There’s a lot of current hype around AI, it’s abilities but also the potential threat that it poses to humanity. The standard narrative sounds like a sci-fi movie, one of these systems is on the verge of waking up and taking over the whole world and has been for at least the last five years. In this episode we take a skeptical look at AI, the current state of the art, the history and development of these systems, examples of AI outside of LLMs. And take a close look at the argument that AI is about to pull a skynet and kill us all, then discuss who benefits from that narrative the most. Last we talk about the idea of Dumb AI and how that can be a problem for people even if it’s not superintelligent, with some real world examples that already exist in the world and the very real damage that has already happened from proliferating cultural biases to the literal deaths of innocent children.

Support my work and keep it sustainable: ko-fi.com/evolio.

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Created by: Ryan Pevey at evolio.org and Zach Jobe @zhjobe

GitHub page: github.com/rpevey

Concept: A PhD neuroscientist and a comedian discuss the subject of artificial intelligence and the real risks that it poses as it currently stands.

Tools: Python, C++, OpenGL, DaVinci Resolve, GIMP, Inkscape

Outro music by Maksym Malko from Pixabay (pixabay.com/music/upbeat-podcast-interview-music-254186/)

Podcast streams:

redcircle.com/shows/04ecc7a3-3383-4ca0-bff3-c55d04100ed5

podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/hidden-science-stories/id1874450380

open.spotify.com/show/50xaIb6jjmSJv7georpfVt?si=16e6c0e030414593

music.amazon.com/podcasts/b0415a99-f209-4c66-80c5-d8eb2b490811/hidden-science-stories

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Citations:

1. Turing, A.M. (1950). "Computing Machinery and Intelligence." Mind, 59(236), 433–460.

2. Searle, J.R. (1980). "Minds, Brains, and Programs." Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 3(3), 417–424.

3. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: "The Chinese Room Argument" (plato.stanford.edu/entries/chinese-room/)

4. McCarthy, J., Minsky, M., Rochester, N., & Shannon, C. (1955). "A Proposal for the Dartmouth Summer Research Project on Artificial Intelligence."

5. Wiener, N. (1950). The Human Use of Human Beings: Cybernetics and Society. Houghton Mifflin.

6. Lighthill, J. (1973). "Artificial Intelligence: A General Survey." British Science Research Council.

7. Bostrom, N. (2014). Superintelligence: Paths, Dangers, Strategies. Oxford University Press.

8. Legg, S. & Hutter, M. (2007). "Universal Intelligence: A Definition of Machine Intelligence." Minds and Machines, 17(4), 391–444.

9. Angwin, J. et al. (2016). "Machine Bias." ProPublica.

10. Thomas, R. & Uminsky, D. (2022). "Reliance on Metrics is a Fundamental Challenge for AI." Patterns (Cell Press).

11. Dressel, J. & Farid, H. (2018). "The Accuracy, Fairness, and Limits of Predicting Recidivism." Science Advances, 4(1).

12. Omohundro, S. (2008). "The Basic AI Drives." Proceedings of the 2008 Conference on Artificial General Intelligence.

13. Vaswani, A. et al. (2017). "Attention Is All You Need." Advances in Neural Information Processing Systems.

0:00 AI Intro

2:36 The history of AI

8:08 Alan Turing enters the fray

11:22 The imitation game

16:11 GOFAI

18:39 AI winter is coming

22:06 The modern era of AI

25:15 Definition of AI

28:44 Examples of modern AI

30:41 Attention is all you need

33:52 LLMs can kinda do everything, right?

40:32 The (Mandarin) room

43:44 Weak vs Strong AI

46:19 AGI

52:51 SI brought to you by DJT

55:16 Value alignment problem

58:21 The dangers of Dumb AI

01:09:52 AI bubble bursting

01:17:27 Point of Optimism

01:23:37 Wrap up

Support my work and keep it sustainable: ko-fi.com/evolio

In this episode I explain bullshit to my friend, comedian Zach Jobe. Yes, bullshit. It turns out it is a legit hard nosed topic of philosophical debate with decades of work and thousands of academic publications behind it. We talk about what it is, why people do it, who is vulnerable to it and how to recognize it in your everyday life. Building a robust detector it turns out is one of the best ways to to steel yourself against it.

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Created by: Ryan Pevey at evolio.org and Zach Jobe @zhjobe

Concept: A science and comedy conversation about what philosophical bullshit is and how to detect it.

Tools: DaVinci Resolve, GIMP

Intro music by Maksym Malko from Pixabay (pixabay.com/music/upbeat-podcast-interview-music-254186/)

Podcast streams:

redcircle.com/shows/04ecc7a3-3383-4ca0-bff3-c55d04100ed5

podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/hidden-science-stories/id1874450380

open.spotify.com/show/50xaIb6jjmSJv7georpfVt?si=16e6c0e030414593

music.amazon.com/podcasts/b0415a99-f209-4c66-80c5-d8eb2b490811/hidden-science-stories

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Citations:

Frankfurt, Harry G. On Bullshit. Princeton University Press, 2005 [original essay 1986]. The foundational philosophical treatment. Essential starting point. 67 pages; highly readable.

Frankfurt, Harry G. On Truth. Princeton University Press, 2006. Frankfurt’s follow-up, addressing why truth matters as a value. Reads as a companion to On Bullshit.

Pennycook, G., Cheyne, J.A., Barr, N., Koehler, D.J., & Fugelsang, J.A. "On the reception and detection of pseudo-profound bullshit." Judgment and Decision Making, 10, 549–563, 2015. The paper that launched empirical bullshit research. Open access.

