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The machines are coming. Scratch that—they're already here: AIs that propose new combinations of ideas; chatbots that help us summarize texts or write code; algorithms that tell us who to friend or follow, what to watch or read. For a while the reach of intelligent machines may have seemed somewhat limited. But not anymore—or, at least, not for much longer. The presence of AI is growing, accelerating, and, for better or worse, human culture may never be the same. My guest today is Dr. Iyad Rahwan. Iyad directs the Center for Humans and Machines at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development in Berlin. Iyad is a bit hard to categorize. He's equal parts computer scientist and artist; one magazine profile described him as "the Anthropologist of AI." Labels aside, his work explores the emerging relationships between AI, human behavior, and society. In a recent paper, Iyad and colleagues introduced a framework for understanding what they call "machine culture." The framework offers a way of thinking about the different routes through which AI may transform—is transforming—human culture. Here, Iyad and I talk about his work as a painter and how he brings AI into the artistic process. We discuss whether AIs can make art by themselves and whether they may eventually develop good taste. We talk about how AIphaGoZero upended the world of Go and about how LLMs might be changing how we speak. We consider what AIs might do to cultural diversity. We discuss the field of cultural evolution and how it provides tools for thinking about this brave new age of machine culture. Finally, we discuss whether any spheres of human endeavor will remain untouched by AI influence. Before we get to it, a humble request: If you're enjoying the show—and it seems that many of you are—we would be ever grateful if you could let the world know. You might do this by leaving a rating or review on Apple Podcasts, or maybe a comment on Spotify. You might do this by giving us a shout out on the social media platform of your choice. Or, if you prefer less algorithmically mediated avenues, you might do this just by telling a friend about us face-to-face. We're hoping to grow the show and best way to do that is through listener endorsements and word of mouth. Thanks in advance, friends. Alright, on to my conversation with Iyad Rahwan. Enjoy! A transcript of this episode will be available soon. Notes and links 3:00 – Images from Dr. Rahwan's ‘Faces of Machine' portrait series. One of the portraits from the series serves as our tile art for this episode. 11:30 – The “stochastic parrots” term comes from an influential paper by Emily Bender and colleagues. 18:30 – A popular article about DALL-E and the “avocado armchair.” 21:30 – Ted Chiang's essay, “Why A.I. isn't going to make art.” 24:00 – An interview with Boris Eldagsen, who won the Sony World Photography Awards in March 2023 with an image that was later revealed to be AI-generated. 28:30 – A description of the concept of “science fiction science.” 29:00 – Though widely attributed to different sources, Isaac Asimov appears to have developed the idea that good science fiction predicts not the automobile, but the traffic jam. 30:00 – The academic paper describing the Moral Machine experiment. You can judge the scenarios for yourself (or design your own scenarios) here. 30:30 – An article about the Nightmare Machine project; an article about the Deep Empathy project. 37:30 – An article by Cesar Hidalgo and colleagues about the relationship between television/radio and global celebrity. 41:30 – An article by Melanie Mitchell (former guest!) on AI and analogy. A popular piece about that work. 42:00 – A popular article describing the study of whether AIs can generate original research ideas. The preprint is here. 46:30 – For more on AlphaGo (and its successors, AlphaGo Zero and AlphaZero), see here. 48:30 – The study finding that the novel of human Go playing increased due to the influence of AlphaGo. 51:00 – A blogpost delving into the idea that ChatGPT overuses certain words, including “delve.” A recent preprint by Dr. Rahwan and colleagues, presenting evidence that “delve” (and other words overused by ChatGPT) are now being used more in human spoken communication. 55:00 – A paper using simulations to show how LLMs can “collapse” when trained on data that they themselves generated. 1:01:30 – A review of the literature on filter bubbles, echo chambers, and polarization. 1:02:00 – An influential study by Dr. Chris Bail and colleagues suggesting that exposure to opposing views might actually increase polarization. 1:04:30 – A book by Geoffrey Hodgson and Thorbjørn Knudsen, who are often credited with developing the idea of “generalized Darwinism” in the social sciences. 1:12:00 – An article about Google's NotebookLM podcast-like audio summaries. 1:17:3 0 – An essay by Ursula LeGuin on children's literature and the Jungian “shadow.” Recommendations The Secret of Our Success, Joseph Henrich “Machine Behaviour,” Iyad Rahwan et al. Many Minds is a project of the Diverse Intelligences Summer Institute, which is made possible by a generous grant from the John Templeton Foundation to Indiana University. The show is hosted and produced by Kensy Cooperrider, with help from Assistant Producer Urte Laukaityte and with creative support from DISI Directors Erica Cartmill and Jacob Foster. Our artwork is by Ben Oldroyd. Our transcripts are created by Sarah Dopierala. Subscribe to Many Minds on Apple, Stitcher, Spotify, Pocket Casts, Google Play, or wherever you listen to podcasts. You can also now subscribe to the Many Minds newsletter here! We welcome your comments, questions, and suggestions. Feel free to email us at: manymindspodcast@gmail.com. For updates about the show, visit our website or follow us on Twitter (@ManyMindsPod) or Bluesky (@manymindspod.bsky.social).
