People I (Mostly) Admire

Latest Episodes:

118. “My God, This Is a Transformative Power” Nov 11, 2023

Show notes

Computer scientist Fei-Fei Li had a wild idea: download one billion images from the internet and teach a computer to recognize them. She ended up advancing the state of artificial intelligence — and she hopes that will turn out to be a good thing for humanity.

RESOURCES:

The Worlds I See: Curiosity, Exploration, and Discovery at the Dawn of A.I., by Fei-Fei Li (2023).
"Fei-Fei Li's Quest to Make AI Better for Humanity," by Jessi Hempel (Wired, 2018).
"ImageNet Large Scale Visual Recognition Challenge," by Olga Russakovsky, Li Fei-Fei, et al. (International Journal of Computer Vision, 2015).

EXTRAS:

“How to Think About A.I." series by Freakonomics Radio (2023).
“Will A.I. Make Us Smarter?” by People I (Mostly) Admire (2023).
“Satya Nadella’s Intelligence Is Not Artificial,” by Freakonomics Radio (2023).
“Max Tegmark on Why Superhuman Artificial Intelligence Won’t be Our Slave,” by People I (Mostly) Admire (2021).

SOURCES:

Fei-Fei Li, professor of computer science and co-director of the Human-Centered A.I. Institute at Stanford University.

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117. Nate Silver Says We're Bad at Making Predictions Oct 28, 2023

Show notes

Data scientist Nate Silver gained attention for his election predictions. But even the best prognosticators get it wrong sometimes. He talks to Steve about making good decisions with data, why he’d rather write a newsletter than an academic paper, and how online poker led him to the world of politics.

RESOURCES

"Not Everyone Who Disagrees With You Is a Closet Right-Winger," by Nate Silver (Silver Bulletin, 2023).
"The 2 Key Facts About U.S. Covid Policy That Everyone Should Know," by Nate Silver (Silver Bulletin, 2023).
"Excess Death Rates for Republican and Democratic Registered Voters in Florida and Ohio During the Covid-19 Pandemic," by Jacob Wallace, Paul Goldsmith-Pinkham, Jason L. Schwartz (JAMA Internal Medicine, 2023).
"Why Weather Forecasting Keeps Getting Better," by Hannah Fry (The New Yorker, 2019).
"Why FiveThirtyEight Gave Trump A Better Chance Than Almost Anyone Else," by Nate Silver (FiveThirtyEight, 2016).
The Signal and the Noise: Why So Many Predictions Fail — but Some Don't, by Nate Silver (2012).

EXTRAS

"Steven Strogatz Thinks You Don’t Know What Math Is," by People I (Mostly) Admire (2023).
"A Rockstar Chemist and Her Cancer-Attacking 'Lawn Mower,'" by People I (Mostly) Admire (2022).
"What’s the Secret to Making a Great Prediction?" by No Stupid Questions (2021).
"How to Be Less Terrible at Predicting the Future," by Freakonomics Radio (2016).
"Nate Silver Says: 'Everyone Is Kind of Weird,'" by Freakonomics Radio (2015).
"The Folly of Prediction," by Freakonomics Radio (2011).

SOURCES:

Nate Silver, founder of FiveThirtyEight and author of the Silver Bulletin.

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116. Abraham Verghese Thinks Medicine Can Do Better Oct 14, 2023

Show notes

Abraham Verghese is a physician and a best-selling author — in that order, he says. He explains the difference between curing and healing, and tells Steve why doctors should spend more time with patients and less with electronic health records.

RESOURCES:

The Covenant of Water, by Abraham Verghese (2023).
"Abraham Verghese’s Sweeping New Fable of Family and Medicine,” by Andrew Solomon (The New York Times, 2023).
“Watch Oprah’s Emotional Conversation with Abraham Verghese, Author of the 101st Oprah’s Book Club Pick” (Oprah Daily, 2023).
"How Indian Teachers Have Shaped Ethiopia's Education System," by Mariam Jafri (The Quint, 2023).
“How Tech Can Turn Doctors Into Clerical Workers,” by Abraham Verghese (The New York Times Magazine, 2018).
Cutting for Stone, by Abraham Verghese (2009).
"Culture Shock — Patient as Icon, Icon as Patient," by Abraham Verghese (The New England Journal of Medicine, 2008).
“The Cowpath to America,” by Abraham Verghese (The New Yorker, 1997).
My Own Country: A Doctor's Story, by Abraham Verghese (1994).
"Urbs in Rure: Human Immunodeficiency Virus Infection in Rural Tennessee," by Abraham Verghese, Steven L. Berk, and Felix Sarubbi (The Journal of Infectious Diseases, 1989).

EXTRAS:

"Are You Suffering From Burnout?" by No Stupid Questions (2023).
"Would You Rather See a Computer or a Doctor?" by Freakonomics, M.D. (2022).
“How Do You Cure a Compassion Crisis?” by Freakonomics Radio (2020).
The Citadel, by A. J. Cronin (1937).
Uncle Tom's Cabin, by Harriet Beecher Stowe (1852).

SOURCES:

Abraham Verghese, professor of medicine at Stanford University and best-selling novelist.

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EXTRA: Nobel Laureate Claudia Goldin on "Greedy Work" and the Wage Gap Oct 09, 2023

Show notes

Claudia Goldin is the newest winner of the Nobel Prize in Economics. Steve spoke to her in 2021 about how inflexible jobs and family responsibilities make it harder for women to earn wages equal to their male counterparts.

SOURCES:

Claudia Goldin, professor of economics at Harvard University.

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115. The Future of Therapy Is Psychedelic Sep 30, 2023

Show notes

For 37 years, Rick Doblin has been pushing the F.D.A. to approve treating post-traumatic stress disorder with MDMA, better known as Ecstasy. He tells Steve why he persisted for so long, why he doesn’t like calling drug use “recreational,” and what he learned from his pet wolf.

RESOURCES:

"MDMA-Assisted Therapy for Moderate to Severe PTSD: A Randomized, Placebo-Controlled Phase 3 Trial," by Jennifer M. Mitchell, Marcela Ot’alora G., Bessel van der Kolk, Scott Shannon, Michael Bogenschutz, Rick Doblin, et al. (Nature Medicine, 2023).
"MDMA Therapy Inches Closer to Approval," by Rachel Nuwer (The New York Times, 2023).
"Psychedelics Reopen the Social Reward Learning Critical Period," by Romain Nardou, Edward Sawyer, Young Jun Song, Gül Dölen, et al. (Nature, 2023).
"The Social Costs of Keystone Species Collapse: Evidence from the Decline of Vultures in India," by Eyal Frank and Anant Sudarshan (SSRN, 2023).
"Global Health, Climate Change and Migration: The Need for Recognition of 'Climate Refugees,'" by Saverio Bellizzi, Christian Popescu, Catello M. Panu Napodano, Maura Fiamma, and Luca Cegolon (Journal of Global Health, 2023).
"Comparison of Prolonged Exposure vs Cognitive Processing Therapy for Treatment of Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Among U.S. Veterans," by Paula P. Schnurr, Kathleen M. Chard, Josef I. Ruzek, et al. (JAMA Network Open, 2022).
"MDMA-Assisted Therapy for Severe PTSD: A Randomized, Double-Blind, Placebo-Controlled Phase 3 Study," Jennifer M. Mitchell, Michael Bogenschutz, Alia Lilienstein, Charlotte Harrison, Rick Doblin, et al. (Nature Medicine, 2021).
"Inner City Blues: Children Raised in Inner-Cities Face Comparable PTSD Causing Conditions and Consequences as Military Veterans and Deserve Our Attention," by Eric Citizen (SSRN, 2019).
"Intergenerational Transmission of Trauma Effects: Putative Role of Epigenetic Mechanisms," by Rachel Yehuda and Amy Lehrner (World Psychiatry, 2018).
"Durability of Improvement in Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder Symptoms and Absence of Harmful Effects or Drug Dependency After 3,4-Methylenedioxymethamphetamine-Assisted Psychotherapy: A Prospective Long-Term Follow-Up Study," by Michael C. Mithoefer, Mark T. Wagner, Rick Doblin, et al. (Journal of Psychopharmacology, 2013).
"RETRACTED: Severe Dopaminergic Neurotoxicity in Primates After a Common Recreational Dose Regimen of MDMA ('Ecstasy')," by George A. Ricaurte, Jie Yuan, George Hatzidimitriou, Branden J. Cord, and Una D. McCann (Science, 2002).

EXTRAS:

"Why Aren’t All Drugs Legal? (Replay)," by People I (Mostly) Admire (2022).
"Can the Big Bad Wolf Save Your Life?" by Freakonomics Radio (2022).
"How Are Psychedelics and Other Party Drugs Changing Psychiatry?" by Freakonomics Radio (2020).

SOURCES:

Rick Doblin, founder and president of the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS).

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114. Is Perfectionism Ruining Your Life? Sep 16, 2023

Show notes

Psychologist Thomas Curran argues that perfectionism isn’t about high standards — it’s about never being enough. He explains how the drive to be perfect is harming education, the economy, and our mental health.

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113. Do We Have Evidence of Alien Life? Sep 02, 2023

Show notes

Avi Loeb is a Harvard astronomer who argues that we’ve already encountered extraterrestrial technology. His approach to the search for interstellar objects is scientific, but how plausible is his argument?

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112. Reading Dostoevsky Behind Bars Aug 19, 2023

Show notes

Reginald Dwayne Betts spent more than eight years in prison. Today he's a Yale Law graduate, a MacArthur Fellow, and a poet. His nonprofit works to build libraries in prisons so that more incarcerated people can find hope.

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111. Can a Moonshot Approach to Mental Health Work? Aug 05, 2023

Show notes

Obi Felten used to launch projects for X, Google’s innovation lab, but she’s now tackling mental health. She explains why Steve’s dream job was soul-destroying for her, and how peer support could transform the therapeutic industry.

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110. Drawing from Life (and Death) Jul 22, 2023

Show notes

Artist Wendy MacNaughton knows the difficulty of sitting in silence and the power of having fun. She explains to Steve the lessons she’s gleaned from drawing hospice residents, working in Rwanda, and reporting from Guantanamo Bay.

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