The quality of the guests is amazing but the host is extremely off-putting and difficult to listen to.
Those are very strong words. Why?
What's wrong with using strong words?
Thinking Fast and Slow, Deep Learning, and AI [video]
21–30 of 104 posts
Re: Thinking Fast and Slow, Deep Learning, and AI [video]
#22The few times I've tried to read Kahneman's book I must admit that I stopped pretty early. I found his writing style too authoritative, without presenting much evidence for the theories he lays out.
I had to put it down at around 30% but not for your same reason, but because I just found it badly redacted (boring for me to keep going). However, I believe that the info is quite compelling and useful, but might need another style.
Re: Thinking Fast and Slow, Deep Learning, and AI [video]
#23The few times I've tried to read Kahneman's book I must admit that I stopped pretty early. I found his writing style too authoritative, without presenting much evidence for the theories he lays out.
I can see where you might feel this way. I recommend giving it another try and come at from two considerations. The first is observing their experimental designs. They are very clever and well described. The second is the extent to which these experiments have been replicated with consistent results using populations with a range of socioeconomic and cultural differences. Given the consistency of these experimental o…
I agree completely. If you take everything in the book as 100% gospel, it will let you down. However, there are lots of perspective changing things to learn. I particularly learned a lot about anchoring and reacting vs thinking.
Re: Thinking Fast and Slow, Deep Learning, and AI [video]
#24The quality of the guests is amazing but the host is extremely off-putting and difficult to listen to.
Those are very strong words. Why?
For me it's the questions. He gets these incredible guests with deep understanding of their respective fields and yet they keep being asked nonsensical question they can't possible give a meaningful answer to.
For example almost every guest some variation of "Do you think one day we'll have superhuman AI?" Then the guest is struggling to come up with some platitude, because there is nothing else to say. It's a waste of time.
He is self-aware too, he sometimes apologizes for asking, yet he keeps doing it anyway.
Re: Thinking Fast and Slow, Deep Learning, and AI [video]
#25Earlier quoted context omitted.
Those are very strong words. Why?
The deadpan delivery and lack of personality, the arrogant attitude, the poor quality of the questions that he asks, the fact that he reads questions from a sheet in front of him instead of listening to his guests and having a real conversation with them, the way in which he comes across as disingenuous in most interactions... I could go on (and I know that a lot of this is subjective).
Lex here. I hear you. I'm working hard to improve. The parts about arrogance and disingenuousness I hope are not true, but I appreciate comments like this because they help me reflect on it, and see that there might be truth to it. Your words hurt but in the end are a gift, so thank you. I'll do my best to improve.
Re: Thinking Fast and Slow, Deep Learning, and AI [video]
#26Earlier quoted context omitted.
The deadpan delivery and lack of personality, the arrogant attitude, the poor quality of the questions that he asks, the fact that he reads questions from a sheet in front of him instead of listening to his guests and having a real conversation with them, the way in which he comes across as disingenuous in most interactions... I could go on (and I know that a lot of this is subjective).
Lex here. I hear you. I'm working hard to improve. The parts about arrogance and disingenuousness I hope are not true, but I appreciate comments like this because they help me reflect on it, and see that there might be truth to it. Your words hurt but in the end are a gift, so thank you. I'll do my best to improve.
You should probably add that you're Lex in your HN profile.
Re: Thinking Fast and Slow, Deep Learning, and AI [video]
#27Earlier quoted context omitted.
Those are very strong words. Why?
For me it's the questions. He gets these incredible guests with deep understanding of their respective fields and yet they keep being asked nonsensical question they can't possible give a meaningful answer to. For example almost every guest some variation of "Do you think one day we'll have superhuman AI?" Then the guest is struggling to come up with some platitude, because there is nothing else to say. It's a waste…
Yeah, in the interview with Kahneman he doesn't even really get into any of his work in cognitive psychology and behavioral economics, instead he wastes half the show on hypotheticals about AGI.
We're as close to AGI today as we were 10-30 years ago, as in really far away. There's nothing that any of his guests can add to that debate that hasn't been covered in countless scifi novels. I don't care what Vsauce or Bjarne Stroustrup have to say about it.
Re: Thinking Fast and Slow, Deep Learning, and AI [video]
#28Earlier quoted context omitted.
The deadpan delivery and lack of personality, the arrogant attitude, the poor quality of the questions that he asks, the fact that he reads questions from a sheet in front of him instead of listening to his guests and having a real conversation with them, the way in which he comes across as disingenuous in most interactions... I could go on (and I know that a lot of this is subjective).
Lex here. I hear you. I'm working hard to improve. The parts about arrogance and disingenuousness I hope are not true, but I appreciate comments like this because they help me reflect on it, and see that there might be truth to it. Your words hurt but in the end are a gift, so thank you. I'll do my best to improve.
I wondered who'd call themselves AlanTuring on HN :-)
I think you come across very genuine, not arrogant at all. And it shows that you do your best to reflect, don't worry about that. However, while the philosopher (and sensationalist) in me want to disagree: yes, be more technical! You have a unique audience and guests to cater to, I can't imagine the pressure.
That being said, it's your podcast, and it wouldn't be where it's at if it wasn't for your character and honset curiosity, and its appreciated for exactly what it is. Cheers!
Re: Thinking Fast and Slow, Deep Learning, and AI [video]
#29Earlier quoted context omitted.
I find that Lex often side-steps technical depth and wanders into the philosophical side of things. He has the opportunity to ask diving questions but he simply scratches the surface with nearly every guest. It's not entirely his fault, he's under time constraints but I'd hope for more intellectual stimulation. That said, I do appreciate his efforts and he seems like a genuinely nice fella.
Yeah I have an issue with that as well. He gets some great guests on the show and spends most of the time pushing a philosophical debate about AGI and futurism instead of letting the guests talk about their areas of expertise. I'd even argue that it's dangerous because it might give the casual listener an impression that ML/AI is much further ahead than it really is if all of these top minds are discussing AGI. I'd m…
Well, consider that this podcast series spun out of the AGI class that Lex ran. As such, it's hardly surprising that he puts a touch more focus on the AGI side of things. And for me, I like that. I can find videos of Lecunn, Goodfellow, Schmidhuber, and Bengio talking about the low level technical details of their work. I actually appreciate hearing them talk about AGI, as my personal interests heavily involve thinking about the connection(s) between the currently trendy AI stuff (DL, DRL, GAN's, etc.) and what might eventually become AGI.
Re: Thinking Fast and Slow, Deep Learning, and AI [video]
#30The quality of the guests is amazing but the host is extremely off-putting and difficult to listen to.
I find that Lex often side-steps technical depth and wanders into the philosophical side of things. He has the opportunity to ask diving questions but he simply scratches the surface with nearly every guest. It's not entirely his fault, he's under time constraints but I'd hope for more intellectual stimulation. That said, I do appreciate his efforts and he seems like a genuinely nice fella.
Lex here. This is a point I think about a lot. I hear conflicting advice from brilliant folks I really respect. Some say "go deep on the philosophy" and others "go deep on the technical details of the person's expertise." The latter is something that surprised me, and something I'll definitely do more of in the coming months. In general, one of the things the internet pleasantly surprised me with is that people like depth (even those outside the field). I obviously love the details, especially in ML, CS, math, physics, and psych.
Thanks for the kind words. I work hard on this thing, and hopefully will improve with time.