It is easy to assume the death of the megacity as the virus rips through our nations. Density is an issue. Breathing on each other in enclosed spaces,... Zumba classesprevious issues of Exponential Viewin the Financial Times23 per centMary Bassett from Harvard UniversityindicateCitywidereinforced by Sameh Wahba of the World BankScaleCesar Hidalgo, said on my podcastsays Cesar HidalgoEuropean Environment AgencyFrom the 2018 UN report on urbanization:Source: UN, World Urbanization Prospects 2018Listen to my discussion with Adena FriedmanNor does San Francisco make the top ten.city mayors are looking to reclaim public space from cars and not clamouring to reduce their populationsargues that mobility in the US is decliningIt is available here.
Richard and Eric look into a fascinating phenomenon: Collective Memory Decay. Owing much to the work of the Cesar A. Hidalgo and the Collective Learning group at the MIT Media Lab, this concept looks generally (and specifically) into the interaction between culture and memory. Can we learn something from the way pieces of information are shared and retained by large number of people. This study resulted in a truly fun and compelling data set entitled the "Pantheon Project: Historical Popularity Index" the guys excitedly explore. What can we learn about composers and musicians when they are seen side-by-side, regardless of genre or era?https://www.kaggle.com/mit/pantheon-projecthttp://nautil.us/issue/68/context/how-well-forget-john-lennon
Physicist and author, Cesar Hidalgo joins Azeem Azhar to discuss how understanding knowledge leads to insights on everything from the economic value of megacities to how to moralize machines.
Lo mejor de TED en Español, publicado originalmente el 9 de septiembre de 2019. Muchos sienten que nuestros sistemas políticos están rotos. ¿Hay algo que podemos hacer para arreglarlos? César Hidalgo estudia cómo aprenden los equipos, las organizaciones, las ciudades y los países. También desarrolla herramientas de software para facilitar ese aprendizaje. En su charla en TED en Español, César propone una idea radical: ¡automatizar a los políticos! Pero dejemos que él explique cómo funcionaría. Para más ideas de TED en Español, los esperamos en TEDenEspanol.com.
