COMPLEXITY

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• Nature of Intelligence, Ep. 6: AI’s changing seasons 04.12.2024 44分

  In the final episode of the season, Abha sits down with Melanie to hear her perspective. They chat about Melanie’s career and research with Douglas Hofstadter, the author of Gödel, Escher, Bach. They also discuss her opinions on LLMs’ current capabilities, what she thinks of existential questions like the alignment problem, how sustainable the industry is, the difficulty of making claims about concepts like “intelligence” and “understanding,” and what she thinks future technological development should focus on.
• Nature of Intelligence, Ep. 5: How do we assess intelligence? 20.11.2024 48分

  When it comes to assessing intelligence, people have all kinds of tests — the SAT, IQ tests, and so on. There’s controversy over how fairly these tests really measure human intelligence, but at the very least, we know that they correlate with some general reasoning skills when people take them. That assumption breaks down when we try to assess intelligence in non-humans. What does it mean when a large language model passes an intelligence test meant for humans? Does it actually have the same reasoning skills that a human does, or is it doing something else? In today’s episode, with guests Erica Cartmill and Ellie Pavlick, we investigate the best ways to assess intelligence in non-humans, whether animals or machines.
• Nature of Intelligence, Ep. 4: Babies vs Machines 06.11.2024 38分

  There’s an argument to be made that if we train AI systems to learn the way babies do, we’ll get them closer to human-like intelligence. But how our own learning development functions in babyhood is still a mystery that researchers are untangling. We know that the information babies absorb is very different from how an LLM learns, and in today’s episode, with guests Linda Smith and Michael Frank we’ll attempt to look at the world through an infant’s eyes and examine why they’re able to do more with, seemingly, less information.
• Nature of Intelligence, Ep. 3: What kind of intelligence is an LLM? 23.10.2024 45分

  Large language models, like ChatGPT and Claude, have remarkably coherent communication skills. Yet, what this says about their “intelligence” isn’t clear. Is it possible that they could arrive at the same level of intelligence as humans without taking the same evolutionary or learning path to get there? Or, if they’re not on a path to human-level intelligence, where are they now and where will they end up? In this episode, with guests Tomer Ullman and Murray Shanahan, we look at how large language models function and examine differing views on how sophisticated they are and where they might be going.
• Nature of Intelligence, Ep. 2: The relationship between language and thought 09.10.2024 37分

  Complex language is unique to the human species. It’s part of how we evolved, the backbone of our societies, and one of the primary ways we judge others’ intellect. Is it our intelligence that leads to our language abilities, or conversely, does our ability for language enhance our intelligence, or both? How do language and thinking interact? And can one exist without the other? Guests: Evelina Federenko, Steve Piantadosi, and Gary Lupyan.
• Nature of Intelligence, Ep. 1: What is Intelligence 25.09.2024 43分

  Depending on whom you ask, artificial intelligence is either going to solve all humanity’s problems, or it’s going to kill us. Business leaders are getting ready for it to “disrupt” entire industries, and educators are re-thinking how to teach in the age of ChatGPT. It can feel like artificial intelligence is going to transform everything about the way we live. But in order to understand how to think about AI, it’s useful to take a step back. In today’s episode, we’re asking what it means to call anything "intelligent". What makes humans intelligent? And how do machines compare? Guests: John Krakauer and Alison Gopnik
• Trailer for The Nature of Intelligence 19.09.2024 3分

  Right now, AI is having a moment — and it’s not the first time grand predictions about the potential of machines are being made. But, what does it really mean to say something like ChatGPT is “intelligent”? What exactly is intelligence? In this season of the Complexity podcast, The Nature of Intelligence, we'll explore this question through conversations with cognitive and neuroscientists, animal cognition researchers, and AI experts in six episodes. Together, we'll investigate the complexities of human intelligence, how it compares to that of other species, and where AI fits in. We'll dive into the relationship between language and thought, examine AI's limitations, and ask: Could machines ever truly be like us?
• Physics of Life, Ep 6: Multiple worlds, containing multitudes 10.04.2024 40分

  In the final episode of this season, we hear from a NASA researcher whose expertise spans from studying samples in deep, untouched regions of our planet all the way to organic chemistry happening in space. We consider the possibility of other, past origins of life on Earth and look at the rich potential to learn from sample return missions, including the recent OSIRIS-REx mission that retrieved samples of the asteroid Bennu. Abha also sits down with Chris to hear his perspective on the podcast as a researcher who's collaborated with this season's guests on diverse research.
• Physics of Life, Ep 5: How human history shapes scientific inquiry 27.03.2024 33分

  In this episode, we examine how the course of human history has shaped our scientific knowledge, why the physics community prioritizes some questions over others, and why progress in complex systems research is especially difficult. Academia continues to operate within set boundaries and students are taught certain concepts as fundamental and to skirt others completely. However, the history of science demonstrates that such concepts aren’t always set in stone. It’s possible that blowing open the “shackles of reality,” such as redefining the concept of life itself, and reprioritizing the problems that scientists want to tackle, might help scientists make more progress in this very difficult world of complexity research.
• Physics of Life, Ep 4: The physics of collectives 13.03.2024 33分

  How do groups solve problems? Are there conditions that create a pathway to innovation and groundbreaking inventions? In today’s episode, we look at the science of collectives to learn about the patterns that emerge as human societies grow, the importance of a collective structure to foster ideas and create impact, and – from collectives like ants and immune systems – the importance of veering off the beaten path to become better at exploring and discovering.
• Physics of Life, Ep 3: Why is life so diverse? 28.02.2024 29分

  In the first two episodes of this season, we’ve examined how fundamental rules like scaling laws constrain evolution for all forms of life. But if everything is bound to these core rules, then why do we see exceptions? In this episode, Abha and Chris get into the incredible diversity of plants and animals on this planet, where that diversity comes from, and if it’s possible to make forecasts about the biosphere, just like we do for the weather. And, what happens when biodiversity is threatened?
• Physics of Life, Ep 2: How do we identify life? 14.02.2024 33分

  In this episode, Chris and Abha explore how life originated here on earth and how we might identify it in other parts of the universe. They ask two researchers about the signature characteristics of life and what common dynamics we might see among organisms outside our planet. They’ll also delve into assembly theory, a recent concept that looks at the construction of objects as a way to universally quantify life, which has ignited debate within the scientific community.
• Physics of Life, Ep 1: What can physics tell us about ourselves? 31.01.2024 34分

  Humans can live up to age 100, and not 1000 – why? Are there limits in how much our brains can think and compute? The laws of physics can help explain a lot, both about our own human bodies and how we are connected to life all around us.
• Trailer for Physics of Life 29.01.2024 3分

  Trailer for Complexity: Physics of Life, from the Santa Fe Institute
• Michael Garfield & David Krakauer on Evolution, Information, and Jurassic Park 30.06.2023 1時間 39分
• Mason Porter on Community Detection and Data Topology 05.04.2023 1時間 22分
• Andrea Wulf on Magnificent Rebels: The First Romantics and The Invention of The Self 24.03.2023 1時間 6分
• Carlos Gershenson on Balance, Criticality, Antifragility, and The Philosophy of Complex Systems 09.03.2023 1時間 6分
• Complex Conceptions of Time with David Krakauer, Ted Chiang, David Wolpert, & James Gleick 24.02.2023 1時間
• Paul Smaldino & C. Thi Nguyen on Problems with Value Metrics & Governance at Scale (EPE 06) 09.02.2023 1時間 12分