcast #3
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way. So it's fascinating actually to watch him through rationality kind of throw away the ideas
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https://karpathy.ai/lexicap/0003-large.html#00:30:37.280
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Steven Pinker: AI in the Age of Reason | Lex Fridman Podcast #3
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of Bigfoot and 9 11. I'm not sure exactly. Kim Trails. I don't know what he believes in. Yes.
|
https://karpathy.ai/lexicap/0003-large.html#00:30:43.120
|
Steven Pinker: AI in the Age of Reason | Lex Fridman Podcast #3
|
Okay. But he no longer believed in. No, that's right. No, he's become a real force for good.
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https://karpathy.ai/lexicap/0003-large.html#00:30:50.320
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Steven Pinker: AI in the Age of Reason | Lex Fridman Podcast #3
|
Yep. So you were on the Joe Rogan podcast in February and had a fascinating conversation,
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https://karpathy.ai/lexicap/0003-large.html#00:30:55.520
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Steven Pinker: AI in the Age of Reason | Lex Fridman Podcast #3
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but as far as I remember, didn't talk much about artificial intelligence. I will be on his podcast
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https://karpathy.ai/lexicap/0003-large.html#00:31:00.240
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Steven Pinker: AI in the Age of Reason | Lex Fridman Podcast #3
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in a couple of weeks. Joe is very much concerned about existential threat of AI. I'm not sure if
|
https://karpathy.ai/lexicap/0003-large.html#00:31:05.920
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Steven Pinker: AI in the Age of Reason | Lex Fridman Podcast #3
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you're, this is why I was hoping that you would get into that topic. And in this way,
|
https://karpathy.ai/lexicap/0003-large.html#00:31:11.520
|
Steven Pinker: AI in the Age of Reason | Lex Fridman Podcast #3
|
he represents quite a lot of people who look at the topic of AI from 10,000 foot level.
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https://karpathy.ai/lexicap/0003-large.html#00:31:17.040
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Steven Pinker: AI in the Age of Reason | Lex Fridman Podcast #3
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So as an exercise of communication, you said it's important to be rational and reason
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https://karpathy.ai/lexicap/0003-large.html#00:31:22.480
|
Steven Pinker: AI in the Age of Reason | Lex Fridman Podcast #3
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about these things. Let me ask, if you were to coach me as an AI researcher about how to speak
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https://karpathy.ai/lexicap/0003-large.html#00:31:29.040
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Steven Pinker: AI in the Age of Reason | Lex Fridman Podcast #3
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to Joe and the general public about AI, what would you advise? Well, the short answer would be to
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https://karpathy.ai/lexicap/0003-large.html#00:31:34.080
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Steven Pinker: AI in the Age of Reason | Lex Fridman Podcast #3
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read the sections that I wrote in enlightenment now about AI, but a longer reason would be I
|
https://karpathy.ai/lexicap/0003-large.html#00:31:40.640
|
Steven Pinker: AI in the Age of Reason | Lex Fridman Podcast #3
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think to emphasize, and I think you're very well positioned as an engineer to remind people about
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https://karpathy.ai/lexicap/0003-large.html#00:31:45.200
|
Steven Pinker: AI in the Age of Reason | Lex Fridman Podcast #3
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the culture of engineering, that it really is safety oriented, that another discussion in
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https://karpathy.ai/lexicap/0003-large.html#00:31:50.480
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Steven Pinker: AI in the Age of Reason | Lex Fridman Podcast #3
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enlightenment now, I plot rates of accidental death from various causes, plane crashes, car
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https://karpathy.ai/lexicap/0003-large.html#00:31:57.040
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Steven Pinker: AI in the Age of Reason | Lex Fridman Podcast #3
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crashes, occupational accidents, even death by lightning strikes. And they all plummet because
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https://karpathy.ai/lexicap/0003-large.html#00:32:04.560
|
Steven Pinker: AI in the Age of Reason | Lex Fridman Podcast #3
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the culture of engineering is how do you squeeze out the lethal risks, death by fire, death by
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https://karpathy.ai/lexicap/0003-large.html#00:32:12.640
|
Steven Pinker: AI in the Age of Reason | Lex Fridman Podcast #3
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drowning, death by asphyxiation, all of them drastically declined because of advances in
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https://karpathy.ai/lexicap/0003-large.html#00:32:18.320
|
Steven Pinker: AI in the Age of Reason | Lex Fridman Podcast #3
|
engineering that I got to say, I did not appreciate until I saw those graphs. And it is because
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https://karpathy.ai/lexicap/0003-large.html#00:32:24.320
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Steven Pinker: AI in the Age of Reason | Lex Fridman Podcast #3
|
exactly, people like you who stay up at night thinking, oh my God, is what I'm inventing likely
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https://karpathy.ai/lexicap/0003-large.html#00:32:29.840
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Steven Pinker: AI in the Age of Reason | Lex Fridman Podcast #3
|
to hurt people and to deploy ingenuity to prevent that from happening. Now, I'm not an engineer,
|
https://karpathy.ai/lexicap/0003-large.html#00:32:37.520
|
Steven Pinker: AI in the Age of Reason | Lex Fridman Podcast #3
|
although I spent 22 years at MIT, so I know something about the culture of engineering.
