Useful Resources:

1. Deepak Chopra
2. Donald D. Hoffman
3. Awakening: The Path to Freedom and Enlightenment - Deepak Chopra
4. Seymour Reichlin
5. Digital Dharma: How AI Can Elevate Spiritual Intelligence and Personal Wellbeing - Deepak Chopra
6. The Hard Problem Of Consciousness
7. Rosalyn Yalow
8. Neuropeptides
9. Psychoneuroimmunology
10. Candace Pert
11. Molecules of Emotion - Candace Pert
12. Richard Dawkins
13. The Physics of Consciousness - Richard Dawkins & Brian Greene
14. Naïve realism
15. Stephen Hawking
16. Qualia
17. Panpsychism
18. Advaita Vedanta
19. Sufism
20. What is Life?: With Mind and Matter and Autobiographical Sketches -  Erwin Schrodinger
21. Brave New World Episode 94: Anil Seth On The Science of Consciousness.
22. Wayne Dyer
23. Ludwig Wittgenstein
24. Jill Bolte Taylor
25. My Stroke Of Insight - Jill Bolte Taylor
26. TED - My stroke of insight: Jill Bolte Taylor
27. Scott Galloway

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Order Vasant Dhar's new book, Thinking With Machines

Episode 100 of Brave New World features David Ko, CEO of Calm, a digital health company focused on mental wellness and mindfulness. From experiencing panic attacks as a teenager to being the driving force behind Calm, his journey is an inspiring exploration of resilience, purpose, and the intersection of vulnerability and innovation.

Useful Resources:

1. David Ko, CEO of Calm
2. Recharge: Boosting Your Mental Battery, One Conversation at a Time - David Ko
3. Jonathan Haidt
4. Brave New World Episode 08: How Social Media Threatens Society
5. Severance
6. Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams
7. Recharge with David Ko

Order Thinking With Machines: The Brave New World of AI - Vasant Dhar

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Memory, consciousness and the self aren't what you think they are. Michael Levin joins Vasant Dhar in episode 91 of Brave New World to explain why the distinction between machines and organisms will soon fall apart.

Useful resources
1. Michael Levin at Tufts, Wikipedia, Twitter, Google Scholar and The Levin Lab.
2. There's Plenty of Room Right Here: Biological Systems as Evolved, Overloaded, Multi-scale Machines -- Joshua Bondard and Michael Levin.
3. Self-Improvising Memory: A Perspective on Memories as Agential, Dynamically Reinterpreting Cognitive Glue -- Michael Levin.
4. The Space Of Possible Minds -- Michael Levin.
5. Endless forms most beautiful 2.0 -- Wesley Clawson and Michael Levin.
6. My Octopus Teacher — Pippa Ehrlich and James Reed.
7. Pippa Ehrlich on the Mysteries of the Sea -- Episode 77 of Brave New World.
8. Turing Patterns.
9. Mark Solms' theory of consciousness -- SelfAwarePatterns.
10. Mark Solms on Consciousness.

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We take it for granted -- but we shouldn't: smell is incredibly powerful and plays a critical role in our lives.

Sandeep Robert Datta joins Vasant Dhar in episode 90 of Brave New World to discuss what neuroscience has taught him about the power of smell.

Useful resources:
1. Sandeep Robert Datta at Harvard, Datta Lab, LinkedIn and Google Scholar.
2. Alex Wiltschko on the Sense of Smell -- Episode 81 of Brave New World.
3. Dmitry Rinberg on the Mysteries of Smell -- Episode 62 of Brave New World.

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There's always risk at the cutting edge of technology. Driverless cars are awesome -- but can we rely on the tech? Missy Cummings joins Vasant Dhar in episode 89 of Brave New World to share her insights on why we need to proceed with caution.

Also check out:
1. Missy Cummings on LinkedIn, Wikipedia, GMU and Google Scholar.
2. California Bans GM's Cruise Robotaxis After Near-Fatal Pedestrian Accident -- Justin Banner.
3. Setbacks and Prospects for Autonomous Vehicles -- Henry Petroski.
4. Joshua Brown, Who Died in Self-Driving Accident, Tested Limits of His Tesla -- Rachel Abrams & Annalyn Kurtz.

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He lifted The Stern School of Business up significantly in the rankings, and is now making NYU a major global player in higher education. Raghu Sundaram joins Vasant Dhar in episode 88 of Brave New World to share his learnings about higher education where so much is changing, and yet, some foundational truths persist.

Useful resources:
1. Raghu Sundaram on LinkedIn, Wikipedia, Google Scholar and NYY Stern.
2. Nandan Nilekani on an Egalitarian Internet — Episode 15 of Brave New World.
3. The Future of Liberal Education — Episode 11 of Brave New World (w Michael S Roth).
4. Indebted: How Families Make College Work at Any Cost — Caitlin Zaloom.
5. Caitlin Zaloom on the Explosion of Student Debt -- Episode 37 of Brave New World.
6. Susan Dynarski's papers on education and student debt.
7. Degrees of Return: Estimating Internal Rates of Return for College Majors Using Quantile Regression -- Liang Zhang, Xiangmin Liu and Yitong Hu.
8. Law and Education in Our Modern World — Episode 5 of Brave New World (w John Sexton).

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What does it mean to be geeky -- and how are geeks changing the world? Andrew McAfee joins Vasant Dhar in episode 87 of Brave New World to share his insights on how geeks have created a brave new innovation culture.

