Introduction

In episode 97 of The Gradient Podcast, Daniel Bashir speaks to Professor Michael Levin and Adam Goldstein.

Professor Levin is a Distinguished Professor and Vannevar Bush Chair in the Biology Department at Tufts University. He also directs the Allen Discovery Center at Tufts. His group, the Levin Lab, focuses on understanding the biophysical mechanisms that implement decision-making during complex pattern regulation, and harnessing endogenous bioelectric dynamics toward rational control of growth and form. 

Adam Goldstein was a visiting scientist at the Levin Lab, where he worked on cancer research, and is the co-founder and Chairman of Astonishing Labs. Previously Adam founded Hipmunk, wrote tech books for O'Reilly, and was a Visiting Partner at Y Combinator.

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Outline:

* (00:00) Intro

* (02:37) Intros

* (03:20) Prof. Levin intro

* (04:26) Adam intro

* (06:25) A perspective on intelligence

* (08:40) Diverse intelligence — in unconventional embodiments and unfamiliar spaces, substrate independence

* (12:23) Failure of the life-machine distinction, text-based systems, grounding, and embodiment

* (16:12) What it is to be a Self, fluidity and persistence

* (22:45) The combination problem in cognitive function, levels and representation

* (27:10) Goals for AI / cognitive science, Prof Levin’s perspective on building intelligent systems

* (31:25) Adam’s and Prof. Levin’s recent research—regenerative medicine and cancer

* (36:25) Examples of regeneration, Adam on the right approach to the regeneration problem as generation

* (45:25) Protein engineering vs. Adam and Prof. Levin’s program, implicit assumptions underlying biology

* (48:15) Regeneration example in liver disease

* (50:50) Perspectives on AI and its goals

Links:

* Levin Lab homepage

* Forms of life, forms of mind

* Adam’s homepage

* Research

* On Having No Head: Cognition throughout Biological Systems

* Technological Approach to Mind Everywhere

* Living Things Are Not (20th Century) Machines: Updating Mechanism Metaphors in Light of the Modern Science of Machine Behavior

* Life, death, and self: Fundamental questions of primitive cognition viewed through the lens of body plasticity and synthetic organisms

* Modular cognition

* Endless Forms

* Future Medicine: from molecular pathways to the collective intelligence of the body

* Technological Approach to Mind Everywhere: an experimentally-grounded framework for understanding diverse bodies and minds

* The Computational Boundary of a “Self”: Developmental Bioelectricity Drives Multicellularity and Scale-Free Cognition

* Machine life