Motley Fool Money Interview with NYU Professor Vasant Dhar: Thinking With Machines
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Dec 28, 2025 
Vasant Dhar, an AI pioneer and NYU Stern Professor, explores the evolving relationship between humans and machines. He shares impactful childhood experiences from India and Ethiopia that fueled his curiosity. Dhar discusses how AI can mimic human decision-making through heuristics and its applications in finance and sports. He emphasizes the importance of retaining a personal voice in writing and offers warnings about the cognitive risks of over-reliance on AI. This conversation dives deep into the future of AI governance and decision-making.
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Early Schooling Shaped Resilience
- Vasant Dhar recounts being misplaced into seventh grade at age nine and navigating classes with much older students.
- He says that unusual upbringing made him resilient and shaped his curiosity about AI.
Bounded Rationality Fueled Early AI
- Herbert Simon's bounded rationality says humans use heuristics because cognitive resources and attention are limited.
- Dhar notes AI adopted these heuristic ideas into expert systems and medical diagnosis tools.
Small Edges Compound Over Time
- Small probabilistic edges compound over time to produce outsized outcomes in markets and sports.
- Dhar uses Roger Federer's 54% point-win rate as an example of tiny advantages multiplying into large match-win differences.