Brave New World -- hosted by Vasant Dhar

Will big data and scary AI take over the world? Not a chance, says Gary Smith, as he joins Vasant Dhar in episode 68 of Brave New World. The human brain is special. Useful resources: 1. Gary Smith on Twitter, Amazon, Pomona College, Google Scholar and his own website. 2. The AI Delusion -- Gary Smith. 3. Distrust: Big Data, Data-Torturing, and the Assault on Science -- Gary Smith. 4. Standard Deviations: Flawed Assumptions, Tortured Data, and Other Ways to Lie with Statistics -- Gary Smith. 5. Security Analysis -- Benjamin Graham and David Dodd. 6. Sam Bowman on ChatGPT & Controlling AI — Episode 58 of Brave New World. 7. Raphaël Millière Looks Under the Hood of AI -- Episode 60 of Brave New World. 8. Nandan Nilekani on an Egalitarian Internet — Episode 15 of Brave New World. 9. Noise: A Flaw in Human Judgment --  Daniel Kahneman, Olivier Sibony and Cass R. Sunstein. 10. Daniel Kahneman on How Noise Hampers Judgement — Episode 21 of Brave New World. 11. The Nature of Intelligence — Episode 7 of Brave New World (w Yann le Cunn). 12. Ellie Pavlick on the Cutting Edge of AI -- Episode 67 of Brave New World. Check out Vasant Dhar’s newsletter on Substack. Subscription is free!

Does ChatGPT really understand anything? Or is it faking it? Hell, do we understand how it works? Ellie Pavlick joins Vasant Dhar in episode 67 of Brave New World to share her thoughts on where AI has reached -- and where it's going.  Useful resources: 1. Ellie Pavlick at Brown and Google Scholar. 2. Symbols and grounding in large language models -- Ellie Pavlick. 3. Sam Bowman on ChatGPT & Controlling AI -- Episode 58 of Brave New World. 4. The Nature of Intelligence — Episode 7 of Brave New World (w Yann le Cunn). 5. Music, Mind, and Meaning -- Marvin Minsky. 6. Emergent Abilities of Large Language Models -- Jason Wei et al. 7. Hugging Face. 8. EleutherAI. Check out Vasant Dhar’s newsletter on Substack. Subscription is free! 

Law and social conventions around free speech have evolved with the times, but technology presents new challenges to both. In this new world of social media, how should we think about it? Jameel Jaffer joins Vasant Dhar in episode 66 of Brave New World to share his thoughts on how we can navigate this territory. Useful resources: 1. Jameel Jaffer on Wikipedia, Twitter, ACLU, Columbia Law School and Knight First Amendment Institute. 2. Social Media Companies Want to Co-opt the First Amendment. Courts Shouldn’t Let Them -- Jameel Jaffer and Scott Wilkens. 3. There’s a Problem With Banning TikTok. It’s Called the First Amendment. -- Jameel Jaffer. 4. Optimizing for What? Algorithmic Amplification and Society -- A symposium by the Knight Institute. 5. How Rights Went Wrong -- Jamal Greene. 6. Free Speech Futures -- An essay series edited by Jamal Greene. 7. Marketplace of Ideas. 8. Brandenburg v. Ohio. 9. Pentagon Papers. 10. New York Times Co. v. Sullivan. 11. The Federalist Papers. 12. Whitney v. California. 13.  The Technology Wars -- Episode 1 of Brave New World (w Arun Sundararajan). Check out Vasant Dhar’s newsletter on Substack. Subscription is free!

In a rich career as a photographer, he's brought his own distinct gaze to every place he's been to. Rick Smolan joins Vasant Dhar in episode 65 of Brave New World to talk about his rich experiences -- and what he's learned from them. Useful resources: 1. Rick Smolan on Wikipedia, Instagram, Amazon, Ted Talks and Against All Odds. 2. The Good Fight: America's Ongoing Struggle for Justice -- Rick Smolan and Jennifer Erwitt. 3. The Human Face of Big Data -- Rick Smolan and Jennifer Erwitt. 4. Alone Across the Outback -- Rick Smolan's talk for National Geographic. 5. Natasha Pruss & Rick Smolan -- Their Profound Story. 6. Tracks -- John Curran. 7. The Coddling of the American Mind — Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt. 8. How Social Media Threatens Society — Episode 8 of Brave New World (w Jonathan Haidt). 9. A Day in the Life of Australia -- Rick Smolan. 10. The Player -- Robert Altman. 11. The Birth of a Word -- Deb Roy. 12. George & Jerry Invent A Show About Nothing -- Seinfeld. 13. Generative AI at Work -- Erik Brynjolfsson, Danielle Li and Lindsey Raymond. 14. Erik Brynjolfsson on the Second Machine Age — Episode 18 of Brave New World. 15. Andrew Yang on the New Politics America Needs -- Episode 27 of Brave New World. 16. Forward: Notes on the Future of Our Democracy — Andrew Yang. 17. Bias, Lies, and Democracy — Episode 14 of Brave New World (w Ali Velshi). Check out Vasant Dhar’s newsletter on Substack. Subscription is free!

