Melanie Mitchell’s talk was probably the best in terms of new things I learned. I’ve believed that metaphor isn’t a valuable way of transmitting information because of all the biases and poor thinking that often catch a ride. Her argument that partial pattern matching is a simple form of analogy was impressive, the output from her and Hofstadter’s copycat system, which tries to automatically deduce and apply patterns in short strings even more so. So I’m strongly updating away from the idea that metaphor is often harmful. (It may take a while for me to not reflexively profess it in certain situations though...)
Temple Grandin was a fiery speaker and I enjoyed her talk, even though I don’t feel I learned much from it.
I’m actually surprised at how good Pinker’s talk was. It felt like more than two-thirds of the words he said were on the slides behind him, but he didn’t trigger the negative feelings I usually feel when people read from their slides. Odd.
Robin’s talk was the best version of Robin’s ideas that I’ve ever seen.
Jaan Tallinn’s talk was very engaging, and the production value on the slide comics that he narrated were quirky and fun. At the same time, I can’t help but be extremely skeptical about parts of the metaphysical ideas he was espousing. But still make sure to watch it when it’s put up.
Of the four Thiel fellow’s, Laura Deming gave the most moving speech, though I wonder how much of it was me reacting to the antideathism message while nodding along in sympathy at the thought of recently losing a family member to death.
I was actually surprised at how much I enjoyed Ray Kurzweil’s talk. At the same time, I don’t actually remember much about it.
Carl Zimmer’s lecture on viruses was fascinating...and felt out of place at the summit. Fun fact I didn’t know: most viruses take over bacteria.
(Working from notes and memory...)
Melanie Mitchell’s talk was probably the best in terms of new things I learned. I’ve believed that metaphor isn’t a valuable way of transmitting information because of all the biases and poor thinking that often catch a ride. Her argument that partial pattern matching is a simple form of analogy was impressive, the output from her and Hofstadter’s copycat system, which tries to automatically deduce and apply patterns in short strings even more so. So I’m strongly updating away from the idea that metaphor is often harmful. (It may take a while for me to not reflexively profess it in certain situations though...)
Temple Grandin was a fiery speaker and I enjoyed her talk, even though I don’t feel I learned much from it.
I’m actually surprised at how good Pinker’s talk was. It felt like more than two-thirds of the words he said were on the slides behind him, but he didn’t trigger the negative feelings I usually feel when people read from their slides. Odd.
Robin’s talk was the best version of Robin’s ideas that I’ve ever seen.
Jaan Tallinn’s talk was very engaging, and the production value on the slide comics that he narrated were quirky and fun. At the same time, I can’t help but be extremely skeptical about parts of the metaphysical ideas he was espousing. But still make sure to watch it when it’s put up.
Of the four Thiel fellow’s, Laura Deming gave the most moving speech, though I wonder how much of it was me reacting to the antideathism message while nodding along in sympathy at the thought of recently losing a family member to death.
I was actually surprised at how much I enjoyed Ray Kurzweil’s talk. At the same time, I don’t actually remember much about it.
Carl Zimmer’s lecture on viruses was fascinating...and felt out of place at the summit. Fun fact I didn’t know: most viruses take over bacteria.