Useful resources:
1. Andrew McAfee on Twitter, LinkedIn, Amazon, MIT and his own website.
2. The Geek Way -- Andrew McAfee.
3. The Second Machine Age -- Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee.
4. Elon Musk -- Walter Isaacson.
5. No Rules Rules -- Reed Hastings and Erin Meyer.
6. Regional Advantage: Culture and Competition in Silicon Valley and Route 128 -- AnnaLee Saxenian.
7. The New Argonauts -- AnnaLee Saxenian.
8. What the Dormouse Said -- John Markoff.
9. John's Markoff's interview of Raj Reddy.
10. The Secret of Our Success -- Joseph Henrich.
11. The Knowledge Machine -- Michael Strevens.
12. When It Comes to Culture, Does Your Company Walk the Talk? -- Donald Sull, Stefano Turconi and Charles Sull.
13. The Paradigm Shifts in Artificial Intelligence -- Vasant Dhar.

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Imagine an America where the government provides a floor for all our needs, from housing to health care to college to an income. Natalie Foster joins Vasant Dhar in episode 86 of Brave New World to argue that such a shift is possible -- and the time to make it is now.

Useful resources:
1. Natalie Foster on Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, the Economic Security Project, the Aspen Institute and her own website.
2. The Guarantee: Inside the Fight for America's Next Economy -- Natalie Foster.
3. The Economic Security Project.
4. Pulp Fiction and Dirty Dancing.
5. The Narrow Corridor -- Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson.
6. James Robinson on What Makes a Successful State — Episode 19 of Brave New World.
7. Pippa Ehrlich on the Mysteries of the Sea -- Episode 77 of Brave New World.
8. Recoding America: Why Government Is Failing in the Digital Age and How We Can Do Better -- Jennifer Pahlka.
9. File your taxes for free -- Internal Revenue Service.
10. Code for America.
11. The FAFSA Fiasco.
12. Caitlin Zaloom on the Explosion of Student Debt — Episode 37 of Brave New World.
13. Indebted: How Families Make College Work at Any Cost — Caitlin Zaloom.
14. The Submerged State -- Suzanne Mettler.
15. Why We Sleep -- Matthew Walker.
16. Andrew Yang on the New Politics America Needs — Episode 27 of Brave New World.
17. Albert Wenger on the World After Capital — Episode 29 of Brave New World.
18. Paul Sheard Demystifies Money -- Episode 73 of Brave New World.
19. Capital in the Twenty-First Century -- Thomas Piketty.
20. The Political Economy of Education, Financial Literacy, and the Racial Wealth Gap -- Darrick Hamilton and William Darity Jr.

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Does life exist outside our planet? Are we alone in the universe? Seth Shostak joins Vasant Dhar in episode 85 of Brave New World to describe his search for the answers.

Useful resources:
1. Seth Shostak at The Seti Institute, Wikipedia, TED, Amazon and his own website.
2. Life in the Universe -- Jeffrey Bennett, Seth Shostak, Nicholas Schneider and Meredith MacGregor.
3. Sharing the Universe: Perspectives on Extraterrestrial Life -- Seth Shostak.
4. Confessions of an Alien Hunter -- Seth Shostak.
5. The Copernican Revolution -- Thomas Kuhn.
6. Peter Ward on Life on Earth -- Episode 76 of Brave New World.
7. Rare Earth: Why Complex Life is Uncommon in the Universe -- Peter Ward and Donald Brownlee.
8. The Drake Equation.
9. The Gaia Hypothesis.
10. Gaia: A New Look at Life on Earth -- James Lovelock.
11. Kevin Mitchell Makes a Case for Free Will -- Episode 80 of Brave New World.
12. The Kessler Syndrome.

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He came to America as a ten-year old, and became invested in both the country and its world of finance. Vlad Barbalat joins Vasant Dhar in episode 84 of Brave New World to discuss his life and learnings.

Useful resources:
1. Vlad Barbalat on LinkedIn and Liberty Mutual Investments.
2. The Story Of My Experiments With Truth -- MK Gandhi.
3. The Coddling of the American Mind -- Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt.
4. The Future of Liberal Education -- Episode 11 of Brave New World (w Michael S Roth).

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He has been a driver of change at Transport for London, which has shown the way to the rest of the world. Shashi Verma joins Vasant Dhar in Episode 83 of Brave New World to share his learnings on urban transport -- and the governance structures that lead to the best results.

Useful resources:
1. Shashi Verma on LinkedIn and Centre for London.
2. Albert Wenger on the World After Capital — Episode 29 of Brave New World.
3. Estimating the Social Benefit of Constructing an Underground Railway in London -- CD Foster and ME Beesley.
4. A History of London Transport -- TV Barker and Michael Robbins.
5. The Subterranean Railway --  Christian Wolmar.
6. Evaluating Urban Transport Improvements -- Anthony J Venables.
7. Agglomeration, Productivity and Transport Investment -- Daniel J Graham.

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Joel Roberts, former host of a prime-time talk show on KABC Radio, Los Angeles, takes over hosting duties to talk Vasant Dhar about his upcoming book and Roberts' own scepticism regarding all things AI.