Pennycook, G. & Rand, D.G. "Who falls for fake news? The roles of bullshit receptivity, overclaiming, familiarity, and analytic thinking." Journal of Personality, 88(2), 185–200, 2020. Key empirical link between bullshit receptivity and misinformation susceptibility.

Bergstrom, Carl T. & West, Jevin D. Calling Bullshit: The Art of Skepticism in a Data-Driven World. Random House/Allen Lane, 2020. The best practical guide to bullshit detection for a general audience; particularly strong on data-driven and scientific bullshit. Course materials also freely available at callingbullshit.org.

Cassam, Qassim. Vices of the Mind: From the Intellectual to the Political. Oxford University Press, 2018. Develops the concept of epistemic vices, including insouciance and malevolence, with political applications. Theoretical but accessible.

Hicks, M.T., Humphries, J. & Slater, J. "ChatGPT Is Bullshit." Ethics and Information Technology, 26:38, 2024. The most cited academic paper applying Frankfurt’s framework to LLMs. Open access. Directly relevant to the AI segment.

Szanto, Thomas. "Epistemically exploitative bullshit: A Sartrean account." European Journal of Philosophy, 31(3), 711–730, 2023. Extends Frankfurt to cover politically weaponized bullshit. Relevant to intersections of bullshit and power.

Serena Iacobucci, Roberta De Cicco. "A literature review of bullshit receptivity: Perspectives for an informed policy making against misinformation." Journal of Behavioral Economics for Policy, 6(S1), 23–40, 2022 Comprehensive review of empirical research on bullshit receptivity from 2015–2021. Good for overview of the field.

Vaidya, Anand Jayprakash. "Are LLMs Natural Born Bullshitters?" The Philosophers’ Magazine, 2024. Accessible philosophical analysis of the AI-bullshit question for a general audience. A good bridge between the technical Hicks et al. paper and lay readers.

0:00 On Bullshit

11:44 Two types of Bullshit

18:14 The Bullshit Asymmetry Principle

21:43 Psychology of Bullshit

27:51 LLMs and the rise of Botshit

44:31 Propaganda is political Bullshit

49:22 The Bullshit of Pseudoscience

56:03 Bullshit detector 101

62:57 Point of Optimism

66:51 2026 Predictions Update

Support my work and keep it sustainable: ko-fi.com/evolio

Have you ever heard that coffee and caffeine are bad for kids because it stunts their growth? Well an argument between Ryan and his wife lead him to look into this seemingly verifiable scientific fact and it turns out this super common knowledge idea is a myth. Made up for marketing purposes by C.W. Post to sell his coffee alternative product, and it worked even better than he could have ever expected. The scientific evidence directly counters this idea though. Ryan and Zach discuss how this myth took hold in the U.S. We discuss the neuroscience of caffeine and how it works to make you feel awake. Also, how does caffeine interact with an ADHD brain? Finally we move onto how to maximize the effects of caffeine and get the most out of the most commonly used psychoactive substance on the planet. If you want to have the most efficient coffee intake according to neuroscience, then follow this advice. The episode ends with a discussion on political violence in the news, then specifically the attempted shooting at the White House Correspondents Dinner. And a follow up of Ryan’s prediction from earlier in the year about the President’s apparent dementia and how it affected the events that unfolded at the dinner party.

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Created by: Ryan Pevey at evolio.org and Zach Jobe @zhjobe

Concept: A science and comedy conversation about caffeine, whether it’s bad for kids, how does it work on your brain and ADHD. As well as how to maximize the effects of caffeine.

Tools: DaVinci Resolve, GIMP

Outro music by Maksym Malko from Pixabay (pixabay.com/music/upbeat-podcast-interview-music-254186/)

The mural featured in the thumbnail is by Ryan Henry Ward

Podcast streams:

redcircle.com/shows/04ecc7a3-3383-4ca0-bff3-c55d04100ed5

podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/hidden-science-stories/id1874450380

open.spotify.com/show/50xaIb6jjmSJv7georpfVt?si=16e6c0e030414593

music.amazon.com/podcasts/b0415a99-f209-4c66-80c5-d8eb2b490811/hidden-science-stories

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Citations:

1. Lieberman et al. (2002). "Effects of caffeine, sleep loss, and stress on cognitive performance and mood during U.S. Navy SEAL training." Psychopharmacology, 164(3), 250–261.
2. Reifman et al. (2022). "2B-Alert Web 2.0, an Open-Access Tool for Predicting Alertness and Optimizing the Benefits of Caffeine." JMIR Mental Health / Sleep.
3. Fredholm et al. — Multiple foundational papers on adenosine receptor pharmacology.
4. Lane, J. (1999). Duke University / National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute study on caffeine, adrenaline, and blood pressure in daily life.
5. Temple, J.L. et al. (2010). "Caffeine Use in Children: What we know, what we have left to learn, and why we should worry." PMC2699625.
6. Smithsonian Magazine: "It's a Myth: There's No Evidence That Coffee Stunts Kids' Growth."
7. Institute of Medicine / USAMRMC: Caffeine for the Sustainment of Mental Task Performance (NCBI Bookshelf, NBK223801).

0:00 Caffeine myths and Cereal Quacks

18:24 Health effects of caffeine

23:08 The Neuroscience of Caffeine

40:55 Optimizing caffeine with neuroscience

49:38 Point of Optimism, Caffeine isn’t bad in moderation

52:16 Political Violence and the WHCD

01:06:31 DJT in the background of a photo