Michael Stevens: Vsauce | Artificial Intelligence (AI) Podcast

32 thoughts on “Michael Stevens: Vsauce | Artificial Intelligence (AI) Podcast”

1. I really enjoyed this conversation with Michael. Here's the outline:
   0:00 – Introduction
   2:26 – Psychology
   3:59 – Consciousness
   6:55 – Free will
   7:55 – Perception vs reality
   9:59 – Simulation
   11:32 – Science
   16:24 – Flat earth
   27:04 – Artificial Intelligence
   30:14 – Existential threats
   38:03 – Elon Musk and the responsibility of having a large following
   43:05 – YouTube algorithm
   52:41 – Mortality and the meaning of life

2. Обичам те, Лекс!

3. One flat-Earther idea I heard turned out to be pretty good.
   They claimed the reason you see different stars at different locations is because stars aren't real, they're just a spherical projection which is unique to each person depending on time and where they are.

   The idea is ridiculous from a scientific perspective but as a crappy game dev I love it. Creating a flat world with a spherical skymap which rotates based on where you are would be far easier to implement than a spherical world map.

4. Thank you Michael, I just took down and subscribed to every one of the other users you named, yours being first! 👍👍

5. My slightly above layman guess at what it would take to build a general purpose AI:

   My first thought is I don't think general vs specific use AI is a binary, I think we'll discover that there's a spectrum leading up to general purpose AI composed of multiple qualities and sooner or later we'll probably develop a scale like we rank the abilities of self-driving cars from 0 to 5.

   I also think the way neural networks work a qualitatively too simple. Weights and biases have got us a long way and likely will continue to do so but despite increasing the scale of these types of networks by orders of magnitude we don't seem to be any closer to a general intelligence. It seems to me that we're going to need to look at quality as well as quantity and use a more complex neural model, perhaps emulate different neuron types have have them effected differently by neurotransmitters and hormones.

   Finally there is one method we KNOW can result in a general purpose, self-aware intelligence.. evolution.
   Evolution simulations always have a compromise. You can simulate a few reasonably complex organisms or you can simulate many simpler organisms but we'd need both. To get around this I propose what is effectively a self playing MMO, each computer connected simulating a handful of creatures on a much larger server. Creatures would learn to eat, drink, mate and keep themselves and their offspring safe and inherit "DNA" from their parents. Users might simply observe as a scientific curiosity or perhaps have the ability to play God and try to selectively breed creatures towards higher intelligence.

6. Love Lex and love Michael. BUT!
   Michael's "presence" felt somewhat up and down. One moment he's saying something deep and fascinating, next moment he is like some hipster in a bar, trying to impress you. Maybe he was tired by the end, but Elon Musk comments and his answer to mortality question were kinda disappointing. Strictly IMHO.

7. i really like how you guys break down questions and answer them.

8. he is nothing. again, nothing. he gives round answers, empty and dull.

9. What a conversation! This was a particularly engaging episode, thank you Lex, Michael. I really enjoy and appreciate your direct, focused style of interviewing Lex. You have a knack for guiding the conversation while still affording your guests ample space to ruminate on these incredibly heady, dense topics. o/

10. Vsauce seems to hold to an antiquated idea of gravity. Alludes to gravity as a force. Gravity is not a force rather the curvature of spacetime:

    https://www.nbcnews.com/mach/science/einstein-showed-newton-was-wrong-about-gravity-now-scientists-are-ncna1038671

    "But Newton's view of gravity didn't work for some things, like Mercury's peculiar orbit around the sun. The orbits of planets shift over time, and Mercury's orbit shifted faster than Newton predicted.
    Einstein offered a different view of gravity, one that made sense of Mercury. Instead of exerting an attractive force, he reasoned that each object curves the fabric of space and time around them, forming a sort of well that other objects "

    From Jolyon Bloomfield – PhD in Physics
    http://curious.astro.cornell.edu/140-physics/the-theory-of-relativity/general-relativity/1059-if-gravity-isn-t-a-force-how-does-it-accelerate-objects-advanced

    "Now, let's get back to those geodesics. A body undergoing geodesic motion feels no forces acting upon itself. It is just following what it feels to be a "downward slope through spacetime" (this is how the bending affects the motion of an object). The particular geodesic an object wants to follow is dependent upon its velocity, but perhaps surprisingly, not its mass (unless it is massless, in which case its velocity is exactly the speed of light). There are no forces acting upon that body; we say this body is in freefall. Gravity is not acting as a force."

    https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-einstein-revealed-the-universe-s-strange-nonlocality/

