In 'Homo Ludens,' Johan Huizinga argues that play is a fundamental element of human culture, essential for the generation of culture. He traces the contribution of play from ancient times through the Renaissance and into modern society, highlighting its role in law, science, philosophy, and the arts. Huizinga defines play against a rich theoretical background, using cross-cultural examples to illustrate its universal significance and its civilizing functions[2][3][5].
The Culture series by Iain M. Banks is a collection of science fiction novels that explore the intricacies of a utopian, post-scarcity society. The Culture is a civilization composed of humanoid aliens, artificially intelligent sentient machines, and other sentient life forms. It is characterized by its advanced technology, lack of scarcity, and absence of money, leading to a largely hedonistic society. The series delves into themes such as the ethical dilemmas faced by an advanced civilization when interacting with less advanced societies, personal trauma, and the moral ambiguities of intervention and manipulation. Each novel is self-contained but contributes to the broader narrative of the Culture's interactions with other civilizations and its internal societal dynamics[2][4][5].
The book follows Arthur Dent, an ordinary Englishman, whose house and planet are about to be demolished. He is rescued by his friend Ford Prefect, an alien researcher for the 'Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy'. Together, they embark on a journey through space, encountering various characters such as Zaphod Beeblebrox, the two-headed, three-armed president of the galaxy, Trillian, a human woman, and Marvin, a paranoid android. The story involves their adventures on the spaceship Heart of Gold, which has an Infinite Improbability Drive, and their quest to understand the ultimate question of life, the universe, and everything, which is revealed to be '42'. The novel is known for its humor, satire, and imaginative storytelling.
How can AI help us understand and master deeply complex systems—from the game Go, which has 10 to the power 170 possible positions a player could pursue, or proteins, which, on average, can fold in 10 to the power 300 possible ways? This week, Reid and Aria are joined by Demis Hassabis. Demis is a British artificial intelligence researcher, co-founder, and CEO of the AI company, DeepMind. Under his leadership, DeepMind developed Alpha Go, the first AI to defeat a human world champion in Go and later created AlphaFold, which solved the 50-year-old protein folding problem. He's considered one of the most influential figures in AI. Demis, Reid, and Aria discuss game theory, medicine, multimodality, and the nature of innovation and creativity.
For more info on the podcast and transcripts of all the episodes, visit https://www.possible.fm/podcast/
Select mentions:
Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams
AlphaGo documentary: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WXuK6gekU1Y
Nash equilibrium & US mathematician John Forbes Nash
Homo Ludens by Johan Huizinga
Veo 2, an advanced, AI-powered video creation platform from Google DeepMind
The Culture series by Iain Banks
Hartmut Neven, German-American computer scientist
Topics:
3:11 - Hellos and intros
5:20 - Brute force vs. self-learning systems
8:24 - How a learning approach helped develop new AI systems
11:29 - AlphaGo’s Move 37
16:16 - What will the next Move 37 be?
19:42 - What makes an AI that can play the video game StarCraft impressive
22:32 - The importance of the act of play
26:24 - Data and synthetic data
28:33 - Midroll ad
28:39 - Is it important to have AI embedded in the world?
33:44 - The trade-off between thinking time and output quality
36:03 - Computer languages designed for AI
40:22 - The future of multimodality
43:27 - AI and geographic diversity
48:24 - AlphaFold and the future of medicine
51:18 - Rapid-fire Questions
Possible is an award-winning podcast that sketches out the brightest version of the future—and what it will take to get there. Most of all, it asks: what if, in the future, everything breaks humanity's way? Tune in for grounded and speculative takes on how technology—and, in particular, AI—is inspiring change and transforming the future. Hosted by Reid Hoffman and Aria Finger, each episode features an interview with an ambitious builder or deep thinker on a topic, from art to geopolitics and from healthcare to education. These conversations also showcase another kind of guest: AI. Each episode seeks to enhance and advance our discussion about what humanity could possibly get right if we leverage technology—and our collective effort—effectively.