Computing Up

Latest Episodes:

Benjamin J. Kuipers: On Space and Time and GOFAI - 78th Conversation Nov 02, 2025

Show notes

Ben Kuipers, emeritus professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at the University of Michigan (🔗, 🔗, 🔗), joins Michael and Dave in a nerdly yet accessible conversation on topics ranging from Good Old-Fashioned AI, to how we understand space and time, to ethics and trust in society, to teaching Dave how to LISP properly in the 1970s.

[Episode cover based on image used courtesy of Benjamin J. Kuipers]

Efficiency, Resilience, & Robustness With Moshe Vardi - 77th Conversation Jul 26, 2025

Show notes

Moshe Vardi (🔗, 🔗, 🔗), the Karen Ostrum George Distinguished Service Professor in Computational Engineering at Rice University, and a multi-award-winning force in theoretical computer science, joins Michael and Dave in a wide-ranging conversation about robustness and resilience in computer science, engineering, and society at large.

Moshe's talk "Lessons from Texas, COVID-19, and the 737 Max" is online (🔗, 🔗).

[Cover based on an image used by permission of Moshe Vardi]

Episode Note: This conversation was recorded in August 2024 but is only becoming available now. Computing Up regrets and apologizes for the extended delay!

Computing Then And Now with Joy Lisi Rankin - 76th Conversation Apr 27, 2025

Show notes

Dr. Joy Lisi Rankin (🔗, 🔗, 🔗, 🔗), an author, historian, and academic, joins Michael and Dave in a fast conversation about the history of computing and its systemic biases from the '60s to the techbros of today, and much more.

[Cover based on an image used by permission of Joy Rankin]

Note: This conversation was recorded in April 2024 but is only becoming available now. Computing Up regrets and apologizes for the extended delay!

Collecting Cognition with Steve Sloman - 75th Conversation Dec 01, 2024

Show notes

Cognitive scientist and psychologist Professor Steve Sloman of Brown University (🔗, 🔗, 🔗) joins Michael and Dave in a fun romp through connectionism, collective cognition, the illusion of understanding, and much more.

Also, Dave illustrates his illusion of understanding of a bicycle in a true back of the envelope sketch --

[Episode cover based on image used courtesy of Steven Sloman]

Manon Revel: Is Democracy a Comma in History? - 74th Conversation Jun 23, 2024

Show notes

Manon Revel (🔗, 🔗, 🔗), an Employee Fellow at the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University, joins Michael and Dave for a conversation about the past, present, and future of democracy, and ways to understand it in both computational and practical terms.

[Thumbnail based on image provided courtesy of Manon Revel]

Martha White: Sparse is Rich - 73rd Conversation Mar 02, 2024

Show notes

Martha White, associate professor of Computing Science at University of Alberta (🔗, 🔗) joins Michael and Dave in a conversation about AI, system prediction and control, the power of sparse representations, and many aspects of machine learning from new mathematical theory to the absolutely practical control of a real water treatment plant.

[Thumbnail based on image used courtesy of Martha White]

Rich Sutton Brings Reinforcements - 72nd Conversation Dec 31, 2023

Show notes

Computer scientist Rich Sutton, FRS (🔗, 🔗, 🔗), a quiet giant of machine learning, joins Michael and Dave in a sprawling conversation touching on reinforcement learning, a hopeful view of AI, the importance of ideas, and a host of other topics.

[Thumbnail image used courtesy of Rich Sutton]

The Living Computation Theory of Everything - 71st Conversation Nov 28, 2023

Show notes

Michael interviews Dave about his recent video (YouTube) on a 'theory of everything'. The conversation begins with Michael praising Dave for finally doing some theory, and descends from there.

Oren Etzioni All Over - 70th Conversation Oct 22, 2023

Show notes

Oren Etzioni, founding CEO of the Allen Institute for Artificial Intelligence and Professor Emeritus of Computer Science at University of Washington, (🔗, 🔗, 🔗) joins Michael and Dave in a conversation that ranges all over, from AI hype and language models to alignment and existential risk and ethics and morality to information pollution and cryptography and politics and more.

[Thumbnail based on image licensed CC BY-SA 4.0 by Carissapod link]

Beautiful Messiness with Jonathan Frankle - 69th Conversation Sep 02, 2023

Show notes

Jonathan Frankle, the new Chief Scientist - Neural Networks at Databricks (🔗, 🔗, 🔗), joins Michael and Dave in a fast conversation about topics ranging from AI risks and fairness to the problems of Computer Science education to the beautiful messiness of modern deep learning.

[Thumbnail based on image courtesy of Jonathan Frankle]

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