Brave New World -- hosted by Vasant Dhar

Is our democracy in peril? What role has the media played in this? What should we do about it? Ali Velshi joins Vasant Dhar in episode 14 of Brave New World to discuss the subtleties of bias, fake news, information consumption and what to do about social media. Useful resources: 1. Ali Velshi on Twitter and Instagram. 2. Understanding QE in the New World -- Episode 10 of Brave New World (w Paul Sheard). 3. How Social Media Threatens Society -- Episode 8 of Brave New World (w Jonathan Haidt). 4. Can a Machine Have Human Values? -- Episode 13 of Brave New World (w Brian Christian). 5. The Social Media Industrial Complex -- Episode 3 of Brave New World (w Sinan Aral).

As artificial intelligence gets more and more powerful, the need becomes greater to ensure that machines do the right thing. But what does that even mean? Brian Christian joins Vasant Dhar in episode 13 of Brave New World to discuss, as the title of his new book goes, the alignment problem. Useful resources: 1. Brian Christian's homepage. 2. The Alignment Problem: Machine Learning and Human Values -- Brian Christian. 3. Algorithms to Live By: The Computer Science of Human Decisions -- Brian Christian and Tom Griffiths. 4. The Most Human Human -- Brian Christian. 5. How Social Media Threatens Society -- Episode 8 of Brave New World (w Jonathan Haidt). 6. Are We Becoming a New Species? -- Episode 12 of Brave New World (w Molly Crockett). 7. The Nature of Intelligence -- Episode 7 of Brave New World (w Yann le Cunn) 8. Some Moral and Technical Consequences of Automation -- Norbert Wiener. 9.Superintelligence: Paths, Dangers, Strategies -- Nick Bostrom. 10. Human Compatible: AI and the Problem of Control -- Stuart Russell. 11. OpenAI. 12. Center for Human-Compatible AI. 13. Concrete Problems in AI Safety -- Dario Amodei, Chris Olah, Jacob Steinhardt, Paul Christiano, John Schulman, Dan Mané. 14. Machine Bias -- Julia Angwin, Jeff Larson, Surya Mattu and Lauren Kirchner. 15. Inherent Trade-Offs in the Fair Determination of Risk Scores -- Jon Kleinberg, Sendhil Mullainathan, Manish Raghavan. 16. Algorithmic Decision Making and the Cost of Fairness -- Sam Corbett-Davies, Emma Pierson, Avi Feller, Sharad Goel, Aziz Huq.. 17. Predictions Put Into Practice -- Jessica Saunders, Priscillia Hunt, John S. Hollywood 18. An Engine, Not a Camera: How Financial Models Shape Markets -- Donald MacKenzie. 19. An Anthropologist on Mars -- Oliver Sacks. 20. Deep Reinforcement Learning from Human Preferences -- Paul F Christiano, Jan Leike, Tom B Brown, Miljan Martic, Shane Legg, Dario Amadei for OpenAI & Deep Mind.

Social media is changing human behavior. How and why are humans being transformed by algorithms? Molly Crockett joins Vasant Dhar in episode 12 of Brave New World to describe her work at the meeting place of technology and morality. Useful resources: 1. Molly Crockett at Yale, Oxford Neuroscience, Google Scholar and Twitter. 2. Crockett Lab. 3. Moral outrage in the digital age -- MJ Crockett. 4. The MAD Model of Moral Contagion: The Role of Motivation, Attention, and Design in the Spread of Moralized Content Online -- William J Brady, MJ Crockett and Jay J Van Bavel. 5. Inference of trustworthiness from intuitive moral judgments -- Jim AC Everett, David A Pizarro and MJ Crockett. 6. The Social Media Industrial Complex -- Episode 3 of Brave New World (w Sinan Aral). 7. How Social Media Threatens Society -- Episode 8 of Brave New World (w Jonathan Haidt). 8. A computational reward learning account of social media engagement -- Björn Lindström and others. 9. The Alignment Problem -- Brian Christian. 10. You and the Algorithm: It Takes Two to Tango -- Nick Clegg. 11. Moral Learning: Conceptual foundations and normative relevance -- Peter Railton. 12. The social dilemma of autonomous vehicles -- Jean-François Bonnefon, Azim Shariff and Iyad Rahwan. 13. Emotion shapes the diffusion of moralized content in social networks -- William J Brady and others.

In these polarised times, what should the colleges of tomorrow look like? Michael S Roth, the president of Wesleyan University, joins Vasant Dhar in episode 11 of Brave New World to discuss his vision for liberal education. We should empower individuals, he says, by designing for serendipity. Useful resources: 1. Safe Enough Spaces -- Michael S Roth. 2. Beyond the University -- Michael S Roth. 3. ‘Minds Wide Shut’ Review: Dogma, Division and Distrust -- Michael S Roth. 4. Forgiveness in an age of cancel culture -- Michael S Roth. 5. Higher Education Must Stand Up for Voting Rights -- Michael S Roth. 6. Reasoning in Rough Times -- Michael S Roth. 7. A Focus on Critical Feeling -- Michael S Roth. 8. How Social Media Threatens Society -- Episode 8 of Brave New World (w Jonathan Haidt).