Useful Resources:

1. Joel Roberts.
2. Thinking With Machines, The Brave New World With AI - Vasant Dhar
3. AI and The Paper Clip Problem.
4. Dr. Jules White.
5. Geoffrey Hinton.
6. Yuval Noah Harari.
7. Augmented Intelligence - The Future of Generative AI and Computing.
8. How The Mind Works - Steven Pinker
9. Brave New World Episode 94: Anil Seth On The Science of Consciousness.
10. Backpropagation
11. Brave New World Episode 98: There's no I in AI, Ben Shneiderman on The Evolution and State of Artificial Intelligence.
12. Brave New World Episode 97: Alex Wiltschko on Digitizing Scent.
13. Brave New World Episode 81: Alex Wiltschko on The Sense Of Smell.
14. Joy Milne.
15. Brave New World Episode 89: Missy Cummings on Making AI Safe.
16. TEDx Talk - When Should We Trust Machines: Vasant Dhar.
17. The Coming Wave: Technology, Power, and the Twenty-first Century's Greatest Dilemma: Mustafa Suleyman.
18.  Luis Elizondo.

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Smell is the most underrated of our senses -- and it affects everything. Alex Wiltschko joins Vasant Dhar in episode 81 of Brave New World to discuss the role of smell in our lives -- and in this new digital age.

Useful resources:
1. Alex Wiltschko on LinkedIn, Google Ventures, Google Scholar and Twitter.
2. Osmo.
3. Perfumes: The A-Z Guide -- Luca Turin and Tania Sanchez.
4.  Perfume: The Story of a Murderer -- Patrick Suskind.
5. The Mystery of Smell -- Lydialyle Gibson on Sandeep Robert Datta.
6. A novel multigene family may encode odorant receptors: a molecular basis for odor recognition -- Linda Buck and Richard Axel.
7. Metabolic activity organizes olfactory representations -- Wesley W Qian et al (including Alex  Wiltschko.)
8. Hyperbolic geometry of the olfactory space -- Yuansheng Zhou, Brian H Smith & Tatyana Sharpee.
9. Odor Perception and the Variability in Natural Odor Scenes -- Geraldine A Wright and Mitchell G.A. Thomson.
10. The Biological Sense of Smell -- Christine WJ Chee-Ruiter.
11. Also check out the work of Jim DiCarlo, David Marr and Eero Simoncelli.

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Given what we know of physics and neuroscience, can there be free will? Kevin Mitchell, a neuroscientist himself, joins Vasant Dhar in episode 80 of Brave New World to unpack his argument for the existence of free will.

Useful resources
1. Kevin Mitchell on Amazon, Twitter, Trinity College, Google Scholar, his blog and his homepage.
2. Free Agents: How Evolution Gave Us Free Will -- Kevin Mitchell.
3. Innate: How the Wiring of Our Brains Shapes Who We Are -- Kevin Mitchell.
4. Freedom Evolves -- Daniel Dennett.
5. Determined: A Science of Life without Free Will -- Robert Sapolsky.
6. Free Will -- Sam Harris.
7. Daniel Kahneman on How Noise Hampers Judgement -- Episode 21 of Brave New World.
8. Noise: A Flaw in Human Judgment -- Daniel Kahneman, Olivier Sibony and Cass Sunstein.
9. Synthetic Biology -- J Craig Ventor Institute.
10. David Krakauer.
11. David Krakauer on Complexity, Agency, and Information -- Episode 242 of Sean Carroll's Mindscape.
12. Anthony Zador on How our Brains Work — Episode 35 of Brave New World.

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Artificial intelligence is transforming society. And therefore politics. Arthur Spirling joins Vasant Dhar in episode 79 of Brave New World to share his insights from his twin fields of data science and political science.

Useful resources:
1. Arthur Spirling at Princeton, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google Scholar and his own website.
2. Why open-source generative AI models are an ethical way forward for science -- Arthur Spirling.
3. James Robinson on What Makes a Successful State -- Episode 19 of Brave New World.
4. The Narrow Corridor — Daron Acemoglu and James A Robinson.
5. Why Nations Fail —  Daron Acemoglu and James A Robinson.
6. How Social Media Threatens Society -- Episode 8 of Brave New World (w Jonathan Haidt).

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How can we use the insights of behavioral economics to make the world a better place? David Halpern joins Vasant Dhar in episode 78 of Brave New World to share his learnings from running the Behavioral Insight Team for the British government.

Useful resources:
1. David Halpern on Wikipedia and the Behavioural Insights Team.
2. The work of the Behavioral Insights Team.
3. Inside the Nudge Unit -- David Halpern.
4. Social Capital -- David Halpern.
5, The Hidden Wealth of Nations -- David Halpern.
6. The behavioural science of online harm and manipulation, and what to do about it -- Elisabeth Costa and David Halpern.
7. Subsidies vs Nudges: Which Policies Increase Saving the Most? -- Raj Chetty et al

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Her film My Octopus Teacher won an academy award -- and her insights on nature, and her love for it, go far beyond the film. Pippa Ehrlich joins Vasant Dhar in episode 77 of Brave New World to talk about her work and what she has learnt from it.

Useful resources:
1. Pippa Ehrich on Instagram, X, LinkedIn and IMDb..
2. My Octopus Teacher -- Pippa Ehrlich and James Reed.
3. Peter Singer on Animal Liberation -- Episode 74 of Brave New World.
4. Save Our Seas Foundation.
5. 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea -- Jules Verne.
6. Using Deliberate Cold Exposure for Health and Performance -- The Huberman Lab Podcast.
7. Wim Hof Method.
8. The Effects of Cold Exposure Training and a Breathing Exercise on the Inflammatory Response in Humans: A Pilot Study -- Jelie Zwaag et al.
9. Dmitry Rinberg on the Mysteries of Smell -- Episode 62 of Brave New World.
10. Anthony Zador on How our Brains Work -- Episode 35 of Brave New World.
11. Deep Rising --  Matthieu Rytz.
12. David Chalmers on the Nature of Reality -- Episode 41 of Brave New World.
13. Sea Change Project.

