Episodes
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How much blame should we put on social media for polarizing our society? Perhaps not as much as we tend to do. Joshua A Tucker joins Vasant Dhar in episode 82 of Brave New World to discuss his studies on the effects of social media -- and the algorithms that run them. Useful resources:
1. Joshua Tucker at NYU, Twitter and Google Scholar.
2. Online searches to evaluate misinformation can increase its perceived veracity -- Kevin Aslett, Zeve Sanderson, William Godel, Nathaniel Persily, Jonathan Nagler & Joshua A Tucker.
3. Less than you think: Prevalence and predictors of fake news dissemination on Facebook -- Andrew Guess, Jonathan Nagler and Joshua A Tucker.
4. Breaking the Social Media Prism: How to Make Our Platforms Less Polarizing -- Chris Bail.
5. Chris Bail on How to Fight Polarization -- Episode 34 of Brave New World.
6. The Social Media Industrial Complex -- Episode 3 of Brave New World (w Sinan Aral).
7. How Social Media Threatens Society -- Episode 8 of Brave New World (w Jonathan Haidt).
8. Quantifying the Impact of Misinformation and Vaccine-Skeptical Content on Facebook -- Jennifer Nancy Lee Allen, Duncan J Watts, and David Rand.
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Smell is the most underrated of our senses -- and it affects everything. Alex Wiltschko joins Vasant Dhar in episode 81 of Brave New World to discuss the role of smell in our lives -- and in this new digital age.
Useful resources:
1. Alex Wiltschko on LinkedIn, Google Ventures, Google Scholar and Twitter.
2. Osmo.
3. Perfumes: The A-Z Guide -- Luca Turin and Tania Sanchez.
4. Perfume: The Story of a Murderer -- Patrick Suskind.
5. The Mystery of Smell -- Lydialyle Gibson on Sandeep Robert Datta.
6. A novel multigene family may encode odorant receptors: a molecular basis for odor recognition -- Linda Buck and Richard Axel.
7. Metabolic activity organizes olfactory representations -- Wesley W Qian et al (including Alex Wiltschko.)
8. Hyperbolic geometry of the olfactory space -- Yuansheng Zhou, Brian H Smith & Tatyana Sharpee.
9. Odor Perception and the Variability in Natural Odor Scenes -- Geraldine A Wright and Mitchell G.A. Thomson.
10. The Biological Sense of Smell -- Christine WJ Chee-Ruiter.
11. Also check out the work of Jim DiCarlo, David Marr and Eero Simoncelli.
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Missing episodes?
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Given what we know of physics and neuroscience, can there be free will? Kevin Mitchell, a neuroscientist himself, joins Vasant Dhar in episode 80 of Brave New World to unpack his argument for the existence of free will.
Useful resources
1. Kevin Mitchell on Amazon, Twitter, Trinity College, Google Scholar, his blog and his homepage.
2. Free Agents: How Evolution Gave Us Free Will -- Kevin Mitchell.
3. Innate: How the Wiring of Our Brains Shapes Who We Are -- Kevin Mitchell.
4. Freedom Evolves -- Daniel Dennett.
5. Determined: A Science of Life without Free Will -- Robert Sapolsky.
6. Free Will -- Sam Harris.
7. Daniel Kahneman on How Noise Hampers Judgement -- Episode 21 of Brave New World.
8. Noise: A Flaw in Human Judgment -- Daniel Kahneman, Olivier Sibony and Cass Sunstein.
9. Synthetic Biology -- J Craig Ventor Institute.
10. David Krakauer.
11. David Krakauer on Complexity, Agency, and Information -- Episode 242 of Sean Carroll's Mindscape.
12. Anthony Zador on How our Brains Work — Episode 35 of Brave New World.
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Artificial intelligence is transforming society. And therefore politics. Arthur Spirling joins Vasant Dhar in episode 79 of Brave New World to share his insights from his twin fields of data science and political science.
Useful resources:
1. Arthur Spirling at Princeton, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google Scholar and his own website.
2. Why open-source generative AI models are an ethical way forward for science -- Arthur Spirling.
3. James Robinson on What Makes a Successful State -- Episode 19 of Brave New World.
4. The Narrow Corridor — Daron Acemoglu and James A Robinson.
5. Why Nations Fail — Daron Acemoglu and James A Robinson.
6. How Social Media Threatens Society -- Episode 8 of Brave New World (w Jonathan Haidt).
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How can we use the insights of behavioral economics to make the world a better place? David Halpern joins Vasant Dhar in episode 78 of Brave New World to share his learnings from running the Behavioral Insight Team for the British government.