There has never been a better time to be a creator. Amit Varma joins Vasant Dhar in episode 64 of Brave New World to discuss his learnings as a podcaster and blogger -- and to explain why AI is not a threat. Useful resources: 1. Amit Varma on Twitter, India Uncut and Substack. 2. The Seen and the Unseen -- Amit Varma's podcast. 3. Brave New World — Episode 203 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Vasant Dhar). 4.  Episodes of The Seen and the Unseen on the creator ecosystem with Roshan Abbas, Varun Duggirala, Neelesh Misra, Snehal Pradhan, Chuck Gopal, Nishant Jain, Deepak Shenoy, Abhijit Bhaduri and Gaurav Chintamani. 5. A Meditation on Form -- Amit Varma. 6. Why Are My Episodes so Long? -- Amit Varma. 7. If You Are a Creator, This Is Your Time -- Amit Varma. 8. The Naked Sun -- Isaac Asimov. 9. Range Rover — The archives of Amit Varma’s column on poker for the Economic Times. 10. Fog of War and Atomic Chess. 11. Fixing Indian Education — Episode 185 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Karthik Muralidharan). 12. A Scientist in the Kitchen — Episode 204 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Krish Ashok). 13. Law and Education in Our Modern World — Episode 5 of Brave New World (w John Sexton). 14. My Friend Dropped His Pants -- Amit Varma. 15. Eric Weinstein Won’t Toe the Line -- Episode 330 of The Seen and the Unseen. 16. $800,000 to Zero – The FASCINATING History of DaVinci Resolve — Alex Jordan of Learn Color Grading. 17. Miss Excel on Instagram and TikTok. 18. How an Excel Tiktoker Manifested Her Way to Making Six Figures a Day — Nilay Patel. 19. This Australian Man Can Speak Fluent Hindi And Bhojpuri -- ABP News. 20. Advertising is Dead -- Varun Duggirala's podcast. 21. How I Gained 1 MILLION Subscribers — Ali Abdaal. 22. My Top 10 Tips for Aspiring YouTubers — Ali Abdaal. 23. Uplift the Unremarkables — Episode 2 of Brave New World (w Scott Galloway). 24. Amitava Kumar Finds the Breath of Life — Episode 265 of The Seen and the Unseen. 25. The Blue Book: A Writer’s Journal — Amitava Kumar. 26. 1000 True Fans — Kevin Kelly. 27. 1000 True Fans? Try 100 — Li Jin. 28. Bill Bishop's newsletter on China. 29. The Life and Times of Jerry Pinto — Episode 314 of The Seen and the Unseen. 30. Murder in Mahim — Jerry Pinto. 31. Mallikarjun Mansur and Bhimsen Joshi on Spotify. 32. The New World Upon Us — Amit Varma on Alpha Zero. 33. Google’s AlphaZero Destroys Stockfish In 100-Game Match — Mike Klein. Check out Vasant Dhar’s newsletter on Substack. Subscription is free!

He has skin in the game as a top banker -- and saw the power of AI long before others did. Piyush Gupta joins Vasant Dhar in episode 63 of Brave New World to share his excitement for the present -- and his vision for the future. Useful resources: 1. Piyush Gupta at DBS Bank, LinkedIn, Wikipedia and Twitter. 2. Tom Davenport on Artificial Intelligence in Business -- Episode 56 of Brave New World. 3. David Yermack on The Crypto Revolution -- Episode 30 of Brave New World. 4. SVB was a hedge fund in disguise–and the banking crisis is an overreaction -- Vasant Dhar. 5. The Three Laws of Robotics -- Isaac Asimov. 6. The Passions and the Interests -- Albert O Hirschman. 7. All-in On AI -- Thomas H Davenport and Nitin Mittal. Check out Vasant Dhar’s newsletter on Substack. Subscription is free!

We live in a world of smell -- and we barely understand it! Dmitry Rinberg joins Vasant Dhar in episode 62 of Brave New World to discuss what he has learnt about the neurobiology of smell over the last two decades. Useful resources: 1. Dmitry Rinberg at NYU, Google Scholar, LinkedIn, Twitter and Rinberg Lab.. 2. Perfume: The Story of a Murderer -- Patrick Suskind. 3. A Novel Multigene Family May Encode Odorant Receptors: A Molecular Basis for Odor Recognition -- Linda Buck and Richard Axel. 4. Linda Buck and Richard Axel win the Nobel Prize. 5. Learning to Smell: Using Deep Learning to Predict the Olfactory Properties of Molecules -- Alexander B Wiltschko. 6. Digitizing Smell: Using Molecular Maps to Understand Odor -- Richard C Gerkin and Alexander B Wiltschko. 7. This Cat Sensed Death. What if Computers Could, Too? -- Siddhartha Mukherjee. 8. SMILES to Smell: Decoding the Structure–Odor Relationship of Chemical Compounds Using the Deep Neural Network Approach -- Anju Sharma, Rajnish Kumar, Shabnam Ranjta, and Pritish Kumar Varadwaj. Check out Vasant Dhar’s newsletter on Substack. Subscription is free!

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!