In nations around the world, people are protesting economic inequality and taking to the streets in political frustration. We said it here first: The pitchforks are coming. This week, Cesar Hidalgo joins Nick and Paul to discuss the unrest in Chile and explain how his political organizing app is helping protestors prioritize the policies they want government to address. The texture piece is courtesy of Gustavo de la Piedra, a listener from Santiago, Chile. The news clips are sourced from the news station France 24. Cesar Hidalgo is a Chilean-Spanish physicist, author, and entrepreneur. He currently holds an ANITI (Artificial and Natural Intelligence Toulouse Institute) Chair at the University of Toulouse, an Honorary Professorship at the University of Manchester, and a Visiting Professorship at Harvard’s School of Engineering and Applied Sciences. From 2010 to 2019, Hidalgo led MIT’s Collective Learning group. He is known for the creation of the field of Economic Complexity, which uses disaggregate data and network methods to explain and predict economic development dynamics, for his work on the creation of data visualization and distribution systems, and for advancing ideas on the use of Artificial Intelligence in democracy. Twitter: @cesifoti Further reading: The pitchforks are coming... for us plutocrats: https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2014/06/the-pitchforks-are-coming-for-us-plutocrats-108014 ‘Chile Woke Up’: Dictatorship’s Legacy of Inequality Triggers Mass Protests: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/03/world/americas/chile-protests.html Global protests share themes of economic anger and political hopelessness: https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2019/10/25/global-wave-protests-share-themes-economic-anger-political-hopelessness/ Chile announces $5.5 billion economic recovery plan as protests bite: https://www.cnbc.com/2019/12/03/chile-announces-5point5-billion-economic-recovery-plan.html Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
This week’s guest is author, culture critic, and philosopher of the weird Erik Davis, whose work has been one of my main inspirations for almost ten years. His latest work of epic scholarship, High Weirdness: Drugs, Esoterica, and Visionary Experience in the Seventies, is an exploration of topics I presumed inaccessible to academic inquiry so masterful I’ve been evangelizing it for months and basically forced a copy on my boss (David Krakauer, President of the Santa Fe Institute, who was a guest in Episode 75). In this episode we peer into the intersection of psychedelics, madness, systems science, postmodernism, and religious studies to ask about the truly other that refuses to allow us a clean answer to the questions, “What is the Real?” and “Did that just really happen?” Strap in for one of the headiest and most important conversations that we’ve ever had on Future Fossils…Join the Future Fossils Podcast Patreon for exclusive perks like an extra 10 minutes of this conversation, in which Erik & Michael discuss “black goo.”Visit Erik’s website to sign up for his email updates (always wonderful) and stay abreast of upcoming events, such as his talk at the SF Psychedelic Society on Thursday Dec 19.Get a copy of High Weirdness at MIT Press.Erik’s appearance on Future Fossils Episode 99 (a kind of prequel to this conversation).My 2011 and 2012 appearances on Erik’s podcast, Expanding Mind.Erik and I discuss over video chat (part 1, part 2) the revised and expanded third edition of his book Techgnosis: Myth, Magic, and Mysticism in the Age of Information.Shop through my Amazon storefront and support the show indirectly with your purchases:https://amazon.com/storefront/michaelgarfieldJoin the Future Fossils Facebook Discussion Grouphttps://facebook.com/groups/futurefossilsShow music by Evan “Skytree” Snyder feat. Michael Garfield, “God Detector”https://skytree.bandcamp.com/track/god-detector-ft-michael-garfieldMentioned:Jacques Lacan. Mark Fisher. Carol Cusack. Eric Wargo. Timothy Morton. Graham Harman. Jeff Kripal. Emelie Gomar. Bruno Latour. Albert Hofmann. Sasha Shulgin. Richard Doyle. Williiam James. Phil Dick. Cesar Hidalgo. Rachel Armstrong. Edward Snowden. Daniel Paul Schraber. We Discuss:The abyss is close to home.“The real, by definition, is not amenable to symbolization. Whatever kind of yen we have to sustain the symbolic in the face of the real is going to fail. And in that sense, the real is fundamentally traumatic.”Perturbations of the reality field.Extimacy.“That’s not me…or if it is, I’m not me anymore.”Refusing to remain within the purely human. To lean out. To open a portal.The Weird vs. The Uncanny.Fiction vs. Religion.“In some sense Burning Man and the spirituality of Burning Man, if you want to call it that – the invention of new subjectivities, the development of an ecstatic culture at this end stage of capitalism and modern mythology – in a way is a kind of later iteration of the things I saw in the 70s.”Material agency in the practice of science. “Science is not practiced by humans alone.” “Drugs as active participants in the enactment of their effects.”