Stephen Wolfram is the creator of Mathematica, Wolfram|Alpha and the Wolfram Language; the author of A New Kind of Science; and the founder and CEO of Wolfram R...
History of Science & Technology Q&A (February 19, 2025)
Stephen Wolfram answers questions from his viewers about the history of science and technology as part of an unscripted livestream series, also available on YouTube here: https://wolfr.am/youtube-sw-qaQuestions include: - Can you talk about the history of pi? - "Pi day of the century." - Is pi still being researched today? Or is it a solidified concept? - Was there always a connection between "pi" and "pie"? - Can pi be used for data compression? - Is the only reason pi shows up more than tau because we USE pi more often? - If we used tau, it would have been 24/tau^2 instead of 6/pi^2, right? - How was your experience with slide rules? Did Leibniz or Newton use tools like a slide rule? - My 8th-grade (1983-ish) teacher didn't allow calculators, but he let me use my slide rule. - Would you rather be stuck with just a slide rule or just an abacus? - What is your favorite "artifact from the past" that you own... any interesting stories? - What's your favorite artifact from the future? - Many key ideas in computer science existed before we had the hardware to implement them (Turing's computer, neural networks in the 1940s). What ideas today do you think are ahead of their time in the same way? - Technology has progressed at an incredible rate during the last two centuries. That seems quite unusual relative to other periods in history. Are we bound to enter a new era of stagnation or regression? Or can we just keep going? - How would you think about cellular automata if you were born in, say, ancient Greece/Rome or Egypt? Or even the 1800s? - Is there a history of people discovering the concept of the ruliad and thinking about it from a different perspective (mathematical, scientific, religious or otherwise)? - I would be interested in hearing about the bug of Alan Turing. - It seems like our definitions of "science" and "technology" have evolved over the years. Are they historically the same thing?
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1:24:47
Future of Science and Technology Q&A (February 14, 2025)
Stephen Wolfram answers questions from his viewers about the future of science and technology as part of an unscripted livestream series, also available on YouTube here: https://wolfr.am/youtube-sw-qaQuestions include: In the spirit of Valentine's Day, what is the future of bionic hearts? Would this be a way to make humans more efficient? - How would you think about a world in which all of the work is done by robots and AI? - Architects using computerized/AI tools will result in less demand for architects overall, thus less people getting to do architecture. - Do you think the current methods of training and using AI/LLM are here to stay for a while, or is there a real possibility of an alternative machine learning approach appearing and being superior and more efficient? - What would you think about spiking neural nets with a new non-differentiable learning algorithm? Is it the path to smarter AI? - I read from an expert that correcting the errors in a later prompt results in more errors. It's better to go back to the original prompt. - Do you or your team actively work on the alignment issues with AI and are you worried about the next 10 years with regard to that? - Do you see a danger in the trend toward anthropomorphic AI and providing AI systems with human-like attributes? - I wonder what will happen when future AI models are trained on material that shows them the actual results of their past actions. - What are some near- and medium-term breakthroughs that could potentially make the creator a trillionaire? Off the top of my head, fusion power, far more efficient batteries or novel propulsion systems.
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1:08:07
Business, Innovation and Managing Life (February 12, 2025)
Stephen Wolfram answers questions from his viewers about business, innovation, and managing life as part of an unscripted livestream series, also available on YouTube here: https://wolfr.am/youtube-sw-business-qaQuestions include: What are the qualifications to be considered an "expert" in a specific field of science? - What do you think was the hardest problem that you've solved? - Does fractional calculus have any meaningful application? Should I just abandon it after PhD? - What are the implications of using hypergraphs in generative AI, or AGI? - When will we get to adopt our own robot pets? I'm allergic and would love a dog. - My Roomba is my pet. - I'd love a guard robot dog. - Did you watch the Superbowl on Sunday? - Do you think we will reach a point in technology where computers themselves will have personalities...like you go to the store and that's one of the features to consider along with GPU, CPU, etc.? - Have you ever thought about the intersection of math and sports? And how that can be applied? There's great nerdy data in sports! - Do you think there's a danger of relying too much on technology? For example, automating home locks. - There were AI companies in the 1980s? - Do you play computer games? Or did you play console games in the 80s and 90s, like Mario and Tetris? - I do think though, that playing games helps keep the brain sharp. - With AR glasses, cats will never be able to walk in front of my terminal screen ever again! - Why are we the only animals who can encapsulate ideas with words? - Do you use any smart tech to categorize or organize your home library?
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1:16:39
History of Science & Technology Q&A (February 5, 2025)
Stephen Wolfram answers questions from his viewers about the history of science and technology as part of an unscripted livestream series, also available on YouTube here: https://wolfr.am/youtube-sw-qaQuestions include: When was complexity science invented? Was there a further back history than digital? - They always forget Aristarchus. - What role did category and type theory play for mathematics? - How would you think about approaching alchemical literature, knowing that it mostly employed coded language rather than being about literal transmutation into gold? - Was Newton not an alchemist? - The real secret is it's tungsten that can be turned into gold, hence the name "Wolfram Research." - Dirac, Einstein, Turing and Feynman are sitting in a room. What is the single word they all immediately agree on? - So... Dirac answered in Dirac delta function style?
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1:30:28
Future of Science and Technology Q&A (January 31, 2025)
Stephen Wolfram answers questions from his viewers about the future of science and technology as part of an unscripted livestream series, also available on YouTube here: https://wolfr.am/youtube-sw-qa
Questions include: Do you imagine humanity exploring "inner space" (i.e. virtual worlds ) more than "outer space"? - Could the spin of electrons lead to a communications system? - How would we evolve to live in space? Would we even evolve, without going into space? - Why is it you always wear the same checked shirt with the right-side collar slightly flattened...almost AI-like... - Do you think that the rules of human biology are computationally reducible, so that we eventually will be able to understand the aging of our cells? - The latest LLMs are doing very advanced mathematics. Do you think we can get AI to the point that it is solving open problems and creating new mathematics? - What is the next step for LLMs to advance? - Do a conversation with Joscha Bach please—it'll be amazing! - Have any of these LLM agents been trained on NKS? - Thoughts on this new "external reasoning" paradigm or more generally, reinforcement learning + LLMs? - How many years away do you think we are from grey goo (self-replicating nanomachines), if ever? - Are people considering (re-)training LLMs completely on scientific high-quality peer-reviewed papers?
Stephen Wolfram is the creator of Mathematica, Wolfram|Alpha and the Wolfram Language; the author of A New Kind of Science; and the founder and CEO of Wolfram Research. Over the course of nearly four decades, he has been a pioneer in the development and application of computational thinking—and has been responsible for many discoveries, inventions and innovations in science, technology and business.
On his podcast, Stephen discusses topics ranging from the history of science to the future of civilization and ethics of AI.
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