    "For instance, Einstein created his general theory of relativity-which provides our modern understanding of gravity-with the express purpose of expunging nonlocality from physics. Isaac Newton's gravity acted at a distance, as if by magic, and general relativity snapped the wand in two by showing that the curvature of spacetime, and not an invisible force, gives rise to gravitational attraction"

    From Isaac Newton himself
    https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/newton-philosophy/

    "In reply to this letter, Newton refers back to this second proposition, making one of the most famous of all his pronouncements concerning the possibility of action at a distance:
    The last clause of the second position I like very well. It is inconceivable that inanimate brute matter should, without the mediation of something else which is not material, operate upon and affect other matter without mutual contact, as it must be, if gravitation in the sense of Epicurus, be essential and inherent in it. And this is one reason why I desired you would not ascribe innate gravity to me. That gravity should be innate, inherent, and essential to matter, so that one body may act upon another at a distance through a vacuum, without the mediation of anything else, by and through which their action and force may be conveyed from one to another, is to me so great an absurdity that I believe no man who has in philosophical matters a competent faculty of thinking can ever fall into it. Gravity must be caused by an agent acting constantly according to certain laws; but whether this agent be material or immaterial, I have left open to the consideration of my readers."

    https://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/13/science/13gravity.html
    "You might wonder why a string theorist is interested in Newton's equations. After all Newton was overturned a century ago by Einstein, who explained gravity as warps in the geometry of space-time, and who some theorists think could be overturned in turn by string theorists."

11. Vsauce's understanding of science is poor. "Science doesn't proves things" is the antithesis of what science is. Proving things is the whole point. If you have a viable hypothesis that can be tested, you will either prove that hypothesis or validate the null. If the hypothesis is not testable, any conclusions made regarding any cause and effect inquiries/statements will be based on conjecture; therefore, not science

12. When we figure out how to create an A.I. Flat-earther, then I'll say we've gone too far. 🙂

13. Key Teachers on Youtube of Vsauce on 17 DEC 2019: 3Blue1Brown, PhysicsGirl, LookingGlassUniverse, UpAndAtom, BrainScoop, Veritasium

14. So he hasn't had the interview w/ the YouTube algorithm guy yet?

15. 8:00 (Joe Rogan) "Have you ever tried DMT or mushrooms?"

16. And as always
    Thank you

17. Shout out to Thoughty2 haha

18. ̶T̶o̶m̶i̶g̶a̶c̶h̶i̶ Tamagochi

19. Great interview! Michael Stevens had a huge impact in my way of existential thinking and perception of the world.

20. Dude. Not only scientists but all creatures who have a functioning brain should roll their eyes in a heartbeat to flat earthers. jfc

21. 19:25 Professor, you're now among my top 5 scientists of all time.

22. Philosophy thought about everything and explored the boundaries of free-will, indeterminism, determinsm, freedom and those things, and how could it be, there is no answer/solution. Determinism and indeterminism seems to be incompatible with free-will or freedom. See Compatibilism, Libertarism, Determinism in Philosophy. Perhaps the concept of freedom as such makes no sense at all

23. Woah, idk about you guys, but I am part of the universe and I certainly am not "tugging" on Michael.

24. This is incredibly interesting! Thank you Lex!

25. @23:14 I use to think that.. until I learned about this channel https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCZFipeZtQM5CKUjx6grh54g
    You definitely can create an earth size structure that looks like a tea cup or a disk given the laws of physics and unlimited engineering power. It just cannot happen by itself.

26. Another fantastic talk. Thanks for posting! And thank you for bringing on such interesting guests. Keep up the good work.

27. Thank you for this valuable video (The Netherlands)

28. I would absolutely call you a scientist. A piece of a bigger picture, albeit a much larger piece. You show light on topics many people haven't seen yet. Giving the layman a higher level of knowledge improves society in leaps and bounds. Whether it's figuring out new information or providing it to others, I think it's all a part of Science.

29. fantastic, my new favorite podcast. Keep up the good work.

30. bringing vsauce on a podcast is in itself a pro-gamer move

31. What if consciousness is the one thing that binds us to time.

    If we would be in another (higher) dimension, time would maybe be not a thing – not fix but every time would be every moment (is there another better way to define better what I just said ?)

    I don’t know if that makes ANY f’n sense, was just some Idea of mine

32. 0:00 – Introduction
    
    2:26 – Psychology
    
    3:59 – Consciousness
    
    6:55 – Free will
    
    7:55 – Perception vs reality
    
    9:59 – Simulation
    
    11:32 – Science
    
    16:24 – Flat earth
    
    27:04 – Artificial Intelligence
    
    30:14 – Existential threats
    
    38:03 – Elon Musk and the responsibility of having a large following
    
    43:05 – YouTube algorithm
    
    52:41 – Mortality and the meaning of life

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