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Thinking Fast and Slow, Deep Learning, and AI [video]

lexfridman.com

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Re: Thinking Fast and Slow, Deep Learning, and AI [video]

#51

Post by m_ke »

AlanTuring wrote: post #35
krick wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is too harsh in my opinion, but I agree that he isn't really a good host. I don't find him off-putting at all (actually the opposite, he seems to be a nice guy), but I really dislike the questions he asks. This clearly is a podcast for quite technical people. His guests most of the time (like, almost always, except the cases he invites somebody because he was on a JRE) are people notable for their technical cont…

Thanks for the comment and the kind words about me being nice. I'll try to live up to that. On the technical depth point, I agree. A lot of folks tell me they love the "meaning of life" questions. I love both the technical and the philosophical. My hope is to more and more try to go deep technically with the ML, CS, math, physics folks on the topic of their expertise, and find productive points of passionate disagree…

If you want to get into philosophical questions you should get some actual philosophers on the show because right now it seems like most of your guests are just making up answers to your questions on the spot and it's not very insightful. At the very least keep the questions more open ended, ask them what are the biggest road blocks to AGI and how do we get over them, or if they have some contrarian opinions about AGI.

Joe Rogan got so popular because he lets his guests drive the conversation and allows them to talk about themselves and whatever it is that they're interested in. He seems to really follow Dale Carnegie's advice from How to Win Friends and Influence People (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/How_to_Win_Friends_and_Influen...).

Re: Thinking Fast and Slow, Deep Learning, and AI [video]

#52

Post by piker »

AlanTuring wrote: post #31
amrrs wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure why is it so. But I love listening to Lex. Unlike many podcast hosts, the way he lets his guests talk is amazing. His questions are well-crafted. His voice is definitely soothing to listen over a long commute!

Thank you. I try my best to ask good questions and then shut up ;-)

It's obvious how much thought you've put into your first powerful question with each guest, and at least this listener greatly appreciates your tone and the philosophical elements of your podcast. Please keep it up. You've got one of the most interesting podcasts going right now; right up there with Pivot, Rogan and The Daily.

Re: Thinking Fast and Slow, Deep Learning, and AI [video]

#53

Post by piker »

Listen to a few of Lex's podcasts (his own and his appearance on Joe Rogan) before you dismiss his interviewing style and/or tone. You may very well learn to appreciate it and his breadth of technical knowledge as much as the quality of his guests, which probably the highest of any technical podcast so far.

Re: Thinking Fast and Slow, Deep Learning, and AI [video]

#54

Post by carls »

Reedx wrote: post #41
virtuous_signal wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Add to that list "grit" and "fixed vs. growth mindset" -- has any solid, interesting work in sociology or behavioral science been done recently?

What's BS about grit and a growth mindset?

I'm not the author of the original comment, but a few things I've found questioning the replicability of the "growth mindset" work are here:

* Summary of a some criticism by researchers trying to replicate the original studies: https://www.buzzfeed.com/tomchivers/what-is-your-mindset?utm....

However, this BuzzFeed article has itself been critiqued for strawmanning "mindset theory" and not highlighting some of the meta-analyses that have given evidence to the theory of "growth mindset". Source: https://www.thecut.com/2017/01/mindset-theory-a-popular-idea...

* It's worth noting that Carol Dweck herself has commented on how she believes her research is being inaccurately applied in schools: https://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2015/09/23/carol-dweck-re...

* Here are two (pay-walled) meta-analyses done on "growth mindset" research: (1) https://www.scribd.com/document/326191990/InPress-BurnetteOB... (2) https://commons.lib.jmu.edu/diss201019/17/

-----

As a footnote, I will say two quick things: first, I've found the theory of "growth vs. fixed mindset" in helping me challenge myself in areas I may otherwise not have. Second, on the other hand I have worked full-time in a high school as a CS teacher and we discussed growth mindset quite often in this school. Many students became "immune" to the idea and rolled their eyes at it to the point of making it a meme around the school.

Re: Thinking Fast and Slow, Deep Learning, and AI [video]

#55

Post by carls »

virtuous_signal wrote: post #46
Reedx wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's BS about grit and a growth mindset?

