I really enjoyed this conversation with Donald. Here's the outline: 0:00 - Introduction 3:45 - IBM 650 7:51 - Geeks 12:29 - Alan Turing 14:26 - My life is a convex combination of english and mathematics 24:00 - Japanese arrow puzzle example 25:42 - Neural networks and machine learning 27:59 - The Art of Computer Programming 36:49 - Combinatorics 39:16 - Writing process 42:10 - Are some days harder than others? 48:36 - What's the "Art" in the Art of Computer Programming 50:21 - Binary (boolean) decision diagram 55:06 - Big-O notation 58:02 - P=NP 1:10:05 - Artificial intelligence 1:13:26 - Ant colonies and human cognition 1:17:11 - God and the Bible 1:24:28 - Reflection on life 1:28:25 - Facing mortality 1:33:40 - TeX and beautiful typography 1:39:23 - How much of the world do we understand? 1:44:17 - Question for God
Lex we need an interview with Andrew Yang. We been waiting months... You had several experts on AI and Economics and those guests thus far are perceiving UBI in a negative light. Most in part because they are not dialed in on the proposed implementation from Andrew Yang's UBI. Kai Fu Lee's argument on the labor displacement was to focus on retraining. Andrew Yang states that the retraining success rate is about 5%-15% for the manufacturing worker that were displaced from automation. You must agree that's freaking horrible. Ray Dalio's concern is that UBI will take away from other social programs and mostly focused on child's early development to provide opportunity at an early age. We all know that schools can only influence 30% of a child development and 60%-70% has most to do with what the child's home environment is like... Please get Andrew Yang on for the Rebuttal of Kai Fu Lee's and Ray Dalio's perspective. You yourself know very well that AI will rip through our economy and completely redefine labor. What this mean to our society at this moment is looking very dark. Please get Andrew Yang on your show... BTW massive fan of the show, only because I and many like me see the massive change coming down the pike and we all know it could be incredibly good for us and on the flip side, it could be incredibly bad for us... Please consider me very concerned and please excuse my forwardness...
1:17:11 God rolls the dice. However, the adversarial (Devil) tries to roll the dice back, in order to confuse the situation (ANALOGY - G.A.N.s or Generative Adversarial Networks). Therefore, there is a, contradictory, random, probabilistic, solution, determined by who knows how to roll the dice, while knowing the end result (Fate). Free will, only, occurs when intelligent living organisms work together for a common cause, I think. Which direction is the world headed, collectively?
1:39:23 Reality is a result of experiencing tragedy(ies) or Caring for others. Destruction of people and/or society(ies) is/are a result of fearlessness and/or lack of conscience (either on purpose or perhaps a lapse of memory (past experiences) - like dementia), I think. Flaws are our memories, either learned or overlooked, we have been exposed to, relative to the past. However, looking to the future, in a "positive light" is what normal reality should look like, to me.
1:44:17 Question for God - "What kind of browser do you have up here?" "I hope we had good internet." Answer from God - We live in a holographic ("super" (BEYOND HUMAN COMPREHENSION) internet of God's crafting) universe that connects us to our creator(s), via the dimensions we can not perceive with our eyes, but with, only, our minds and souls, I think. Quantitatively speaking, we are minuscule, compared to the size of our creator(s). That is what differentiates us, on planet Earth, to what lies beyond the infinity or finite real estate we call the universe(s), in my opinion. We seem to be two different entities (Two independent (yet dependent) systems that struggle to coexist). Therefore, one's own death is validated, (relative to some (NOT ALL HUMANS) intelligent living organisms), in order to meet our maker and/ or ask for forgiveness for our sins. ETERNAL LIFE IS RELATIVE TO ONE'S BELIEF SYSTEM AND / OR ENVIRONMENT. EITHER PEOPLE WANT TO LIVE FOREVER, IN THIS TIME WE CALL LIFE, OR ONE ACCEPTS DEATH, AT SOME POINT, TO HAVE ETERNAL FREEDOM FROM PAIN AND / OR QUESTIONS UNANSWERED, IN THIS FINITE / SELF CENTERED VIEW THAT MOST PEOPLE SEEM TO HAVE ABOUT THE WORLD WE LIVE IN, GENERALLY SPEAKING, I THINK.
I've long admired Donald Knuth and much enjoyed your interview. Its pacing and development were superb. I chanced years ago to meet him at his Palo Alto church. In the passing of the peace he circled around to shake hands and at social hour engaged in conversation. Your fine interview has today given me a second chance to extend that pleasure. My double thanks.
@@unoriginalusernameno999 Next thing you know he'll be coming down from the mountain. Life might get complicated though, stone tables are not fashionable anymore just 10 rules and it's full, 128 Gb sd-cards though... Next bible 98.000.000 pages?
@@ACogloc he presumably named himself after the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition (That's DSM 5, not sure what the extra 'D' stands for) So yeah, I think this is quite literally someone in need of a medication adjustment. We've grown so used to things like "AI-generated content", that we forget there are actually people suffering from thinking disorders who sincerely post indecipherable statements. Another reason to be careful and compassionate with responses.
"I enjoy the fact I have limits" - but seemingly driven by the sense of being able to solve complex problems; one of many things to possibly take away from this talk. The openness of dealing with mortality and the contagious yet realistic curiosity really is inspiring to me. Thanks to both guest and host!