“The thing about thinking is that sometimes it’s really clear the way you are actively putting things together, or actively exploring. But then sometimes it seems as if you are almost kind of taken over by an idea, and then the idea has stuff it wants to do, and you are just the connector or vehicle for it. What it means to think is to be in relationship to enigmas that have things to say.”“With reductionism in general, it’s very difficult to explain novelty.”“A psychedelic compound sitting on the shelf is not psychedelic. It’s in the interaction that you explore and discover its phenomenological features.”“There’s no way out of environmental effects in the psychedelic experience - both in the set and setting, and in terms of whatever mysterious multiplicities lie in the material itself. So there’s no way to do capital S Science with psychedelics, despite the fact that they are material molecules that reliably have a certain kind of metabolic arc and can be explained in terms of how they are broken down in the body and even light up certain regions or the brain, etc., etc. I think it’s kind of wonderful. But I think that’s where the weird is: the weird is in that. The weird is in the way you can’t get out of the loop.”Psychogenic Networks and Maximal Entropy Production.“If attention is the fuel, then everywhere we turn, we’re producing self-fulfilling prophecies.”Living Fictions.Weird Studies Episode 36.Lachmann et al. 1999 re: Optimal Encoding & Fermi’s Paradox & “The symbols of the divine first emerge in the trash stratum.”“The revelation is always relativized. Once we’re in this cybernetic situation, then not only do we not know, ‘Is that noise or is that signal?,’ but even when you do get a message, you don’t get to know. Because you’ve knocked out that realm of certainty that in the past said, ‘What you’re thinking is true.’”“Now we get to see what it looks like when the symbolic order, consensus reality, breaks down, melts, mutiplies, becomes weaponized, and we try to make our way through that. And it’s not so fun. It’s not so pretty. It’s not so groovy.”Psychonautics as preparation for the insane world we now live in, where the weird has mainstreamed. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.
In this episode I talk about: Studio Update Some great TED Talks that got me thinking about the future of writing. Watch: A Bold Idea to Replace Politicians by Cesar Hidalgo: https://www.ted.com/talks/cesar_hidalgo_a_bold_idea_to_replace_politicians?language=en Watch: Wearable Tech that Helps You Navigate by Touch by Keith Kirkland: https://www.ted.com/talks/keith_kirkland_wearable_tech_that_helps_you_navigate_by_touch Be sure to check out my newest book, Shadow Deal: http://www.mlmcknight.com Check out the AskALLi Member Q&A Podcast with me and Orna Ross (third Saturday of the month): https://www.allianceindependentauthors.org/membersqa/ Learn more about me and my books at www.michaellaronn.com Check out my new urban fantasy book: www.mlmcknight.com Check out all the past episodes on my website: www.michaellaronn.com/podcast My YouTube Channel for Writers: http://www.youtube.com/authorlevelup Also, join my Fan Club to get 3 free novels, early launch pricing, and notifications whenever I release a new book: www.michaellaronn.com/fanclub If you like the show, don't forget to rate and leave a review!
Is economic growth all about money, trade, and GDP, or are healthy economies built on a different foundation? In this episode, economist W. Brian Arthur and MIT physicist Cesar Hidalgo explain why human knowledge, knowhow, and innovation are the best measures of rising prosperity and future economic growth. Guest Bios W. Brian Arthur: Economist credited with developing the modern approach to increasing returns, and one of the pioneers of the science of complexity. Author of three books including The Nature of Technology: What it Is and How it Evolves. External Professor at the Santa Fe Institute. Cesar Hidalgo: Physicist, writer, and entrepreneur. Associate Professor at MIT, and Director of the Collective Learning group at the MIT Media Lab. Co-founder of Datawheel, a company that specializes in digital transformation solutions for governments and large companies. Author of Why Information Grows and co-author of The Atlas of Economic Complexity. Twitter: @cesifoti Further reading: Complexity Economics: a different framework for economic thought: https://docs.google.com/viewer?url=http%3A%2F%2Ftuvalu.santafe.edu%2F~wbarthur%2FPapers%2FComp.Econ.SFI.pdf Economic Complexity: From useless to keystone: https://docs.google.com/viewer?url=https%3A%2F%2Fchidalgo.com%2Fs%2Fnphys4337.pdf Complexity Economics Shows Us Why Laissez-Faire Economics Always Fails: http://evonomics.com/complexity-economics-shows-us-that-laissez-faire-fail-nickhanauer/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Cesar Hidalgo is the directer of the Collective Learning Group at the MIT media lab,. His book Why Information Grows combines physics and economics to give a new take on economic growth in the 21st century. Be sure to go to https://mixedmentalarts.online/, support us on Patreon, use our Amazon affiliate, and follow us on social media!
