Ep 22 | Aza Raskin
Aza Raskin: “AI, The Shape of Language, and Earth’s Species”
On this episode, we meet with cofounder of the Earth Species Project, cofounder of the Center for Humane Technology, and cohost of the podcast Your Undivided Attention, Aza Raskin.
Raskin gives us a general overview of what artificial intelligence is, how it’s about to become more deeply embedded in our lives, and how he and his team plan to use AI as a Rosetta Stone to translate the languages of other species to – hopefully – expand human consciousness, empathy, and awareness of the other beings we share this planet with.
About Aza Raskin
Aza is the cofounder of Earth Species Project, an open-source collaborative nonprofit dedicated to decoding animal communication. He is also the cofounder of the Center for Humane Technology and is the cohost for the podcast Your Undivided Attention. Trained as a mathematician and dark matter physicist, he has taken three companies from founding to acquisition, a co-chairing member of the World Economic Forum’s Global AI Counsel, helped found Mozilla Labs, in addition to being named FastCompany’s Master of Design, and listed on Forbes and Inc Magazines 30-under-30.
In French, we have a motto that says that a simple drawing is often better than a long explanation. Jean-Marc Jancovici Carbone 4 President
That’s very understandable because with left atmosphere thinking, one of the problems is that you see everything as a series of problems that must have solutions. Iain McGilchrist Neuroscientist and Philosopher
We can’t have hundreds and hundreds of real relationships that are healthy because that requires time and effort and full attention and awareness of being in real relationship and conversation with the other human. Nate Hagens Director of ISEOF
This is the crux of the whole problem. Individual parts of nature are more valuable than the biocomplexity of nature. Thomas Crowther Founder Restor
Show Notes & Links to Learn More
01:30 – Aza Raskin Personal site, Center for humane technology, Earth Species Project, and discord
02:45 – BaYaka Tribes
05:50 – Mapquest
06:57 – Infinite Scroll
08:46 – 15-20% of electricity goes to powering the internet and its infrastructure
10:25 – Artificial Intelligence
10:53 – Ex Machina, Terminator
12:47 – AI that can write essays
14:44 – Graphic Processing Units (GPUs)
14:58 – Image Net (Big data sets)
16:30 – How AI conceptualizes language – Word2Vec
21:20 – Human pattern recognition
24:14 – Geometric shapes rotate to match concepts and meaning across languages
27:02 – Dall-E, Dall-E 2, Clip Guided Image Diffusion
28:02 – Disco Diffusion
28:49 – Submarine Music Video
29:45 – Nate’s Earth Day Talk 2022
41:57 – Narrow AI
42:29 – Facebook’s net worth
43:03 – Meaningful social interaction algorithm
43:48 – Frances Haugin Facebook Exposure
44:16 – Jonathan Haidt – Most viral content is anger against out-groups
44:47 – In-groups/Out-groups
54:10 – Turing test
56:38 – ¼ of users have said ‘I love you’ to Xiaoice
57:53 – Daniel Schmachtenberger info + TGS episodes part 1 and part 2
58:42 – End of Growth
59:18 – China makes first model with 1.75 trillion parameters
1:02:46 – E.O. Wilson
1:06:00 – Jeremy Howard
1:06:56 – Having a tutor for your child will put them in 96 percentile
1:08:05 – We’re doubling debt every 8-9 years and doubling GDP every 20-25 years
1:08:21 – Oil’s maximum production
1:09:12 – Energy intensiveness of Web 3 Crypto World
1:10:23 – Data collection is the energy intensive part of AI
1:14:26 – Whales carry their dead young with them for week
1:14:48 – Species that have females that go through menopause
1:15:28 – Lemurs bite millipedes to get high
1:15:44 – Dolphins inflate puffer fish and pass them around to get high
1:15:59 – Dolphins and other species can pass the mirror test
1:16:36 – Dolphins can bifurcate their communication streams to some extent
1:19:04 – Umwelt
1:24:07 – Earth Rise and Blue Marble Photos
1:24:26 – William Shatner response to space
1:25:17 – Silent Spring Rachel Carson
1:26:40 – All of the complex life in the universe are on this planet and most are in the ocean
1:29:09 – Thomas Malthus
1:29:14 – Paul Ehrlich info + TGS podcast
1:30:51 – Dr. Ari Friedlaender
1:32:58 – Beluga communication video
1:33:35 – Valeria Vergara
1:34:40 – Paper published in nature scientific reports possibility in the bio-acoustic domains
