Noam Chomsky is one of the greatest minds of our time and is one of the most cited scholars in history. He is a linguist, philosopher, cognitive scientist, historian, social critic, and political activist. He has spent over 60 years at MIT and recently also joined the University of Arizona.

This conversation is part of the Artificial Intelligence podcast. 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 or support it on Patreon.

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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.

00:00 – Introduction
03:59 – Common language with an alience species
05:46 – Structure of language
07:18 – Roots of language in our brain
08:51 – Language and thought
09:44 – The limit of human cognition
16:48 – Neuralink
19:32 – Deepest property of language
22:13 – Limits of deep learning
28:01 – Good and evil
29:52 – Memorable experiences
33:29 – Mortality
34:23 – Meaning of life