Useful resources:
1. David Halpern on Wikipedia and the Behavioural Insights Team.
2. The work of the Behavioral Insights Team.
3. Inside the Nudge Unit -- David Halpern.
4. Social Capital -- David Halpern.
5, The Hidden Wealth of Nations -- David Halpern.
6. The behavioural science of online harm and manipulation, and what to do about it -- Elisabeth Costa and David Halpern.
7. Subsidies vs Nudges: Which Policies Increase Saving the Most? -- Raj Chetty et al
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Her film My Octopus Teacher won an academy award -- and her insights on nature, and her love for it, go far beyond the film. Pippa Ehrlich joins Vasant Dhar in episode 77 of Brave New World to talk about her work and what she has learnt from it.
Useful resources:
1. Pippa Ehrich on Instagram, X, LinkedIn and IMDb..
2. My Octopus Teacher -- Pippa Ehrlich and James Reed.
3. Peter Singer on Animal Liberation -- Episode 74 of Brave New World.
4. Save Our Seas Foundation.
5. 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea -- Jules Verne.
6. Using Deliberate Cold Exposure for Health and Performance -- The Huberman Lab Podcast.
7. Wim Hof Method.
8. The Effects of Cold Exposure Training and a Breathing Exercise on the Inflammatory Response in Humans: A Pilot Study -- Jelie Zwaag et al.
9. Dmitry Rinberg on the Mysteries of Smell -- Episode 62 of Brave New World.
10. Anthony Zador on How our Brains Work -- Episode 35 of Brave New World.
11. Deep Rising -- Matthieu Rytz.
12. David Chalmers on the Nature of Reality -- Episode 41 of Brave New World.
13. Sea Change Project.
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Life on earth is a crazy accident. We have no idea how it arose or whether it will survive. Peter Ward joins Vasant Dhar in episode 76 of Brave New World to chat about the origins of our planet, the many extinctions and resurgences of life, and the future of our species.
Useful resources: 1. Peter Ward on Wikipedia, University of Washington and Amazon.
2. Rare Earth: Why Complex Life is Uncommon in the Universe -- Peter Ward and Donald Brownlee.
3. A New History of Life -- Peter Ward and Joe Kirschvink.
4. The Medea Hypothesis -- Peter Ward.
5. The Flooded Earth -- Peter Ward.
6. Roy Chapman Andrews on Amazon.
7. Jason and the Golden Fleece -- Apollonius of Rhodes.
8. Hercules, My Shipmate -- Robert Graves.
9. The Gaia Hypothesis.
10. SETI Institute.
11. Rare Earth Hypothesis.
12. The Drake Equation.
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He's been a successful entrepreneur and investor, and is highly regarded for his sharp understanding of India. Mohit Satyanand joins Vasant Dhar in episode 75 of Brave New World to share his inspiring story -- and to offer a word of caution.
Useful resources
1. Mohit Satyanand on Twitter, Instagram and IMDb.
2. Gimme Mo — Mohit Satyanand’s newsletter.
3. Salaam Baalak Trust.
4. Aswath Damodaran on Investing -- Episode 33 of Brave New World.
5. James Robinson on What Makes a Successful State -- Episode 19 of Brave New World.
6. The Narrow Corridor: How Nations Struggle for Liberty — Daron Acemoglu and James A Robinson.
7. Law and Education in Our Modern World — Episode 5 of Brave New World (w John Sexton).
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Why should only human beings be worthy of moral consideration? Would we still eat animals if we had a sense of their mass-produced suffering? Peter Singer joins Vasant Dhar in episode 74 of Brave New World to discuss his influential work as a philosopher.
Useful resources:
1. Peter Singer at Britannica, Wikipedia, Princeton, Twitter, Instagram, Amazon and his own website.
2. Animal Liberation Now -- Peter Singer.
3. Animal Machines -- Ruth Harrison.
4. My Octopus Teacher -- Pippa Ehrlich and James Reed.
5. Seven Up! -- Paul Almond.
6. Lawrence Kohlberg's stages of moral development.
7. A Theory of Justice -- John Rawls.
8. Everything is Illuminated -- Liev Schreiber.
9. Nudge -- Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein.
10. The Life You Can Save.
11. Maneka Gandhi on Animal Rights -- Episode 44 of Brave New World.
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What is money? How is it created? What is the relationship of governments, central banks, and commercial banks to money? Paul Sheard joins Vasant Dhar in episode 73 of Brave New World to cut through the fog.