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Life on earth is a crazy accident. We have no idea how it arose or whether it will survive. Peter Ward joins Vasant Dhar in episode 76 of Brave New World to chat about the origins of our planet, the many extinctions and resurgences of life, and the future of our species.

He's been a successful entrepreneur and investor, and is highly regarded for his sharp understanding of India. Mohit Satyanand joins Vasant Dhar in episode 75 of Brave New World to share his inspiring story -- and to offer a word of caution.

Useful resources
1. Mohit Satyanand on Twitter, Instagram and IMDb.
2. Gimme Mo — Mohit Satyanand's newsletter.
3. Salaam Baalak Trust.
4. Aswath Damodaran on Investing -- Episode 33 of Brave New World.
5. James Robinson on What Makes a Successful State -- Episode 19 of Brave New World.
6. The Narrow Corridor: How Nations Struggle for Liberty — Daron Acemoglu and James A Robinson.
7. Law and Education in Our Modern World — Episode 5 of Brave New World (w John Sexton).

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Why should only human beings be worthy of moral consideration? Would we still eat animals if we had a sense of their mass-produced suffering? Peter Singer joins Vasant Dhar in episode 74 of Brave New World to discuss his influential work as a philosopher.

Useful resources:
1. Peter Singer at Britannica, Wikipedia, Princeton, Twitter, Instagram, Amazon and his own website.
2. Animal Liberation Now -- Peter Singer.
3. Animal Machines -- Ruth Harrison.
4. My Octopus Teacher -- Pippa Ehrlich and James Reed.
5. Seven Up! -- Paul Almond.
6. Lawrence Kohlberg's stages of moral development.
7. A Theory of Justice -- John Rawls.
8. Everything is Illuminated -- Liev Schreiber.
9. Nudge -- Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein.
10. The Life You Can Save.
11. Maneka Gandhi on Animal Rights -- Episode 44 of Brave New World.

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What is money? How is it created? What is the relationship of governments, central banks, and commercial banks to money? Paul Sheard joins Vasant Dhar in episode 73 of Brave New World to cut through the fog.

Useful resources:
1. Understanding QE in the New World -- Episode 10 of Brave New World (w Paul Sheard).
2. The Power of Money -- Paul Sheard.
3. David Yermack on The Crypto Revolution -- Episode 30 of Brave New World.
4. Monetary Economics -- Wynne Godley and Marc Lavoie.
5. The Deficit Myth -- Stephanie Kelton.
6. Inflation: Causes and Consequences -- Milton Friedman.
7. James Robinson on What Makes a Successful State — Episode 19 of Brave New World.
8. Sapiens -- Yuval Noah Harari.
9. Leviathan -- Thomas Hobbes.

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Digital Public Infrastructure sounds like a huge step forward for the world -- till you think about how it empowers the state to oppress the people. Ajay Shah joins Vasant Dhar in episode 72 of Brave New World to warn that we are not being wary enough of state coercion when we think of this incredible technology. 

Useful resources:
1. Ajay Shah on Twitter and Substack.
2. In Service of the Republic: The Art and Science of Economic Policy -- Vijay Kelkar and Ajay Shah.
3. Everything is Everything -- Ajay Shah's YouTube show, co-hosted by Amit Varma.
4. Episodes of The Seen and the Unseen with Ajay Shah: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13.
5. Imagining India -- Nandan Nilekani.
6. Nandan Nilekani on an Egalitarian Internet -- Episode 15 of Brave New World.
7. Albert Wenger on the World After Capital -- Episode 29 of Brave New World.
8. James Robinson on What Makes a Successful State — Episode 19 of Brave New World.
9. The Narrow Corridor —  Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson.
10. Is the Singularity Near? -- Episode 2 of Everything is Everything.
11. 1984 -- George Orwell.

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Useful Resources:

1. Ben Shneiderman, Professor Emeritus, University Of Maryland.
2. Richard Hamming and Hamming Codes.
3. Human Centered AI - Ben Shneiderman.
4. Allen Newell and Herbert A. Simon.
5. Raj Reddy and the Turing Award.
6. Doug Engelbart.
7. Alan Kay.
8. Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems.
9. Software psychology: Human factors in computer and information systems - Ben Shneiderman.
10. Designing the User Interface: Strategies for Effective Human-Computer Interaction - Ben Shneiderman.
11. Direct Manipulation: A Step Beyond Programming Languages - Ben Shneiderman.
12. Steps Toward Artificial Intelligence - Marvin Minsky.
13. Herbert Gelernter.
14. Computers And Thought - Edward A Feigenbaum and Julian Feldman.
15. Lewis Mumford.
15. Technics and Civilization - Lewis Mumford.
16. Buckminster Fuller.
17. Marshall McLuhan.
18. Roger Shank.
19. The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness - Jonathan Haidt.
20. John C. Thomas, IBM.
21. Yousuf Karsh, photographer.
22. Gary Marcus, professor emeritus of psychology and neural science at NYU.
23. Geoffrey Hinton.
24. Nassim Nicholas Taleb.
25. There Is No A.I. - Jaron Lanier.
26. Anil Seth On The Science of Consciousness - Episode 94 of Brave New World.
27. A 'White-Collar Blood Bath' Doesn't Have to Be Our Fate - Tim Wu
28. Information Management: A Proposal - Tim Berners-Lee
29. Is AI-assisted coding overhyped? : METR study
30. RLHF, Reinforcement learning from human feedback
31. Joseph Weizenbaum
32. What Is Computer Science? - Allen Newel, Alan J. Perlis, Herbert A. Simon

--
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David Sontag joins Vasant Dhar on episode 70 of Brave New World to highlight where and how AI is creating a major transformation in healthcare. We could create a brave new world of individualized and holistic healthcare, where the machine really cares about us and tells us what to do based on knowledge and data.

