Episode 2234: Terrence Sejnowski asks whether our brains and AI are converging
As the longtime collaborator of the 2024 Nobel laureates John Hopfield and Geoffrey Hinton, Terrence Sejnowski is one of America’s most distinguished AI scientists. In his new book, ChatGPT and the Future of AI: The Deep Language Revolution, Sejnowski addresses some of the central technical and philosophical issues of today’s large language model AI revolution. And in this wide-ranging conversation, we talked about everything from the origins of human language to the existential question of whether our brains and smart machines are converging. Unlike other AI researchers, Terry Sejnowski is able to make the deep language revolution accessible to a mainstream audience. Strongly recommended.
Terrence J. Sejnowski is Francis Crick Chair at The Salk Institute for Biological Studies and Distinguished Professor at the University of California at San Diego. He has published over 500 scientific papers and 12 books, including The Computational Brain with Patricia Churchland. He was instrumental in shaping the BRAIN Initiative that was announced by the White House in 2013, and he received the prestigious Gruber Prize in Neuroscience in 2022.
Named as one of the "100 most connected men" by GQ magazine, Andrew Keen is amongst the world's best known broadcasters and commentators. In addition to presenting KEEN ON, he is the host of the long-running How To Fix Democracy show. He is also the author of four prescient books about digital technology: CULT OF THE AMATEUR, DIGITAL VERTIGO, THE INTERNET IS NOT THE ANSWER and HOW TO FIX THE FUTURE. Andrew lives in San Francisco, is married to Cassandra Knight, Google's VP of Litigation & Discovery, and has two grown children.
Keen On is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.
This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit keenon.substack.com/subscribe
Orna Ophir: How a Pathology of "Schizophrenia" Might Reflect a Broken Society As Much as a Broken Mind
Leah McLaren: A Daughter's Memoir of a Mom Who Passed Down Her Trauma and Made Their Lives Impossible to Disentangle
Alice Mah on Plastics, the One Word That Best Describes Our Global Environmental Crisis
Harald H.H.W. Schmidt: Why "The End of Medicine As We Know It" Will Make All of Us Healthier and Happier
Ariel Ezrachi: How Cities, Rather Than Big Tech, Should Be the Engine for a More Equitable Digital Future
Monique Roffey: The Common Sense of Magic Realism and Why The Mermaid of Black Conch is a "Caribbean Novel"
Maureen Perry-Jenkins on Work Matters: How Parents' Jobs Shape Children's Well-Being
Saleem H. Ali: Do We Need a Science Party to Confront Existential Problems Like Global Warming?
Ari Mittleman: Does Criticism of Israel Inevitably Make One Guilty of Antisemitism?
Albert Fox Cahn: How Digital Surveillance In a Post-Roe America Isn't Substantively Different From Xi's China or Putin's Russia
Donald Robertson: Why the Graphic Novel Is an Ideal Form to Capture the Timeless Philosophy of Stoicism
Jacob M. Grumbach: Why the Crisis of American Democracy Is As Much a State and Local As a National Problem
Karen Cerulo and Janet Ruane: How We Can't Escape Social Class, Gender, or Culture in How We Dream