I have to say, as someone who has watched an extensive number of your interviews I think this one is the best. Thank you for everything you are doing and remaining impartial and allowing guests to discuss all sorts of philosophical and technological questions, as well as coming into these interviews being so incredibly knowledgeable. You are so learned in both the guests and the subjects being covered in these interviews. Thank you very much for the time you put into this for all of us very technologically enthralled, gentleman scientists as well as programmers/engineers and non technologically inclined.
So valuable to be able to hear this. As a youngster in the late 1990s I dreamed of hearing from all the experts in any domain I was interested in, but it was never realistic (at least not without a string of certain extraordinarily difficult or unlikely events). There's no way you have time to read even a hundredth of your comments, so I know with quite high probability that I'm speaking into the void, but thank you for making this vast wealth of knowledge so easily accessible.
Love your avatar, best quotes from "le chat" Cimetarys are full of old babies There's old quote who says our past is horrible, our present is unsuitable, happyly we have no futur We only bread the air that is around ourself and that, make you humble The smartest people doutes of themself, I think
I didn't quite know what to make of these conversations until 15:40. Lex has a goofy side. I am supremely glad that Lex has roped together this group and conversed with them. We all read Knuth and listened to him talk but never had a chance to see him in conversation. And I have to thank all of Lex's subjects for turn submitting to being interviewed. It has been unsurprisingly good to hear what they had to say.
Lex please conduct an interview with yourself as well. It's really a tough job to ask all these intelligent questions to all these experts from different fields. You are yourself a legend 😊
That last Q/A is so hilarious. I couldn't stop laughing for a while. On a serious note thanks Lex for this. You have literally connected a generation with Knuth. I haven't seen an interview like this with him. Knuth as ever inspires me.
So great to hear that he's still programming. Can't get enough of that, when you're solving fun puzzles and not making big systems that solve everything. :)
Thank you Lex Fridman for the heavy questions you 'put on the table' of Donald Knuth. Mabye that's the reason why I see him now as a human being in the first place. You took the risk to loose him during the interview, but he stayed on line with you and special that makes him greater then I thought before this podcast. So for the second time: THANK YOU!
I would love to get the proper words to translate how much I'm grateful to you and your amazing work. Long live and prosper, Mr. Fridman. Every each video from you is a blast.
Lex, thanks for bringing us those podcasts. Very interesting, bring me knowledge and makes me think. Must required you lot of effort for little retribution. You are a very good person. Please kept up the good work in 2020. Wish you the best, wish us the best.
This interview was very thought provoking in regards to finiteness of certain aspects of life. Donald is so focused because of his own pure intentions. Thanks Lex for sharing these conversations with the public. Take care man.
Thanks for another great Podcast! Would love it if you could interview John Carmack! Just because of the body of work he's already done and also because he's recently started looking into AGI.
Amazing to see and hear Don Knuth. The quality of the people you interview is just unmatched. They had the most profound impact on computer technology.
The people he interviews are some of todays most highly noted thinkers. I think this makes him number 1 on multiple levels. The other podcasts I watch : rogan, impact theory, rich roll and more... Lex is my favorite to gain knowledge. I come here to enhance my education. He is also fit and plays music. I relate to the renaissance man and I think Lex is becoming a famous renaissance man who is inspiring many to chase their potential, work hard, stay humble. Thanks for this channel Lex.
This is my new favorite channel. I love every single one of your videos. How do you manage to get all these great people on your show?! edit: in response to your ad placements, I see no problem with them in your designated spots. Like you said, they're placed in a way to not break the flow of the conversation. I hope your other fans agree as well :)
Many thanks for your work and dedication, your podcast is fantastic! I would love to watch you debating with Ajay Agrawal or Yuval Noah Harari in 2020.
Great episode and great choice for the end of the year episode, Lex! I never had a 650 but my first computer was a used PDP-10 that was about the size of a modern washing machine if you stacked everything.
Doesn't matter where you put the add, the content is fantastic!!! If required, increase the number of adds... Do whatever is required for you to continue having these conversations.
Don is still an amazingly sharp guy, even at 81! Of course, he's starting out so far ahead of us mere mortals, that he'd probably seem like a genius if he was working at 4% of his capacity. Remarkable man, great interview!
I am blown away by this for some reason. while we share so many traits, the one I admire most about Donald Knuth (and Lex) is the discipline to grunt out the last corner cases, refinement. I used to have that and think it can be exercised as a muscle, but urgency in time has made me sloppy. Very profound takeaway for me.
Lex, this was such a treat! Don is a true inspiration and the way you clearly were both at ease with the smooth flow of insightful questions made this one of the best podcasts of the year. Great work, and great guests!
Hi Lex, what a fantastic interview with one of the heros of computer science! I am professor of computer science and physics and get a lot of motivation and historically interesting information from these kind of interviews. Of course, I‘ m also a tournament chess player, so also the interviews with Carlsen, Nakamura and Kasparov are really just fantastic and I could hardly believe that you really got them as interview partners, besides all the other very interesting figures of science and technology. It seems that you yourself also have an interesting path of life with time at Google and then MIT instructor. I wonder why that apparently didn‘t work out. It seems you are only missing out on Einstein, Newton, Heisenberg, Bor and Schrödinger but got many of the most interesting living scientists and entrepreneurs as interview partners. Amazing. I love watching the interviews with people that have to say something (in contrast to e.g. run-of-the-mill politicians). Keep it on!
Amazing conversation. From James Gosling, Bjarne Stroustrupe and Brian Kerninghan, this was the most honest and most insightful. Brilliant youtube channel!
Great interview! Hope that this podcast series never ends. I do think though, that Lex should've given more time to Dr. Knuth for the last question. He clearly had more to talk about.