Useful resources
1. David Sontag on Twitter, LinkedIn, MIT and Google Scholar.
2. Heuristic Methods for Imposing Structure on Ill-Structured Problems -- Harry E Pople Jr.
3. Harry E Pople on ResearchGate.
4. Human and Artificial Intelligence in Healthcare — Episode 4 of Brave New World (w Eric Topol).
5. Waiting for Doctor AI -- Episode 9 of Brave New World (w Regina Barzilay).
6. UpToDate.

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She's a business leader, a Grammy-nominated musician and is trying to transform education. Chadrika Tandon joins Vasant Dhar in episode 69 of Brave New World to discuss her life, her learning, and why she is still so driven.

Useful resources
1. Chandrika Tandon on Spotify, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, LinkedIn, Tandon School of Engineering and her own website.
2. Ammu's Treasures on YouTube, Flipbook and other streaming platforms.
3. Rick Smolan on a Life in Photography -- Episode 65 of Brave New World.
4. Lust for Life -- Norman Corwin.
5. The Complete Works of William Shakespeare.
6. Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard -- Thomas Gray.
7. A Psalm of Life -- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.
8. The Shadow Lines -- Amitav Ghosh.
9. Sri Venkateswara Suprabhatham -- MS Subbulakshmi.
10. Binaca Geetmala, 1953-2000.
11. The Beatles and Carpenters on Spotify.
12. Quiet Fire -- Roberta Flack.
13. The Pyramid Principle -- Barbara Minto.
14. The Paradigm Shifts in Artificial Intelligence -- Vasant Dhar.

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Will big data and scary AI take over the world? Not a chance, says Gary Smith, as he joins Vasant Dhar in episode 68 of Brave New World. The human brain is special.

Useful resources:
1. Gary Smith on Twitter, Amazon, Pomona College, Google Scholar and his own website.
2. The AI Delusion -- Gary Smith.
3. Distrust: Big Data, Data-Torturing, and the Assault on Science -- Gary Smith.
4. Standard Deviations: Flawed Assumptions, Tortured Data, and Other Ways to Lie with Statistics -- Gary Smith.
5. Security Analysis -- Benjamin Graham and David Dodd.
6. Sam Bowman on ChatGPT & Controlling AI — Episode 58 of Brave New World.
7. Raphaël Millière Looks Under the Hood of AI -- Episode 60 of Brave New World.
8. Nandan Nilekani on an Egalitarian Internet — Episode 15 of Brave New World.
9. Noise: A Flaw in Human Judgment --  Daniel Kahneman, Olivier Sibony and Cass R. Sunstein.
10. Daniel Kahneman on How Noise Hampers Judgement — Episode 21 of Brave New World.
11. The Nature of Intelligence — Episode 7 of Brave New World (w Yann le Cunn).
12. Ellie Pavlick on the Cutting Edge of AI -- Episode 67 of Brave New World.

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Does ChatGPT really understand anything? Or is it faking it? Hell, do we understand how it works? Ellie Pavlick joins Vasant Dhar in episode 67 of Brave New World to share her thoughts on where AI has reached -- and where it's going. 

Useful resources:
1. Ellie Pavlick at Brown and Google Scholar.
2. Symbols and grounding in large language models -- Ellie Pavlick.
3. Sam Bowman on ChatGPT & Controlling AI -- Episode 58 of Brave New World.
4. The Nature of Intelligence — Episode 7 of Brave New World (w Yann le Cunn).
5. Music, Mind, and Meaning -- Marvin Minsky.
6. Emergent Abilities of Large Language Models -- Jason Wei et al.
7. Hugging Face.
8. EleutherAI.

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Law and social conventions around free speech have evolved with the times, but technology presents new challenges to both. In this new world of social media, how should we think about it? Jameel Jaffer joins Vasant Dhar in episode 66 of Brave New World to share his thoughts on how we can navigate this territory.

Useful resources:
1. Jameel Jaffer on Wikipedia, Twitter, ACLU, Columbia Law School and Knight First Amendment Institute.
2. Social Media Companies Want to Co-opt the First Amendment. Courts Shouldn't Let Them -- Jameel Jaffer and Scott Wilkens.
3. There's a Problem With Banning TikTok. It's Called the First Amendment. -- Jameel Jaffer.
4. Optimizing for What? Algorithmic Amplification and Society -- A symposium by the Knight Institute.
5. How Rights Went Wrong -- Jamal Greene.
6. Free Speech Futures -- An essay series edited by Jamal Greene.
7. Marketplace of Ideas.
8. Brandenburg v. Ohio.
9. Pentagon Papers.
10. New York Times Co. v. Sullivan.
11. The Federalist Papers.
12. Whitney v. California.
13.  The Technology Wars -- Episode 1 of Brave New World (w Arun Sundararajan).