Useful resources:
1. Understanding QE in the New World -- Episode 10 of Brave New World (w Paul Sheard).
2. The Power of Money -- Paul Sheard.
3. David Yermack on The Crypto Revolution -- Episode 30 of Brave New World.
4. Monetary Economics -- Wynne Godley and Marc Lavoie.
5. The Deficit Myth -- Stephanie Kelton.
6. Inflation: Causes and Consequences -- Milton Friedman.
7. James Robinson on What Makes a Successful State — Episode 19 of Brave New World.
8. Sapiens -- Yuval Noah Harari.
9. Leviathan -- Thomas Hobbes.
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Digital Public Infrastructure sounds like a huge step forward for the world -- till you think about how it empowers the state to oppress the people. Ajay Shah joins Vasant Dhar in episode 72 of Brave New World to warn that we are not being wary enough of state coercion when we think of this incredible technology.
Useful resources:
1. Ajay Shah on Twitter and Substack.
2. In Service of the Republic: The Art and Science of Economic Policy -- Vijay Kelkar and Ajay Shah.
3. Everything is Everything -- Ajay Shah's YouTube show, co-hosted by Amit Varma.
4. Episodes of The Seen and the Unseen with Ajay Shah: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13.
5. Imagining India -- Nandan Nilekani.
6. Nandan Nilekani on an Egalitarian Internet -- Episode 15 of Brave New World.
7. Albert Wenger on the World After Capital -- Episode 29 of Brave New World.
8. James Robinson on What Makes a Successful State — Episode 19 of Brave New World.
9. The Narrow Corridor — Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson.
10. Is the Singularity Near? -- Episode 2 of Everything is Everything.
11. 1984 -- George Orwell.
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David Sontag joins Vasant Dhar on episode 70 of Brave New World to highlight where and how AI is creating a major transformation in healthcare. We could create a brave new world of individualized and holistic healthcare, where the machine really cares about us and tells us what to do based on knowledge and data.
Useful resources
1. David Sontag on Twitter, LinkedIn, MIT and Google Scholar.
2. Heuristic Methods for Imposing Structure on Ill-Structured Problems -- Harry E Pople Jr.
3. Harry E Pople on ResearchGate.
4. Human and Artificial Intelligence in Healthcare — Episode 4 of Brave New World (w Eric Topol).
5. Waiting for Doctor AI -- Episode 9 of Brave New World (w Regina Barzilay).
6. UpToDate.
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He was an early dotcom millionaire -- and he repeated his success. He wants to reinvent email, and has radical insights on politics. Rajesh Jain joins Vasant Dhar in episode 70 of Brave New World to share his insights on what he has learnt from success -- and failure.
Useful resources
1. Rajesh Jain on LinkedIn, Twitter and his own website.
2. Startup to Proficorn -- Rajesh Jain.
3. Rajesh Jain and Dhan Vapasi — Episode 94 of The Seen and the Unseen.
4. James Robinson on What Makes a Successful State -- Episode 19 of Brave New World.
5. Andrew Yang on the New Politics America Needs -- Episode 27 of Brave New World.
6. Competing for the Future -- Gary Hamel and CK Prahalad.
7. Fall in Love with the Problem, Not the Solution -- Uri Levine.
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She's a business leader, a Grammy-nominated musician and is trying to transform education. Chadrika Tandon joins Vasant Dhar in episode 69 of Brave New World to discuss her life, her learning, and why she is still so driven.
Useful resources
1. Chandrika Tandon on Spotify, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, LinkedIn, Tandon School of Engineering and her own website.
2. Ammu's Treasures on YouTube, Flipbook and other streaming platforms.
3. Rick Smolan on a Life in Photography -- Episode 65 of Brave New World.
4. Lust for Life -- Norman Corwin.
5. The Complete Works of William Shakespeare.
6. Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard -- Thomas Gray.
