#376 – Stephen Wolfram: ChatGPT and the Nature of Truth, Reality & Computation
Lex Fridman Podcast
Lex Fridman
4.7 • 13K Ratings
🗓️ 9 May 2023
⏱️ 260 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
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EPISODE LINKS:
Stephen's Twitter: https://twitter.com/stephen_wolfram
Stephen's Blog: https://writings.stephenwolfram.com
Wolfram|Alpha: https://www.wolframalpha.com
A New Kind of Science (book): https://amzn.to/30XoEun
Fundamental Theory of Physics (book): https://amzn.to/30XbAoT
Blog posts:
A 50-Year Quest: https://bit.ly/3NQbZ2P
What Is ChatGPT doing: https://bit.ly/3VOwtuz
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OUTLINE:
Here's the timestamps for the episode. On some podcast players you should be able to click the timestamp to jump to that time.
(00:00) - Introduction
(06:45) - WolframAlpha and ChatGPT
(26:26) - Computation and nature of reality
(53:18) - How ChatGPT works
(1:53:01) - Human and animal cognition
(2:06:20) - Dangers of AI
(2:14:39) - Nature of truth
(2:36:01) - Future of education
(3:12:03) - Consciousness
(3:21:02) - Second Law of Thermodynamics
(3:44:36) - Entropy
(3:57:36) - Observers in physics
(4:14:27) - Mortality
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | The following is a conversation with Stephen Wolfram, his fourth time on this podcast. |
| 0:04.7 | He's a computer scientist, mathematician, theoretical physicist, and the founder of Wolfram |
| 0:09.7 | Research, a company behind Mathematica, Wolfram Alpha, Wolfram Language, and the Wolfram |
| 0:15.2 | Physics and Metamathematics projects. |
| 0:18.3 | He has been a pioneer in exploring the computational nature of reality, and so he's the perfect |
| 0:24.6 | person to explore with together the new, quickly evolving landscape of large language models |
| 0:31.4 | as human civilization journeys towards building super intelligent AGI. |
| 0:38.0 | And now a quick few second mention of his sponsor. |
| 0:40.9 | Check them out in the description, it's the best way to support this podcast. |
| 0:44.4 | We've got masterclass for learning, better help, for mental health, and inset tracker |
| 0:50.2 | for tracking your biological data. |
| 0:52.4 | Choose wisely, my friends. |
| 0:54.2 | Also, if you want to work with our amazing team, or always hiring, go to lexfreedman.com slash |
| 1:00.2 | hiring. |
| 1:01.4 | And now onto the full ad reads, as always, no ads in the middle. |
| 1:04.6 | I try to make this interesting, but if you must skip them, friends, please still check |
| 1:09.0 | out the sponsors. |
| 1:10.0 | I enjoy their stuff, maybe you will too. |
| 1:12.9 | This show is brought to you by Masterclass. |
| 1:15.4 | 180 bucks a year gets you an all-access past to watch courses from the best people in the |
| 1:20.4 | world in the respective disciplines. |
| 1:23.6 | There are several components to the fact of learning. |
... |
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