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6. Tracks -- John Curran.
7. The Coddling of the American Mind — Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt.
8. How Social Media Threatens Society — Episode 8 of Brave New World (w Jonathan Haidt).
9. A Day in the Life of Australia -- Rick Smolan.
10. The Player -- Robert Altman.
11. The Birth of a Word -- Deb Roy.
12. George & Jerry Invent A Show About Nothing -- Seinfeld.
13. Generative AI at Work -- Erik Brynjolfsson, Danielle Li and Lindsey Raymond.
14. Erik Brynjolfsson on the Second Machine Age — Episode 18 of Brave New World.
15. Andrew Yang on the New Politics America Needs -- Episode 27 of Brave New World.
16. Forward: Notes on the Future of Our Democracy — Andrew Yang.
17. Bias, Lies, and Democracy — Episode 14 of Brave New World (w Ali Velshi).

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He has skin in the game as a top banker -- and saw the power of AI long before others did. Piyush Gupta joins Vasant Dhar in episode 63 of Brave New World to share his excitement for the present -- and his vision for the future.

Useful resources:
1. Piyush Gupta at DBS Bank, LinkedIn, Wikipedia and Twitter.
2. Tom Davenport on Artificial Intelligence in Business -- Episode 56 of Brave New World.
3. David Yermack on The Crypto Revolution -- Episode 30 of Brave New World.
4. SVB was a hedge fund in disguise–and the banking crisis is an overreaction -- Vasant Dhar.
5. The Three Laws of Robotics -- Isaac Asimov.
6. The Passions and the Interests -- Albert O Hirschman.

We live in a world of smell -- and we barely understand it! Dmitry Rinberg joins Vasant Dhar in episode 62 of Brave New World to discuss what he has learnt about the neurobiology of smell over the last two decades.

Useful resources:
1. Dmitry Rinberg at NYU, Google Scholar, LinkedIn, Twitter and Rinberg Lab..
2. Perfume: The Story of a Murderer -- Patrick Suskind.
3. A Novel Multigene Family May Encode Odorant Receptors: A Molecular Basis for Odor Recognition -- Linda Buck and Richard Axel.
4. Linda Buck and Richard Axel win the Nobel Prize.
5. Learning to Smell: Using Deep Learning to Predict the Olfactory Properties of Molecules -- Alexander B Wiltschko.
6. Digitizing Smell: Using Molecular Maps to Understand Odor -- Richard C Gerkin and Alexander B Wiltschko.
7. This Cat Sensed Death. What if Computers Could, Too? -- Siddhartha Mukherjee.
8. SMILES to Smell: Decoding the Structure–Odor Relationship of Chemical Compounds Using the Deep Neural Network Approach -- Anju Sharma, Rajnish Kumar, Shabnam Ranjta, and Pritish Kumar Varadwaj.

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Alex Wiltschko, CEO and Founder of Osmo, returns to Brave New World on Episode 97 to discuss the developments in the field of mapping smell and what the future holds for olfactory AI.

Useful Resources:
1. Alex Wiltschko, Founder and CEO of OSMO.
2. Brave New World Episode 81: Alex Wiltschko On The Sense Of Smell.
3. StockX.
4. Gas Chromatography - Mass Spectrometry
5. Brave New World Episode 90: Sandeep Robert Datta on Smell and The Brain
6. Brave New World Episode 62: Dmitry Rinberg on the Mysteries of Smell
7. The Science of Scent, Luca Turin's TED Talk.
8. Graph Neural Network
9. Convolutional Networks on Graphs for Learning Molecular Fingerprints; paper by Dougal Maclaurin, David Duvenaud, Alán Aspuru-Guzik
10. OSMO AI passes human performance in Odour Turing Test.
11. Giving Computers a Sense of Smell, Alex Wiltschko in conversation with Patrick O'Shaughnessy
12. A principal odour map unifies diverse tasks in olfactory perception, OSMO's paper in Science.
13. First Success, teleporting the scene of a Plum.
14. Generation, OSMO's fragrance company.
15. Industry report by Global Market Insights on the Global Fragrance Market.
16. Glossine, Wizerine and Fractalin; proprietary AI-generated scent molecules
17. An Anthropologist On Mars: Seven Paradoxical Tales - Oliver Sacks

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One of the great disruptions that shaped the modern world was the way in which technology transformed Wall Street. Marty Fridson joins Vasant Dhar in episode 61 of Brave New World to talk about those good old days -- and these mad new times!

Useful resources:
1. Martin Fridson at Lehman Livian Fridson Advisors, Amazon, Twitter and his own website.
2. When the Tech Revolution Came to Wall Street -- Marty Fridson.

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ChatGPT is great -- but does it 'understand' what it is telling us? Raphaël Millière joins Vasant Dhar in episode 60 of Brave New World to understand on what's going on inside ChatGPT -- and the larger questions that arise from this.

Useful resources:
1. Raphaël Millière on Google Scholar, Twitter, LinkedIn, Columbia University and his own website.
2. How to Talk to (And About) Artificial Intelligence -- Raphaël Millière.
3. Moving Beyond Mimicry in Artificial Intelligence -- Raphaël Millière.
4. AI Art Is Challenging the Boundaries of Curation -- Raphaël Millière.
5. The Vector Grounding Problem -- Dimitri Coelho Mollo and Raphaël Millière.
6. Sam Bowman on ChatGPT & Controlling AI -- Episode 58 of Brave New World.
7. Paulo Kaiser on Assimilating ChatGPT -- Episode 59 of Brave New World.
8. The Nature of Intelligence -- Episode 7 of Brave New World (w Yann LeCun).
9. The False Promise of ChatGPT -- Noam Chomsky, Ian Roberts and Jeffrey Watumull.
10. The Bitter Lesson -- Rich Sutton.
11. On Bullshit -- Harry Frankfurt.
12. Bing's A.I. Chat: 'I Want to Be Alive -- Kevin Roose.
13. Language Models as Agent Models -- Jacob Andreas.

