Efficiency, Resilience, & Robustness With Moshe Vardi - 77th Conversation
Computing Up
Moshe Vardi (, , ), the Karen Ostrum George Distinguished Service Professor in Computational Engineering at Rice University, and a multi-award-winning force in theoretical computer science, joins Michael and Dave in a wide-ranging conversation about robustness and resilience in computer science, engineering, and society at large. Moshe's talk "Lessons from Texas, COVID-19, and the 737 Max" is online (, ). [Cover based on an image used by permission of Moshe Vardi] Episode Note: This conversation was recorded in August 2024 but is only becoming available now. Computing Up regrets and...
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Computing Then And Now with Joy Lisi Rankin - 76th Conversation
Computing Up
Dr. Joy Lisi Rankin (, , , ), an author, historian, and academic, joins Michael and Dave in a fast conversation about the history of computing and its systemic biases from the '60s to the techbros of today, and much more. [Cover based on an image used by permission of ] Note: This conversation was recorded in April 2024 but is only becoming available now. Computing Up regrets and apologizes for the extended delay!
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Collecting Cognition with Steve Sloman - 75th Conversation
Computing Up
Cognitive scientist and psychologist Professor Steve Sloman of Brown University (, , ) joins Michael and Dave in a fun romp through connectionism, collective cognition, the illusion of understanding, and much more. Also, Dave illustrates his illusion of understanding of a bicycle in a true back of the envelope sketch -- [Episode cover based on image used courtesy of Steven Sloman]
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Manon Revel: Is Democracy a Comma in History? - 74th Conversation
Computing Up
Manon Revel (, , ), an Employee Fellow at the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University, joins Michael and Dave for a conversation about the past, present, and future of democracy, and ways to understand it in both computational and practical terms. [Thumbnail based on image provided courtesy of Manon Revel]
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Martha White: Sparse is Rich - 73rd Conversation
Computing Up
Martha White, associate professor of Computing Science at University of Alberta (, ) joins Michael and Dave in a conversation about AI, system prediction and control, the power of sparse representations, and many aspects of machine learning from new mathematical theory to the absolutely practical control of a real water treatment plant. [Thumbnail based on image used courtesy of Martha White]
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Rich Sutton Brings Reinforcements - 72nd Conversation
Computing Up
Computer scientist Rich Sutton, FRS (, , ), a quiet giant of machine learning, joins Michael and Dave in a sprawling conversation touching on reinforcement learning, a hopeful view of AI, the importance of ideas, and a host of other topics. [Thumbnail image used courtesy of Rich Sutton]
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The Living Computation Theory of Everything - 71st Conversation
Computing Up
Michael interviews Dave about his recent video () on a 'theory of everything'. The conversation begins with Michael praising Dave for finally doing some theory, and descends from there.
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Oren Etzioni All Over - 70th Conversation
Computing Up
Oren Etzioni, founding CEO of the Allen Institute for Artificial Intelligence and Professor Emeritus of Computer Science at University of Washington, (, , ) joins Michael and Dave in a conversation that ranges all over, from AI hype and language models to alignment and existential risk and ethics and morality to information pollution and cryptography and politics and more. [Thumbnail based on image licensed CC BY-SA 4.0 by Carissapod ]
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Beautiful Messiness with Jonathan Frankle - 69th Conversation
Computing Up
Jonathan Frankle, the new Chief Scientist - Neural Networks at Databricks (, , ), joins Michael and Dave in a fast conversation about topics ranging from AI risks and fairness to the problems of Computer Science education to the beautiful messiness of modern deep learning. [Thumbnail based on image courtesy of Jonathan Frankle]
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Love Hate Writing - 68th Conversation
Computing Up
Michael and Dave talk about their love and hate relationships with writing, in the context of Dave's foray into publishing and Michael's upcoming MIT Press book . (This conversation is Part 2 of Where The Hell Have Michael & Dave Been?)
info_outlineCynthia Rudin, the Earl D. McLean, Jr. Professor of Computer Science, Electrical and Computer Engineering, Statistical Science, Mathematics,and Biostatistics & Bioinformatics at Duke University (🔗, 🔗, 🔗), joins Michael and Dave for a fast and feisty
conversation about how to make machines we can understand and control, with high-stakes examples like predicting power failures in New York City.