Covid was a shock to the global economy. Policy makers have responded with Quantitative Easing. Paul Sheard joins Vasant Dhar in episode 10 of Brave New World to discuss the nuances of QE and its possible impacts. Also discussed: the role of monetary policy in this changing tech landscape, helicopter money and the big question of the 21st century. (Listen to find out!) Useful resources: 1. Quantitative Easing - Explaining It and Dispelling the Myths -- Paul Sheard. 2. MMT (Modern Monetary Theory) – What Is It and Can It Help? -- Paul Sheard. 3. Don’t Lose Sleep Over Mounting Government Debt -- Paul Sheard. 4. A More Robust Macroeconomic Policy Framework Is Needed -- Paul Sheard. 5. The Economic Impact of AI -- Paul Sheard. 6. Bank of International Settlements: Central bank digital currencies: foundational principals and core features. 7. Group of Thirty: Digital Currencies and Stablecoins: Risks, Opportunities, and Challenges Ahead. 

Artificial intelligence can transform healthcare -- and the medical profession may be behind the curve. Regina Barzilay joins Vasant Dhar in episode 9 of Brave New World to talk about how doctors, programmers and lawyers need to find a meeting point to make the revolution happen. Useful resources: 1. Regina Barzilay at MIT CSAIL and MIT J-Clinic. 2. A Deep Learning Approach to Antibiotic Discovery -- Regina Barzilay and others. 3. Toward robust mammography-based models for breast cancer risk -- Regina Barzilay and others. 4. Multi-Objective Molecule Generation using Interpretable Substructures -- Regina Barzilay and others. 5. Human and Artificial Intelligence in Healthcare -- Episode 4 of Brave New World (w Eric Topol). 6. Artificial Intelligence — The Revolution Hasn’t Happened Yet -- Michael Jordan. 7. Intelligible Models for HealthCare: Predicting Pneumonia Risk and Hospital 30-day Readmission -- Rich Caruana and others.

The internet has changed our lives, mostly for the better. But there is a flip side. Jonathan Haidt joins Vasant Dhar in episode 8 of Brave New World to describe how social media is a threat to democracy and public discourse -- and to the mental health of a generation. Useful resources: 1. The Righteous Mind: Why Good People are Divided by Politics and Religion -- Jonathan Haidt. 2. The Coddling of the American Mind: How Good Intentions and Bad Ideas Are Setting Up a Generation for Failure -- Jonathan Haidt. 3. The website for The Coddling, especially its suggestions on How To Improve Social Media. 4. The Happiness Hypothesis: Finding Modern Truth in Ancient Wisdom -- Jonathan Haidt. 5. The Social Media Industrial Complex -- Episode 3 of Brave New World (w Sinan Aral). 6. The Dark Psychology of Social Networks -- Jonathan Haidt and Tobias Rose-Stockwell. 7. The Federalist Papers -- Alexander Hamilton, James Madison and John Jay.

Trying to build artificial intelligence can teach us so much about intelligence itself. AI pioneer Yann LeCun, a winner of the Turing Award, joins Vasant Dhar in episode 7 of Brave New World to discuss how the field of AI has evolved and where it is heading. Points of discussion:  How machines that perceive the world have turbocharged AI. How one of the biggest challenges in deep learning is common sense. The interface between industry and the academy. And how consciousness may not be a superpower but a reflection of our limitations. Useful resources: 1. Yann LeCun's homepage. 2. Yann LeCun's papers.  3. Language and Learning: The Debate between Jean Piaget and Noam Chomsky -- Massimo Piattelli-Palmarini (editor). 4. Perceptrons: An Introduction to Computational Geometry -- Marvin Minsky & Seymour Papert. 5. Her -- Spike Jonze.

How should the Biden administration treat China? The same way the Trump administration did, Peter Berkowitz tells Vasant Dhar in episode 6 of Brave New World. The USA, argues Berkowitz, must not lose sight of its core values as a great democracy. Useful resources: 1. The Elements of the China Challenge -- The Policy Planning Staff, Office of the Secretary of State. 2. Report of the Commission on Unalienable Rights. 3. The Hundred-Year Marathon: China's Secret Strategy to Replace America as the Global Superpower -- Michael Pillsbury.

We live in a different world than we did 30 years ago. How can law and education adapt to the disruptions of technology and politics? John Sexton joins Vasant Dhar in episode 5 of Brave New World to share his insights as an educator who tried to forge a way ahead. Useful resources: 1. Standing for Reason: The University in a Dogmatic Age -- John Sexton. 2. Baseball as a Road to God: Seeing Beyond the Game -- John Sexton.