In this episode, Haley talks with physicist, complexity scientist, and MIT professor, Cesar Hidalgo. Hidalgo discusses his interest in the physics of networks and complex system science and shares why he believes these fields are so important. He talks about his book, Why Information Grows: The Evolution of Order, from Atoms to Economies, which takes a scientific look at global economic complexity. Hidalgo also shares how economic development is linked to making networks more knowledgeable.
In this episode preview, we share a clip from our interview with physicist, complexity scientist, and MIT professor, Cesar Hidalgo. Hidalgo shares his definition of complex systems.
When it comes to economic growth, why are some countries and companies better than others? While many experts look to factors in geography, finance, or psychology for the answers, César Hidalgo asks us to look instead at information and networks. Cesar is the author of the book, Why Information Grows: The Evolution of Order, from Atoms to Economies. He is also an Associate Professor of Media Arts & Sciences at the MIT Media Lab, where he leads the Collective Learning Group. Cesar wants us to think about the amount of knowledge and knowhow people accumulate and the kinds of organizations where this information is stored. He and his team work on collective learning — that is, the learning of teams, organizations, cities, and nations. And he wants us to understand why building these kinds of networks and organizations can be challenging. In this interview we discuss: What it means to describe the objects around us as crystallized imagination What distinguishes wealth from income and why it matters Why the challenges of economic growth are tied to the challenges of learning in individuals and teams Why individual skills, knowledge, and ability do not scale well and how this impacts economic growth Why group or team knowledge trumps individual knowledge Why it is not about knowing what needs to be done but about creating a team of people who have the knowledge and knowhow to do it Why we can view products as alternative channels of communication in that they endow us with their knowledge -- we cannot build a phone but we can communicate with one or we cannot build a plane but we can be transported by one Our capacity as individuals is augmented and expanded by the products and tools we have access to, from running water to smartphones -- channels of knowledge and comfort are transmitted through products Economies are amplifiers of our knowledge and knowhow -- just look at how few people make toothpaste yet how many use it Our ability to create products is limited by our knowledge and knowhow which is influenced by our social networks How learning from experts, through experience, helps us learn and get better faster The key differences between knowledge and knowhow and how this influences economic growth How Ford Motor Company in 1928 experienced the challenges of transporting knowledge and knowhow through their failed experiment in Brazil called Fordlandia The importance of asking, what are the channels that drive collective learning? Links to Topics Mentioned in this Podcast @cesifoti http://www.chidalgo.com/ where you can find all the data tools her mentions in the podcast Pep Guardiola Throwing Rocks at the Google Bus by Doug Rushkoff Wernher von Braun Fordlandia Ricardian Trade Theory Steven Pinker Richard Dawkins Jonathan Haidt Joseph Henrich Kurt Vonnegut If you enjoy the podcast, please rate and review it on iTunes - your ratings make all the difference. For automatic delivery of new episodes, be sure to subscribe. As always, thanks for listening! Thank you to Emmy-award-winning Creative Director Vanida Vae for designing the Curious Minds logo, and thank you to Rob Mancabelli for all of his production expertise! www.gayleallen.net LinkedIn @GAllenTC
Cesar Hidalgo of MIT and the author of Why Information Grows talks with EconTalk host Russ Roberts about the growth of knowledge and know-how in the modern economy. Hidalgo emphasizes the importance of networks among innovators and creators and the role of trust in sustaining those networks.
Cesar Hidalgo from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Media Lab talks about how knowledge helps global economies and enhances their capacity to grow See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.
Cesar Hidalgo from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Media Lab talks about how knowledge helps global economies and enhances their capacity to grow See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.