My guest today is Alyssa Adams. She has a PhD in Physics from Arizona State University and a Bachelors in Physics from East Tennessee State University. She is currently a CIBM Postdoctoral Trainee at University of Wisconsin-Madison and has worked as a data scientist and lab director at VEDA Data Solutions. Please enjoy the show. 

Show Notes

• [1:11 ] What is the craziest political idea that Alyssa holds?



• [2:37 ] Designing a government from scratch in the 21st century



• [3:40 ] How should we view ethics if it is just a construct by humans?



• [7:40 ] What are some experiences that Alyssa value more than her peers?



• [10:40 ] What are the phases in evolution that capture Alyssa’s imagination?



• [13:05 ] Are the underlying rules of life simple or complex?



• [15:31 ] Are we moving in the right direction in the theory of everything?



• [19:42 ] Is our current modelling of neutrons in deep neural networks optimal?



• [24:09 ] How did Alyssa’s polymathic view of the world come about?



• [28:00 ] What advice will Alyssa give to her younger self re: making friends?



• [32:06 ] Why the pronoun ‘they/them’ for Alyssa?



• [34:13 ] Labels in society



• [37:41 ] Cultivating a sense of happiness and managing depression



• [48:31 ] Thoughts on current scientific and religious explanation of how the universe came about 



• [56:08 ] Filling the gaps that may have been left behind by religion



• [1:00:15 ] Is Alyssa afraid of death? What makes a good life?



• [1:04:03 ] Measures of intelligence and creating truly intelligent machines



• [1:06:56 ] Ethics in creating sentient and intelligent robots



• [1:08:54 ] What does it mean to be human?



• [1:13:28 ] What is emergence?



• [1:15:45 ] State of artificial intelligence



• [1:18:00 ] Does biology provide the best framework for evolution or will humans come up with something better?



• [1:21:27 ] What is public data? Management of public data and future of private data



• [1:29:00 ] Are we living in a simulation?

Mentions

Open-endedness: The last grand challenge you’ve never heard of – O’Reilly

Connect

If you like to find out more about me, please find me on my personal website at www.pohjie.com, or connect with me on Twitter (@pohjie_pj).

Outro

Thank you for listening to this episode. If you like this episode, please leave a review on Apple Podcasts and share this episode with 1-3 friends. I started this podcast with the intention of having awesome conversations with interesting people, and having your support means a lot. Thank you.

Music credits

• Shades of Spring by Kevin MacLeod



• Link: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/4342-shades-of-spring



• License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/