The effects of both were greatly overhyped by books and news articles when they first came out. Replications found much smaller effects, e.g., https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2018/03/gr...

Just to piggyback off of this comment, from anecdotal experience as a high school teacher, I found the portion of the replication quoted in Margin Revolution to be quite true:

"… as expected, average effects were small because many students are already doing well, do not have motivational issues, or are not in environments that encourage or support growth-mindset behaviors. When we take account of such factors, more noteworthy effects emerge. The improvements in the gateway outcome of 9th grade GPA were concentrated among adolescents who are at significant risk for compromised well-being and economic welfare: those with lower levels of prior achievement attending relatively lower achieving schools. The finding that an intervention can redirect this adolescent outcome in this sub-group, in under an hour, without training of teachers, and at scale (i.e. in a random sample of nation’s schools), represents a significant advance."

Personal experience lines up with the result that lower-achieving students may benefit more from the "growth mindset" idea than others. For instance, I did notice that messaging I gave to students with a "fixed mindset" towards studying CS/math seemed to improve motivation, work ethic and interest over the course of a semester.

Re: Thinking Fast and Slow, Deep Learning, and AI [video]

#56

Post by scottlocklin »

krick wrote: post #37
scottlocklin wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And you're well served with this response, as the actual work he did is basically not reproducible. No matter how many best selling books made into movies; it's still bullshit. https://replicationindex.com/category/thinking-fast-and-slow... https://slate.com/technology/2016/12/kahneman-and-tversky-re... https://jasoncollins.blog/2016/06/29/re-reading-kahnemans-th... I read it on advice of a good pal, and it sure seem…

I've heard something similar here on HN before (still didn't read the book myself), and what baffles me: wasn't he awarded the Nobel Prize for that work? Are those just political bullshit nowdays as well, like Oscars?

Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences (in memoriam of Alfred Nobel); not The Nobel Prize. Economics is mostly a set of shaggy dog stories in service of ideology, rather than a branch of legitimate scientific inquiry. I mean Paul Krugman won the same prize; he appears to be have a Brier score of 1 on his predictions.

Re: Thinking Fast and Slow, Deep Learning, and AI [video]

#57

Post by p13rr0m »

satvikpendem wrote: post #38

I am not sure if this is covered in the podcast, but from the title, I wonder if in deep neural net research there are papers and implementations of a system 1 and 2 like model. One part of the neural net could be system 1 for fast decision making, and other could be system 2, with more deliberate analysis. They could communicate over some shared medium.

I believe the paper SlowFast Networks for Video Recognition goes somewhat in that direction. The architecture is split into a fast pathway, to capture motion information, and a slow pathway that captures spatial semantics. https://arxiv.org/pdf/1812.03982.pdf

Re: Thinking Fast and Slow, Deep Learning, and AI [video]

#58

Post by AlanTuring »

piker wrote: post #53

Listen to a few of Lex's podcasts (his own and his appearance on Joe Rogan) before you dismiss his interviewing style and/or tone. You may very well learn to appreciate it and his breadth of technical knowledge as much as the quality of his guests, which probably the highest of any technical podcast so far.

Lex here. Thank you for this. Words of criticism can hurt pretty bad these days, so this kind of support really helps. Thank you.

Re: Thinking Fast and Slow, Deep Learning, and AI [video]

#59

Post by ghaff »

AlanTuring wrote: post #30
jon_tau wrote: post #16

Earlier 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.

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…

Podcasts aren't great for super technical depth IMO given the lack of graphics much less equations, etc. But also IMO hearing about some of the technical details as opposed to what I might hear on an NPR are useful.

It's a difficult tradeoff I know whether for a podcast or even even for a lecture topic. I went to a couple of your sessions this IAP and I'll admit I found one fantastic (in part because it was directly relevant to some things I'm working on/talking about around AI privacy) and one not so much because I'm more focused on practical applications than the math underpinnings.

Re: Thinking Fast and Slow, Deep Learning, and AI [video]

#60

Post by bacon_waffle »

wickoff wrote: post #24
rkapsoro wrote: post #7

Earlier 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…

To each their own. I enjoy observing brilliant people a bit out of their element.

There's plenty material available from/about Lex's guests' work; why not ask them to speculate about superhuman AI or whatever?

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