EP 3: Playing the Wrong Game

What if the path to a true thinking machine was found not just in a lab… but in a game? For decades, AI’s greatest triumphs came from games: checkers, chess, Jeopardy. But no matter how many trophies it took from humans, it still couldn’t think. In this episode, we follow the contrarian scientists who refused to give up on a radical idea, one that would ultimately change how machines learn. But their breakthrough came with a cost: incredible performance, at the expense of understanding how it actually works. THIS EPISODE FEATURES: Yoshua Bengio, Liv Boeree, Geoffrey Hinton, Karen Hao, Keach Hagey, Jasmine Sun LINKS: ⁠Karen Hao’s book: Empire of AI Keach Hagey's book: The Optimist Liv Boeree's podcast: Win Win CREDITS: This episode of The Last Invention was reported and produced by Andy Mills, Gregory Warner, Andrew Parsons, Megan Phelps-Roper, Matthew Boll, Seth Temple Andrews, and Ethan Mannello. It is hosted by Gregory Warner Music for this episode was composed by ⁠⁠Scott Devendorf⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Ben Lanz⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Cobey Bienert⁠⁠, and Matthew Boll The Last Invention artwork by ⁠⁠Jacob Boll⁠⁠ To become a Longview subscriber you can visit us ⁠⁠here⁠⁠ Thank you to our sponsors Ground News and FIRE ⁠⁠GROUND NEWS⁠ :⁠ Go to ⁠⁠groundnews.com/invent⁠⁠ to get 40% off unlimited access to global coverage of the stories shaping our world. ⁠⁠FIRE⁠ ⁠ This is a paid sponsorship link. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices