Brave New World -- hosted by Vasant Dhar

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!

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!