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https://karpathy.ai/lexicap/0003-large.html#00:32:43.760
|
Steven Pinker: AI in the Age of Reason | Lex Fridman Podcast #3
|
My understanding is that this is the way you think if you're an engineer. And it's essential
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https://karpathy.ai/lexicap/0003-large.html#00:32:48.240
|
Steven Pinker: AI in the Age of Reason | Lex Fridman Podcast #3
|
that that culture not be suddenly switched off when it comes to artificial intelligence. So,
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https://karpathy.ai/lexicap/0003-large.html#00:32:53.680
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Steven Pinker: AI in the Age of Reason | Lex Fridman Podcast #3
|
I mean, that could be a problem, but is there any reason to think it would be switched off?
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https://karpathy.ai/lexicap/0003-large.html#00:32:59.200
|
Steven Pinker: AI in the Age of Reason | Lex Fridman Podcast #3
|
I don't think so. And one, there's not enough engineers speaking up for this
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https://karpathy.ai/lexicap/0003-large.html#00:33:02.560
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Steven Pinker: AI in the Age of Reason | Lex Fridman Podcast #3
|
way, for the excitement, for the positive view of human nature, what you're trying to create
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https://karpathy.ai/lexicap/0003-large.html#00:33:06.960
|
Steven Pinker: AI in the Age of Reason | Lex Fridman Podcast #3
|
is positivity. Like everything we try to invent is trying to do good for the world.
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https://karpathy.ai/lexicap/0003-large.html#00:33:13.440
|
Steven Pinker: AI in the Age of Reason | Lex Fridman Podcast #3
|
But let me ask you about the psychology of negativity. It seems just objectively,
|
https://karpathy.ai/lexicap/0003-large.html#00:33:18.240
|
Steven Pinker: AI in the Age of Reason | Lex Fridman Podcast #3
|
not considering the topic, it seems that being negative about the future makes you sound smarter
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https://karpathy.ai/lexicap/0003-large.html#00:33:23.600
|
Steven Pinker: AI in the Age of Reason | Lex Fridman Podcast #3
|
than being positive about the future, irregardless of topic. Am I correct in this observation? And
|
https://karpathy.ai/lexicap/0003-large.html#00:33:28.480
|
Steven Pinker: AI in the Age of Reason | Lex Fridman Podcast #3
|
if so, why do you think that is? Yeah, I think there is that phenomenon that,
|
https://karpathy.ai/lexicap/0003-large.html#00:33:34.320
|
Steven Pinker: AI in the Age of Reason | Lex Fridman Podcast #3
|
as Tom Lehrer, the satirist said, always predict the worst and you'll be hailed as a prophet.
|
https://karpathy.ai/lexicap/0003-large.html#00:33:40.080
|
Steven Pinker: AI in the Age of Reason | Lex Fridman Podcast #3
|
It may be part of our overall negativity bias. We are as a species more attuned to the negative
|
https://karpathy.ai/lexicap/0003-large.html#00:33:45.360
|
Steven Pinker: AI in the Age of Reason | Lex Fridman Podcast #3
|
than the positive. We dread losses more than we enjoy gains. And that might open up a space for
|
https://karpathy.ai/lexicap/0003-large.html#00:33:52.240
|
Steven Pinker: AI in the Age of Reason | Lex Fridman Podcast #3
|
prophets to remind us of harms and risks and losses that we may have overlooked.
|
https://karpathy.ai/lexicap/0003-large.html#00:34:02.480
|
Steven Pinker: AI in the Age of Reason | Lex Fridman Podcast #3
|
So I think there is that asymmetry. So you've written some of my favorite books
|
https://karpathy.ai/lexicap/0003-large.html#00:34:07.680
|
Steven Pinker: AI in the Age of Reason | Lex Fridman Podcast #3
|
all over the place. So starting from Enlightenment Now to The Better Ages of Our Nature,
|
https://karpathy.ai/lexicap/0003-large.html#00:34:16.080
|
Steven Pinker: AI in the Age of Reason | Lex Fridman Podcast #3
|
Blank Slate, How the Mind Works, the one about language, Language Instinct. Bill Gates,
|
https://karpathy.ai/lexicap/0003-large.html#00:34:21.600
|
Steven Pinker: AI in the Age of Reason | Lex Fridman Podcast #3
|
big fan too, said of your most recent book that it's my new favorite book of all time.
