{"id":10239,"date":"2026-10-26T17:03:37","date_gmt":"2026-10-26T22:03:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/scottaaronson.blog\/?p=10239"},"modified":"2026-10-26T17:04:17","modified_gmt":"2026-10-26T22:04:17","slug":"podcasts-about-the-topic-part-ii","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/scottaaronson.blog\/?p=10239","title":{"rendered":"Podcasts about the Topic: Part II"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=3yXtXTwz4J4\">With Curt Jaimungal:<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<span class=\"embed-youtube\" style=\"text-align:center; display: block;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" class=\"youtube-player\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/3yXtXTwz4J4?version=3&#038;rel=1&#038;showsearch=0&#038;showinfo=1&#038;iv_load_policy=1&#038;fs=1&#038;hl=en-US&#038;autohide=2&#038;wmode=transparent\" allowfullscreen=\"true\" style=\"border:0;\" sandbox=\"allow-scripts allow-same-origin allow-popups allow-presentation allow-popups-to-escape-sandbox\"><\/iframe><\/span>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The title Curt put next to my head could&#8217;ve been in reference to many, many things! But sorry, he just mean AI.  He and I start with the <a href=\"https:\/\/scottaaronson.blog\/?p=10169\">Mathacre<\/a>, of course, but then we get onto the firewall paradox and then Curt starts asking about computational complexity and the Second Law, and then about <a href=\"https:\/\/scottaaronson.blog\/?p=1799\">Integrated Information Theory<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\"\/>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">OK, despite the title of this post, short break from &#8220;The Topic.&#8221;  Here&#8217;s an <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=kMHCl2PGloQ\">absolute masterpiece<\/a> of mathematical exposition, from the &#8220;Polylog&#8221; YouTube channel, which tells the story of the determination of Busy Beaver values through spectacular animations.  I play cameo roles in the video, although I embarrass myself (as the video silently points out) by transposing two digits in the value of BB(5)&#8230;!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<span class=\"embed-youtube\" style=\"text-align:center; display: block;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" class=\"youtube-player\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/kMHCl2PGloQ?version=3&#038;rel=1&#038;showsearch=0&#038;showinfo=1&#038;iv_load_policy=1&#038;fs=1&#038;hl=en-US&#038;autohide=2&#038;wmode=transparent\" allowfullscreen=\"true\" style=\"border:0;\" sandbox=\"allow-scripts allow-same-origin allow-popups allow-presentation allow-popups-to-escape-sandbox\"><\/iframe><\/span>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\"\/>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And, coming soon (not on YouTube quite yet): a conversation about the Mathacre with celebrated physics popularizer (and character on <em>The Big Bang Theory<\/em>) <a href=\"https:\/\/www.briangreene.org\/\">Brian Greene<\/a>, recorded in-person in NYC during my recent trip to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.scottaaronson.com\/talks\/arewecooked5.pptx\">speak<\/a> in the math department at Columbia University!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\"\/>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And to preempt the inevitable comments about it: <strong>yes<\/strong>, my students just came to my office to tell me that an OpenAI model has now <a href=\"https:\/\/github.com\/openai\/math\/blob\/main\/preprints\/The-Exponential-Time-Hypothesis-is-False-October-25-2026\/paper.pdf\">refuted the Exponential Time Hypothesis<\/a>, by giving an algorithm to solve 3SAT in an amount of time that scales roughly like exp(n\/\u221alog(n)).  Even as we struggle to digest the previous courses, the endless buffet continues!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>With Curt Jaimungal: The title Curt put next to my head could&#8217;ve been in reference to many, many things! But sorry, he just mean AI. He and I start with the Mathacre, of course, but then we get onto the firewall paradox and then Curt starts asking about computational complexity and the Second Law, and [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_seo_schema_type":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_hide_featured_image":false,"_jetpack_featured_image_duplicate_dismissed":0,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"{title}\n\n{excerpt}\n\n{url}","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[48,31,5,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10239","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ai","category-announcements","category-complexity","category-quantum"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/scottaaronson.blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10239","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/scottaaronson.blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/scottaaronson.blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scottaaronson.blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scottaaronson.blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10239"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/scottaaronson.blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10239\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10241,"href":"https:\/\/scottaaronson.blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10239\/revisions\/10241"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/scottaaronson.blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10239"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scottaaronson.blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10239"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scottaaronson.blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10239"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}