7. A Psalm of Life -- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.
8. The Shadow Lines -- Amitav Ghosh.
9. Sri Venkateswara Suprabhatham -- MS Subbulakshmi.
10. Binaca Geetmala, 1953-2000.
11. The Beatles and Carpenters on Spotify.
12. Quiet Fire -- Roberta Flack.
13. The Pyramid Principle -- Barbara Minto.
14. The Paradigm Shifts in Artificial Intelligence -- Vasant Dhar.
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Will big data and scary AI take over the world? Not a chance, says Gary Smith, as he joins Vasant Dhar in episode 68 of Brave New World. The human brain is special.
Useful resources:
1. Gary Smith on Twitter, Amazon, Pomona College, Google Scholar and his own website.
2. The AI Delusion -- Gary Smith.
3. Distrust: Big Data, Data-Torturing, and the Assault on Science -- Gary Smith.
4. Standard Deviations: Flawed Assumptions, Tortured Data, and Other Ways to Lie with Statistics -- Gary Smith.
5. Security Analysis -- Benjamin Graham and David Dodd.
6. Sam Bowman on ChatGPT & Controlling AI — Episode 58 of Brave New World.
7. Raphaël Millière Looks Under the Hood of AI -- Episode 60 of Brave New World.
8. Nandan Nilekani on an Egalitarian Internet — Episode 15 of Brave New World.
9. Noise: A Flaw in Human Judgment -- Daniel Kahneman, Olivier Sibony and Cass R. Sunstein.
10. Daniel Kahneman on How Noise Hampers Judgement — Episode 21 of Brave New World.
11. The Nature of Intelligence — Episode 7 of Brave New World (w Yann le Cunn).
12. Ellie Pavlick on the Cutting Edge of AI -- Episode 67 of Brave New World.
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Does ChatGPT really understand anything? Or is it faking it? Hell, do we understand how it works? Ellie Pavlick joins Vasant Dhar in episode 67 of Brave New World to share her thoughts on where AI has reached -- and where it's going.
Useful resources:
1. Ellie Pavlick at Brown and Google Scholar.
2. Symbols and grounding in large language models -- Ellie Pavlick.
3. Sam Bowman on ChatGPT & Controlling AI -- Episode 58 of Brave New World.
4. The Nature of Intelligence — Episode 7 of Brave New World (w Yann le Cunn).
5. Music, Mind, and Meaning -- Marvin Minsky.
6. Emergent Abilities of Large Language Models -- Jason Wei et al.
7. Hugging Face.
8. EleutherAI.
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Law and social conventions around free speech have evolved with the times, but technology presents new challenges to both. In this new world of social media, how should we think about it? Jameel Jaffer joins Vasant Dhar in episode 66 of Brave New World to share his thoughts on how we can navigate this territory.
Useful resources:
1. Jameel Jaffer on Wikipedia, Twitter, ACLU, Columbia Law School and Knight First Amendment Institute.
2. Social Media Companies Want to Co-opt the First Amendment. Courts Shouldn’t Let Them -- Jameel Jaffer and Scott Wilkens.
3. There’s a Problem With Banning TikTok. It’s Called the First Amendment. -- Jameel Jaffer.
4. Optimizing for What? Algorithmic Amplification and Society -- A symposium by the Knight Institute.
5. How Rights Went Wrong -- Jamal Greene.
6. Free Speech Futures -- An essay series edited by Jamal Greene.
7. Marketplace of Ideas.
8. Brandenburg v. Ohio.
9. Pentagon Papers.
10. New York Times Co. v. Sullivan.
11. The Federalist Papers.
12. Whitney v. California.
13. The Technology Wars -- Episode 1 of Brave New World (w Arun Sundararajan).
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In a rich career as a photographer, he's brought his own distinct gaze to every place he's been to. Rick Smolan joins Vasant Dhar in episode 65 of Brave New World to talk about his rich experiences -- and what he's learned from them.