|
https://karpathy.ai/lexicap/0003-large.html#00:34:29.200
|
Steven Pinker: AI in the Age of Reason | Lex Fridman Podcast #3
|
So for you as an author, what was a book early on in your life that had a profound impact on the
|
https://karpathy.ai/lexicap/0003-large.html#00:34:37.440
|
Steven Pinker: AI in the Age of Reason | Lex Fridman Podcast #3
|
way you saw the world? Certainly this book, Enlightenment Now, was influenced by David
|
https://karpathy.ai/lexicap/0003-large.html#00:34:43.840
|
Steven Pinker: AI in the Age of Reason | Lex Fridman Podcast #3
|
Deutsch's The Beginning of Infinity, a rather deep reflection on knowledge and the power of
|
https://karpathy.ai/lexicap/0003-large.html#00:34:49.040
|
Steven Pinker: AI in the Age of Reason | Lex Fridman Podcast #3
|
knowledge to improve the human condition. And with bits of wisdom such as that problems are
|
https://karpathy.ai/lexicap/0003-large.html#00:34:55.920
|
Steven Pinker: AI in the Age of Reason | Lex Fridman Podcast #3
|
inevitable but problems are solvable given the right knowledge and that solutions create new
|
https://karpathy.ai/lexicap/0003-large.html#00:35:02.320
|
Steven Pinker: AI in the Age of Reason | Lex Fridman Podcast #3
|
problems that have to be solved in their turn. That's I think a kind of wisdom about the human
|
https://karpathy.ai/lexicap/0003-large.html#00:35:07.440
|
Steven Pinker: AI in the Age of Reason | Lex Fridman Podcast #3
|
condition that influenced the writing of this book. There are some books that are excellent
|
https://karpathy.ai/lexicap/0003-large.html#00:35:11.920
|
Steven Pinker: AI in the Age of Reason | Lex Fridman Podcast #3
|
but obscure, some of which I have on a page on my website. I read a book called The History of Force,
|
https://karpathy.ai/lexicap/0003-large.html#00:35:16.080
|
Steven Pinker: AI in the Age of Reason | Lex Fridman Podcast #3
|
self published by a political scientist named James Payne on the historical decline of violence
|
https://karpathy.ai/lexicap/0003-large.html#00:35:22.800
|
Steven Pinker: AI in the Age of Reason | Lex Fridman Podcast #3
|
and that was one of the inspirations for The Better Angels of Our Nature.
|
https://karpathy.ai/lexicap/0003-large.html#00:35:27.840
|
Steven Pinker: AI in the Age of Reason | Lex Fridman Podcast #3
|
What about early on? If you look back when you were maybe a teenager?
|
https://karpathy.ai/lexicap/0003-large.html#00:35:33.600
|
Steven Pinker: AI in the Age of Reason | Lex Fridman Podcast #3
|
I loved a book called One, Two, Three, Infinity. When I was a young adult I read that book by
|
https://karpathy.ai/lexicap/0003-large.html#00:35:38.160
|
Steven Pinker: AI in the Age of Reason | Lex Fridman Podcast #3
|
George Gamow, the physicist, which had very accessible and humorous explanations of
|
https://karpathy.ai/lexicap/0003-large.html#00:35:43.040
|
Steven Pinker: AI in the Age of Reason | Lex Fridman Podcast #3
|
relativity, of number theory, of dimensionality, high multiple dimensional spaces in a way that I
|
https://karpathy.ai/lexicap/0003-large.html#00:35:48.960
|
Steven Pinker: AI in the Age of Reason | Lex Fridman Podcast #3
|
think is still delightful 70 years after it was published. I like the Time Life Science series.
