One of the great disruptions that shaped the modern world was the way in which technology transformed Wall Street. Marty Fridson joins Vasant Dhar in episode 61 of Brave New World to talk about those good old days -- and these mad new times! Useful resources: 1. Martin Fridson at Lehman Livian Fridson Advisors, Amazon, Twitter and his own website. 2. When the Tech Revolution Came to Wall Street -- Marty Fridson. Check out Vasant Dhar’s newsletter on Substack. Subscription is free!

ChatGPT is great -- but does it 'understand' what it is telling us? Raphaël Millière joins Vasant Dhar in episode 60 of Brave New World to understand on what's going on inside ChatGPT -- and the larger questions that arise from this. Useful resources: 1. Raphaël Millière on Google Scholar, Twitter, LinkedIn, Columbia University and his own website. 2. How to Talk to (And About) Artificial Intelligence -- Raphaël Millière. 3. Moving Beyond Mimicry in Artificial Intelligence -- Raphaël Millière. 4. AI Art Is Challenging the Boundaries of Curation -- Raphaël Millière. 5. The Vector Grounding Problem -- Dimitri Coelho Mollo and Raphaël Millière. 6. Sam Bowman on ChatGPT & Controlling AI -- Episode 58 of Brave New World. 7. Paulo Kaiser on Assimilating ChatGPT -- Episode 59 of Brave New World. 8. The Nature of Intelligence -- Episode 7 of Brave New World (w Yann LeCun). 9. The False Promise of ChatGPT -- Noam Chomsky, Ian Roberts and Jeffrey Watumull. 10. The Bitter Lesson -- Rich Sutton. 11. On Bullshit -- Harry Frankfurt. 12. Bing’s A.I. Chat: ‘I Want to Be Alive -- Kevin Roose. 13. Language Models as Agent Models -- Jacob Andreas. Check out Vasant Dhar’s newsletter on Substack. Subscription is free!

Will it take all our jobs? In what way will it make us better? What do we need to do? Paulo Kaiser joins Vasant Dhar in episode 59 of Brave New World to discuss the technology that is changing the world in ways we can't imagine. Bonus material: Wisdom for young professionals just starting out. Useful resources: 1. Paulo Kaiser on LinkedIn. 2. Plative. 3. Sam Bowman on ChatGPT & Controlling AI -- Episode 58 of Brave New World. Check out Vasant Dhar’s newsletter on Substack. Subscription is free!

Artificial intelligence is awesome -- but should we fear it? How can we stay in charge? Sam Bowman joins Vasant Dhar in episode 58 of Brave New World to discuss the Control Problem -- and more.   Also check out: 1. Sam Bowman at NYU Courant, LinkedIn,Twitter and Google Scholar. 2.  Measuring Progress on Scalable Oversight for Large Language Models -- Samuel R Bowman et al. 3. Herbert Simon, Harry Pople and Norbert Wiener. 4. Language Models as Agent Models -- Jacob Andreas. 5.  The Alignment Problem: Machine Learning and Human Values — Brian Christian. 6. Human Compatible — Stuart Russell. 7. Thinking, Fast and Slow — Daniel Kahneman. 8. ImageNet Classification with Deep Convolutional Neural Networks --Alex Krizhevsky et al. Check out Vasant Dhar’s newsletter on Substack. Subscription is free!

Exploring the exciting frontiers of computational biology with Rich Bonneau, from protein folding to drug discovery using machine learning. Dive into the connection between language models and biology, innovative approaches in drug discovery like Moderna's COVID vaccine, and the collaborative efforts in advancing research. Discover the intersection of academia, industry, and government in computational biology and the promising future of interdisciplinary tools.

It is about time companies went all in on artificial intelligence. Tom Davenport joins Vasant Dhar in episode 56 of Brave New World to discuss how his work with AI in the corporate world makes him such an optimist. Useful resources: 1. Tom Davenport on Amazon, Twitter, Google Scholar, LinkedIn, Babson College and his own website. 2. All-in On AI -- Thomas H Davenport and Nitin Mittal.. 3. Competing on Analytics -- Thomas H Davenport and Jeanne G Harris. 4. Working with AI -- Thomas H Davenport and Steven M Miller. 5. The AI Advantage -- Thomas H Davenport. 6. Google fires software engineer who claims AI chatbot is sentient -- The Guardian. 7. Can AI have a soul? -- Fireside Chat with Blake Lemoine. 8. Portrait of an AI Leader: Piyush Gupta of DBS Bank -- Tom Davenport and Randy Bean. 9. The Future Of Work Now: Morgan Stanley’s Financial Advisors And The Next Best Action System -- Thomas H Davenport. 10. Stop Tinkering with AI -- Thomas H Davenport and Nitin Mittal. 11. The AI-First Company -- Ash Fontana. 12. Competing in the Age of AI -- Marco Iansiti and Karim R Lakhani. 13. Data Scientist: The Sexiest Job of the 21st Century -- Thomas H Davenport and DJ Patil. 14. Foundation Medicine. 15. How Computer Automation Affects Occupations: Technology, Jobs, and Skills -- James E Bessen. Check out Vasant Dhar’s newsletter on Substack. Subscription is free!