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Will it take all our jobs? In what way will it make us better? What do we need to do? Paulo Kaiser joins Vasant Dhar in episode 59 of Brave New World to discuss the technology that is changing the world in ways we can't imagine. Bonus material: Wisdom for young professionals just starting out.

Useful resources:
1. Paulo Kaiser on LinkedIn.
2. Plative.
3. Sam Bowman on ChatGPT & Controlling AI -- Episode 58 of Brave New World.

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Also check out:
1. Sam Bowman at NYU Courant, LinkedIn,Twitter and Google Scholar.
2.  Measuring Progress on Scalable Oversight for Large Language Models -- Samuel R Bowman et al.
3. Herbert Simon, Harry Pople and Norbert Wiener.
4. Language Models as Agent Models -- Jacob Andreas.
5.  The Alignment Problem: Machine Learning and Human Values — Brian Christian.
6. Human Compatible — Stuart Russell.
7. Thinking, Fast and Slow — Daniel Kahneman.
8. ImageNet Classification with Deep Convolutional Neural Networks --Alex Krizhevsky et al.

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It is about time companies went all in on artificial intelligence. Tom Davenport joins Vasant Dhar in episode 56 of Brave New World to discuss how his work with AI in the corporate world makes him such an optimist.

Useful resources:
1. Tom Davenport on Amazon, Twitter, Google Scholar, LinkedIn, Babson College and his own website.
2. All-in On AI -- Thomas H Davenport and Nitin Mittal..
3. Competing on Analytics -- Thomas H Davenport and Jeanne G Harris.
4. Working with AI -- Thomas H Davenport and Steven M Miller.
5. The AI Advantage -- Thomas H Davenport.
6. Google fires software engineer who claims AI chatbot is sentient -- The Guardian.
7. Can AI have a soul? -- Fireside Chat with Blake Lemoine.
8. Portrait of an AI Leader: Piyush Gupta of DBS Bank -- Tom Davenport and Randy Bean.
9. The Future Of Work Now: Morgan Stanley's Financial Advisors And The Next Best Action System -- Thomas H Davenport.
10. Stop Tinkering with AI -- Thomas H Davenport and Nitin Mittal.
11. The AI-First Company -- Ash Fontana.
12. Competing in the Age of AI -- Marco Iansiti and Karim R Lakhani.
13. Data Scientist: The Sexiest Job of the 21st Century -- Thomas H Davenport and DJ Patil.
14. Foundation Medicine.
15. How Computer Automation Affects Occupations: Technology, Jobs, and Skills -- James E Bessen.

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Social media has brought new challenges to our times, such as what they should or shouldn't publish or amplify. Do we need new laws to deal with these challenges, or are current laws sufficient? Paul M Barrett joins Vasant Dhar in episode 55 of Brave New World to share his insights.

Useful resources
1. Paul M Barrett on Twitter, Amazon and NYU Stern.
2. Glock: The Rise of America's Gun -- Paul M Barrett.
3. A Platform 'Weaponized': How YouTube Spreads Harmful Content—And What Can Be Done About It -- Paul M Barrett and Justin Hendrix.
4. It's Past Time to Take Social Media Content Moderation In-House -- Paul M Barrett.
5. Spreading The Big Lie: How Social Media Sites Have Amplified False Claims of U.S. Election Fraud -- Paul M Barrett.
6. The 'Twitter Files' Show It's Time to Reimagine Free Speech Online -- David French.
7. Daniel Kahneman on How Noise Hampers Judgement -- Episode 21 of Brave New World.
8. Dissecting "Noise" -- Vasant Dhar.
9. Philip Tetlock on the Art of Forecasting — Episode 31 of Brave New World.
10. The Battle for Attention -- Vasant Dhar.
11. Section 230: It's Time to Equate Amplification to Publishing -- Vasant Dhar.

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We have become the first species that can edit its own programming. Dana Carroll joins Vasant Dhar in episode 54 of Brave New World to share his insights on the science of gene editing -- and the ethical questions it raises.

Useful resources:
1. Dana Carroll at University of Utah and Google Scholar.
2. The Promise and Challenge of Therapeutic Genome Editing -- Jennifer Doudna.
3. Jennifer's Doudna conversation on CRISPR with Chris Anderson.
4. Jennifer Doudna at Google Scholar and Amazon.
5. CRISPR babies: when will the world be ready? -- Heidi Ledford.
6. Beyond CRISPR: What's current and upcoming in genome editing -- Chris Tachibana.
7. Human Genome Editing: Science, Ethics, and Governance -- Various authors.
8. Heritable Human Genome Editing -- Various authors.
9. Human genome editing: a framework for governance -- WHO.
10. Human genome editing: position paper -- WHO.
11. Human genome editing: recommendations -- WHO.
12. Animal Liberation — Peter Singer.

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In principle, you can take a single cell from an animal and feed an entire village. It's a matter of time. In the meantime, there are alternatives, like fermentation, to produce all kinds of new substitutes that could be better than meat in terms of nutrition and taste. Paul Shapiro joins Vasant Dhar in episode 53 of Brave New World to discuss how meat alternatives are the future -- and liberating for animals and the environment.