|
https://karpathy.ai/lexicap/0003-large.html#00:35:59.360
|
Steven Pinker: AI in the Age of Reason | Lex Fridman Podcast #3
|
These are books that would arrive every month that my mother subscribed to, each one on a different
|
https://karpathy.ai/lexicap/0003-large.html#00:36:06.080
|
Steven Pinker: AI in the Age of Reason | Lex Fridman Podcast #3
|
topic. One would be on electricity, one would be on forests, one would be on evolution and then one
|
https://karpathy.ai/lexicap/0003-large.html#00:36:11.280
|
Steven Pinker: AI in the Age of Reason | Lex Fridman Podcast #3
|
was on the mind. I was just intrigued that there could be a science of mind and that book I would
|
https://karpathy.ai/lexicap/0003-large.html#00:36:17.280
|
Steven Pinker: AI in the Age of Reason | Lex Fridman Podcast #3
|
cite as an influence as well. Then later on... That's when you fell in love with the idea of
|
https://karpathy.ai/lexicap/0003-large.html#00:36:24.240
|
Steven Pinker: AI in the Age of Reason | Lex Fridman Podcast #3
|
studying the mind? Was that the thing that grabbed you? It was one of the things I would say. I read
|
https://karpathy.ai/lexicap/0003-large.html#00:36:28.480
|
Steven Pinker: AI in the Age of Reason | Lex Fridman Podcast #3
|
as a college student the book Reflections on Language by Noam Chomsky. I spent most of his
|
https://karpathy.ai/lexicap/0003-large.html#00:36:35.040
|
Steven Pinker: AI in the Age of Reason | Lex Fridman Podcast #3
|
career here at MIT. Richard Dawkins, two books, The Blind Watchmaker and The Selfish Gene,
|
https://karpathy.ai/lexicap/0003-large.html#00:36:41.360
|
Steven Pinker: AI in the Age of Reason | Lex Fridman Podcast #3
|
were enormously influential, mainly for the content but also for the writing style, the
|
https://karpathy.ai/lexicap/0003-large.html#00:36:47.440
|
Steven Pinker: AI in the Age of Reason | Lex Fridman Podcast #3
|
ability to explain abstract concepts in lively prose. Stephen Jay Gould's first collection,
|
https://karpathy.ai/lexicap/0003-large.html#00:36:55.040
|
Steven Pinker: AI in the Age of Reason | Lex Fridman Podcast #3
|
Ever Since Darwin, also an excellent example of lively writing. George Miller, a psychologist that
|
https://karpathy.ai/lexicap/0003-large.html#00:37:02.480
|
Steven Pinker: AI in the Age of Reason | Lex Fridman Podcast #3
|
most psychologists are familiar with, came up with the idea that human memory has a capacity of
|
https://karpathy.ai/lexicap/0003-large.html#00:37:10.240
|
Steven Pinker: AI in the Age of Reason | Lex Fridman Podcast #3
|
seven plus or minus two chunks. That's probably his biggest claim to fame. But he wrote a couple
|
https://karpathy.ai/lexicap/0003-large.html#00:37:16.160
|
Steven Pinker: AI in the Age of Reason | Lex Fridman Podcast #3
|
of books on language and communication that I read as an undergraduate. Again, beautifully written
|
https://karpathy.ai/lexicap/0003-large.html#00:37:20.640
|
Steven Pinker: AI in the Age of Reason | Lex Fridman Podcast #3
|
and intellectually deep. Wonderful. Stephen, thank you so much for taking the time today.
|
https://karpathy.ai/lexicap/0003-large.html#00:37:25.840
|
Steven Pinker: AI in the Age of Reason | Lex Fridman Podcast #3
|
My pleasure. Thanks a lot, Lex.
|
https://karpathy.ai/lexicap/0003-large.html#00:37:31.920
|
Yoshua Bengio: Deep Learning | Lex Fridman Podcast #4
|
What difference between biological neural networks and artificial neural networks
|
https://karpathy.ai/lexicap/0004-large.html#00:00:00.000
|
Yoshua Bengio: Deep Learning | Lex Fridman Podcast #4
|
is most mysterious, captivating, and profound for you?
|
https://karpathy.ai/lexicap/0004-large.html#00:00:04.320
|
Yoshua Bengio: Deep Learning | Lex Fridman Podcast #4
|
First of all, there's so much we don't know about biological neural networks,
|
https://karpathy.ai/lexicap/0004-large.html#00:00:11.120
|
Yoshua Bengio: Deep Learning | Lex Fridman Podcast #4
|
and that's very mysterious and captivating because maybe it holds the key to improving
|
https://karpathy.ai/lexicap/0004-large.html#00:00:15.280
|
Yoshua Bengio: Deep Learning | Lex Fridman Podcast #4
|
artificial neural networks. One of the things I studied recently is something
|
https://karpathy.ai/lexicap/0004-large.html#00:00:21.840
|
Yoshua Bengio: Deep Learning | Lex Fridman Podcast #4
|
that we don't know how biological neural networks do but would be really useful for artificial ones
|
https://karpathy.ai/lexicap/0004-large.html#00:00:29.680
|
Yoshua Bengio: Deep Learning | Lex Fridman Podcast #4
|
is the ability to do credit assignment through very long time spans. There are things that
|
https://karpathy.ai/lexicap/0004-large.html#00:00:37.120
|
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