Useful resources:
1. Rick Smolan on Wikipedia, Instagram, Amazon, Ted Talks and Against All Odds.
2. The Good Fight: America's Ongoing Struggle for Justice -- Rick Smolan and Jennifer Erwitt.
3. The Human Face of Big Data -- Rick Smolan and Jennifer Erwitt.
4. Alone Across the Outback -- Rick Smolan's talk for National Geographic.
5. Natasha Pruss & Rick Smolan -- Their Profound Story.6. Tracks -- John Curran.
7. The Coddling of the American Mind — Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt.
8. How Social Media Threatens Society — Episode 8 of Brave New World (w Jonathan Haidt).
9. A Day in the Life of Australia -- Rick Smolan.
10. The Player -- Robert Altman.
11. The Birth of a Word -- Deb Roy.
12. George & Jerry Invent A Show About Nothing -- Seinfeld.
13. Generative AI at Work -- Erik Brynjolfsson, Danielle Li and Lindsey Raymond.
14. Erik Brynjolfsson on the Second Machine Age — Episode 18 of Brave New World.
15. Andrew Yang on the New Politics America Needs -- Episode 27 of Brave New World.
16. Forward: Notes on the Future of Our Democracy — Andrew Yang.
17. Bias, Lies, and Democracy — Episode 14 of Brave New World (w Ali Velshi).
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There has never been a better time to be a creator. Amit Varma joins Vasant Dhar in episode 64 of Brave New World to discuss his learnings as a podcaster and blogger -- and to explain why AI is not a threat.
Useful resources:
1. Amit Varma on Twitter, India Uncut and Substack.
2. The Seen and the Unseen -- Amit Varma's podcast.
3. Brave New World — Episode 203 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Vasant Dhar).
4. Episodes of The Seen and the Unseen on the creator ecosystem with Roshan Abbas, Varun Duggirala, Neelesh Misra, Snehal Pradhan, Chuck Gopal, Nishant Jain, Deepak Shenoy, Abhijit Bhaduri and Gaurav Chintamani.
5. A Meditation on Form -- Amit Varma.
6. Why Are My Episodes so Long? -- Amit Varma.
7. If You Are a Creator, This Is Your Time -- Amit Varma.
8. The Naked Sun -- Isaac Asimov.
9. Range Rover — The archives of Amit Varma’s column on poker for the Economic Times.
10. Fog of War and Atomic Chess.
11. Fixing Indian Education — Episode 185 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Karthik Muralidharan).
12. A Scientist in the Kitchen — Episode 204 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Krish Ashok).
13. Law and Education in Our Modern World — Episode 5 of Brave New World (w John Sexton).
14. My Friend Dropped His Pants -- Amit Varma.
15. Eric Weinstein Won’t Toe the Line -- Episode 330 of The Seen and the Unseen.
16. $800,000 to Zero – The FASCINATING History of DaVinci Resolve — Alex Jordan of Learn Color Grading.
17. Miss Excel on Instagram and TikTok.
18. How an Excel Tiktoker Manifested Her Way to Making Six Figures a Day — Nilay Patel.
19. This Australian Man Can Speak Fluent Hindi And Bhojpuri -- ABP News.
20. Advertising is Dead -- Varun Duggirala's podcast.
21. How I Gained 1 MILLION Subscribers — Ali Abdaal.
22. My Top 10 Tips for Aspiring YouTubers — Ali Abdaal.
23. Uplift the Unremarkables — Episode 2 of Brave New World (w Scott Galloway).
24. Amitava Kumar Finds the Breath of Life — Episode 265 of The Seen and the Unseen.
25. The Blue Book: A Writer’s Journal — Amitava Kumar.
26. 1000 True Fans — Kevin Kelly.
27. 1000 True Fans? Try 100 — Li Jin.
28. Bill Bishop's newsletter on China.
29. The Life and Times of Jerry Pinto — Episode 314 of The Seen and the Unseen.
30. Murder in Mahim — Jerry Pinto.
31. Mallikarjun Mansur and Bhimsen Joshi on Spotify.
32. The New World Upon Us — Amit Varma on Alpha Zero.
33. Google’s AlphaZero Destroys Stockfish In 100-Game Match — Mike Klein.
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He has skin in the game as a top banker -- and saw the power of AI long before others did. Piyush Gupta joins Vasant Dhar in episode 63 of Brave New World to share his excitement for the present -- and his vision for the future.
7. All-in On AI -- Thomas H Davenport and Nitin Mittal.
Useful resources:
1. Piyush Gupta at DBS Bank, LinkedIn, Wikipedia and Twitter.
2. Tom Davenport on Artificial Intelligence in Business -- Episode 56 of Brave New World.
3. David Yermack on The Crypto Revolution -- Episode 30 of Brave New World.
4. SVB was a hedge fund in disguise–and the banking crisis is an overreaction -- Vasant Dhar.
5. The Three Laws of Robotics -- Isaac Asimov.
6. The Passions and the Interests -- Albert O Hirschman.
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