Has the world become more or less safe over the years? How do we measure risk in these times of crazy change? Neeti Bhalla Johnson joins Vasant Dhar in episode 52 of Brave New World to share her thoughts on how professionals do it!

Useful resources:
1. Neeti Bhalla Johnson on LinkedIn and Liberty Mutual.
2. Daniel Kahneman on How Noise Hampers Judgement -- Episode 21 of Brave New World.
3. Noise: A Flaw in Human Judgement — Daniel Kahneman, Olivier Sibony and Cass Sunstein.
4. Thinking, Fast and Slow — Daniel Kahneman.
5. Dissecting "Noise" — Vasant Dhar.
6. Factfulness -- Hans Rosling.
7. Global Deaths in Conflicts Since the Year 1400 -- Chart by Max Roser.
8. War and Peace -- Max Roser, Joe Hasell, Bastian Herre and Bobbie Macdonald.
8. Destined for War.-- Graham Allison.
9. The Technology Wars — Episode 1 of Brave New World (w Arun Sundararajan).
10. The Fifth Risk: Undoing Democracy -- Michael Lewis.

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Episode 96 of Brave New World features Deogratias Niyizonkiza in conversation with Vasant Dhar. From surviving the genocide in Burundi to rebuilding lives through healthcare and education, Deo's journey is one of extraordinary resilience and purpose.

Useful Resources:
1. Deogratias "Deo" Niyizonkiza, Founder and CEO, Village Health Works.
2. Strength In What Remains - Tracy Kidder.
3. Louis Rwagasore, Burundian Prince and Politician.
4. Hutu, Tutsi and Twa, Ethnic Groups In Burundi.
5. The Assassination of Burundian President Melchior Ndadaye.
6. Rwanda Genocide of 1994.
7. Things Fall Apart - Chinua Achebe.
8. Termination of USAID.

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Pre-order Thinking With Machines: The Brave New World of AI - Vasant Dhar.

The brain and the gut are connected -- and our well-being depends on it. Emeran Mayer joins Vasant Dhar to speak about the importance of the gut in our physical lives -- and our emotional ones!

Useful resources:
1. Emeran Mayer on Google Scholar, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube and his own website.
2. The Mind-Gut Connection -- Emeran Mayer.
3. The Gut-Immune Connection -- Emeran Mayer.
4. Affective Neuroscience: The Foundations of Human and Animal Emotions -- Jaak Panksepp.
5. Human and Artificial Intelligence in Healthcare -- Episode 4 of Brave New World (w Eric Topol).
6. Thinking, Fast and Slow — Daniel Kahneman.
7. Daniel Kahneman on How Noise Hampers Judgement -- Episode 21 of Brave New World.

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India has achieved a technological miracle by empowering hundreds of millions of people with the power of identity. Pramod Varma joins Vasant Dhar in episode 50 of Brave New World to discuss his pioneering role in setting up large scale digital public infrastructure.

Useful resources:
1. Pramod Varma on LinkedIn and Twitter.
2. India Stack, Aadhaar, E-Sign, DigiLocker and United Payments Interface.
3. The Beckn Protocol.
4. Nandan Nilekani on an Egalitarian Internet -- Episode 15 of Brave New World.
5. Data Democracy: People and Power in the Digital Age -- Nandan Nilekani's talk.
6. Why the US needs public-private partnerships for digital infrastructure -- Vasant Dhar.
7. 3 ways to increase social media platforms' transparency -- Vasant Dhar.
8. On the Internet, nobody knows you're a dog — New Yorker cartoon.
9. Who controls your data? India may pass a law ensuring that you do -- Vasant Dhar.

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We need to change the way we do philanthropy: it should be about sharing, not giving. Anshu Gupta joins Vasant Dhar in episode 49 of Brave New World to discuss his journey in building Goonj -- and why we need to rethink our frames.

Useful resources:
1. Anshu Gupta on Goonj, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn and his own website.
2. Goonj.
3. James Robinson on What Makes a Successful State -- Episode 19 of Brave New World.
4. The Narrow Corridor: How Nations Struggle for Liberty — Daron Acemoglu and James A Robinson.
5. Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity and Poverty —  Daron Acemoglu and James A Robinson.
6. Joseph Aoun on Becoming Robot-Proof -- Episode 45 of Brave New World.

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Is Bitcoin just a bubble, or the first face of the future? What about blockchain and DeFi? Hanna Halaburda and Yannis Bakos join Vasant Dhar in episode 48 of Brave New World to dig deeper into these questions.

Useful resources:
1. Hanna Halaburda at NYU Stern, Twitter and Google Scholar.
2. Yannis Bakos at NYU Stern and Google Scholar.
3. On the Internet, nobody knows you're a dog -- New Yorker cartoon.
4. Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System -- Satoshi Nakamoto.
5. Michael Saylor: Bitcoin, Inflation, and the Future of Money -- Lex Fridman Podcast #276.
6. Artifact of the Month: Ross William Ulbricht's Laptop.
7. How FBI caught Ross Ulbricht, alleged creator of criminal marketplace Silk Road -- Tim Hume.
8. Smart Contracts: Building Blocks for Digital Markets -- Nick Szabo.
9. Obelix and the Sleeping Cups -- Vasant Dhar.
10. Antoinette Schoar on Decentralized Finance & Crypto -- Episode 42 of Brave New World.
11. David Yermack on The Crypto Revolution -- Episode 30 of Brave New World.

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