Social media has brought new challenges to our times, such as what they should or shouldn't publish or amplify. Do we need new laws to deal with these challenges, or are current laws sufficient? Paul M Barrett joins Vasant Dhar in episode 55 of Brave New World to share his insights. Useful resources 1. Paul M Barrett on Twitter, Amazon and NYU Stern. 2. Glock: The Rise of America's Gun -- Paul M Barrett. 3. A Platform ‘Weaponized’: How YouTube Spreads Harmful Content—And What Can Be Done About It -- Paul M Barrett and Justin Hendrix. 4. It’s Past Time to Take Social Media Content Moderation In-House -- Paul M Barrett. 5. Spreading The Big Lie: How Social Media Sites Have Amplified False Claims of U.S. Election Fraud -- Paul M Barrett. 6. The ‘Twitter Files’ Show It’s Time to Reimagine Free Speech Online -- David French. 7. Daniel Kahneman on How Noise Hampers Judgement -- Episode 21 of Brave New World. 8. Dissecting “Noise” -- Vasant Dhar. 9. Philip Tetlock on the Art of Forecasting — Episode 31 of Brave New World. 10. The Battle for Attention -- Vasant Dhar. 11. Section 230: It’s Time to Equate Amplification to Publishing -- Vasant Dhar. Check out Vasant Dhar’s newsletter on Substack. Subscription is free!

We have become the first species that can edit its own programming. Dana Carroll joins Vasant Dhar in episode 54 of Brave New World to share his insights on the science of gene editing -- and the ethical questions it raises. Useful resources: 1. Dana Carroll at University of Utah and Google Scholar. 2. The Promise and Challenge of Therapeutic Genome Editing -- Jennifer Doudna. 3. Jennifer's Doudna conversation on CRISPR with Chris Anderson. 4. Jennifer Doudna at Google Scholar and Amazon. 5. CRISPR babies: when will the world be ready? -- Heidi Ledford. 6. Beyond CRISPR: What's current and upcoming in genome editing -- Chris Tachibana. 7. Human Genome Editing: Science, Ethics, and Governance -- Various authors. 8. Heritable Human Genome Editing -- Various authors. 9. Human genome editing: a framework for governance -- WHO. 10. Human genome editing: position paper -- WHO. 11. Human genome editing: recommendations -- WHO. 12. Animal Liberation — Peter Singer. Check out Vasant Dhar’s newsletter on Substack. Subscription is free!

In principle, you can take a single cell from an animal and feed an entire village. It's a matter of time. In the meantime, there are alternatives, like fermentation, to produce all kinds of new substitutes that could be better than meat in terms of nutrition and taste. Paul Shapiro joins Vasant Dhar in episode 53 of Brave New World to discuss how meat alternatives are the future -- and liberating for animals and the environment. Useful resources: 1. Paul Shapiro on LinkedIn, Twitter, Wikipedia and his own website. 2. Clean Meat: How Growing Meat Without Animals Will Revolutionize Dinner and the World -- Paul Shapiro. 3. The Clean Meat website. 4. The Better Meat Co. 5. Is Old Music Killing New Music? — Ted Gioia. 6. Maneka Gandhi on Animal Rights -- Episode 44 of Brave New World. 7. Animal Liberation — Peter Singer. 8. Animal Farming and Protein — Vasant Dhar. 9. My Octopus Teacher -- Pippa Ehrlich and James Reed. 10. The Innovator’s Dilemma — Clayton M Christensen. Check out Vasant Dhar’s newsletter on Substack. Subscription is free!

Has the world become more or less safe over the years? How do we measure risk in these times of crazy change? Neeti Bhalla Johnson joins Vasant Dhar in episode 52 of Brave New World to share her thoughts on how professionals do it! Useful resources: 1. Neeti Bhalla Johnson on LinkedIn and Liberty Mutual. 2. Daniel Kahneman on How Noise Hampers Judgement -- Episode 21 of Brave New World. 3. Noise: A Flaw in Human Judgement — Daniel Kahneman, Olivier Sibony and Cass Sunstein. 4. Thinking, Fast and Slow — Daniel Kahneman. 5. Dissecting “Noise” — Vasant Dhar. 6. Factfulness -- Hans Rosling. 7. Global Deaths in Conflicts Since the Year 1400 -- Chart by Max Roser. 8. War and Peace -- Max Roser, Joe Hasell, Bastian Herre and Bobbie Macdonald. 8. Destined for War.-- Graham Allison. 9. The Technology Wars — Episode 1 of Brave New World (w Arun Sundararajan). 10. The Fifth Risk: Undoing Democracy -- Michael Lewis. Check out Vasant Dhar’s newsletter on Substack. Subscription is free!