Podcasts about the Topic: Part II #
The title Curt put next to my head could’ve been in reference to many, many things! But sorry, he just mean AI. He and I start with the Mathacre, of course, but then we get onto the firewall paradox and then Curt starts asking about computational complexity and the Second Law, and then about Integrated Information Theory.
OK, despite the title of this post, short break from “The Topic.” Here’s an absolute masterpiece of mathematical exposition, from the “Polylog” YouTube channel, which tells the story of the determination of Busy Beaver values through spectacular animations. I play cameo roles in the video, although I embarrass myself (as the video silently points out) by transposing two digits in the value of BB(5)…!
And, coming soon (not on YouTube quite yet): a conversation about the Mathacre with celebrated physics popularizer (and character on The Big Bang Theory) Brian Greene, recorded in-person in NYC during my recent trip to speak in the math department at Columbia University!
And to preempt the inevitable comments about it: yes, my students just came to my office to tell me that an OpenAI model has now refuted the Exponential Time Hypothesis, by giving an algorithm to solve 3SAT in an amount of time that scales roughly like exp(n/√log(n)). Even as we struggle to digest the previous courses, the endless buffet continues!