Judea Pearl: Causal Reasoning, Counterfactuals, and the Path to AGI | Lex Fridman Podcast

Lex Fridman:

I really enjoyed this conversation with Judea. Here's the outline: 0:00 - Introduction 3:18 - Descartes and analytic geometry 6:25 - Good way to teach math 7:10 - From math to engineering 9:14 - Does God play dice? 10:47 - Free will 11:59 - Probability 22:21 - Machine learning 23:13 - Causal Networks 27:48 - Intelligent systems that reason with causation 29:29 - Do(x) operator 36:57 - Counterfactuals 44:12 - Reasoning by Metaphor 51:15 - Machine learning and causal reasoning 53:28 - Temporal aspect of causation 56:21 - Machine learning (continued) 59:15 - Human-level artificial intelligence 1:04:08 - Consciousness 1:04:31 - Concerns about AGI 1:09:53 - Religion and robotics 1:12:07 - Daniel Pearl 1:19:09 - Advice for students 1:21:00 - Legacy

Min. 6.26: The good way to teach math: "Chronologically".

On free will, and intelligence as well: "Faking it is having it—because it is not easy to fake. In order to fake it you have to have it."

This brings to mind another Jewish boutade, from Philip Roth's The Counterlife (Nathan Zuckerman speaking).

"I asked, with excessive impatience, if your identity was to be formed by the terrifying power of an imagination richer with reality than your own, and should have known the answer myself. How else does it happen? The treacherous imagination is everybody's maker—we are all the invention of each other, everybody a conjuration conjuring up everyone else. We are all each other's authors."

 

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