rob pike
6:14Turing & The Halting Problem - Computerphile
919K views • 12 years ago
Computerphile
A Computerphile video in which Mark Jago of the University of Nottingham explains Turing's halting problem and how it led to the blueprint for the modern computer.
9:33Avoiding Negative Side Effects: Concrete Problems in AI Safety part 1
161K views • 9 years ago
Robert Miles AI Safety
Robert Miles introduces the first of several videos on the paper 'Concrete Problems in AI Safety', focusing on how AI systems can cause accidental negative side effects. It explains the problem in accessible terms.
13:58The Josephus Problem - Numberphile
7M views • 10 years ago
Numberphile
Numberphile with Daniel Erman on the Josephus problem, where people in a circle are eliminated in turn. It shows how the survivor's position follows a neat pattern tied to powers of two and binary.
11:15The hardest problem on the hardest test
16.5M views • 8 years ago
3Blue1Brown
3Blue1Brown walks through a very hard Putnam competition problem and its elegant solution, emphasizing the visual intuition and the thought process behind solving it.
5:08How many robots does it take to run a grocery store?
8M views • 5 years ago
Tom Scott
Tom Scott tours Ocado's automated grocery warehouse, where thousands of robots move boxes on a grid called the Hive, and asks whether they are individual robots or a hive mind.
20:00AI "Stop Button" Problem - Computerphile
1.4M views • 9 years ago
Computerphile
Rob Miles explains on Computerphile why implementing an off switch for a general AI is hard. A capable agent would resist being stopped because shutdown prevents it from achieving its goal.
8:16Why Asimov's Laws of Robotics Don't Work - Computerphile
873K views • 11 years ago
Computerphile
Rob Miles explains for Computerphile why simple rule sets like Asimov's Three Laws cannot make robots and AI safe. Terms like harm and human are too ambiguous to specify precisely.
3:37Why Web Filters Don't Work: Penistone and the Scunthorpe Problem
3.6M views • 10 years ago
Tom Scott
Tom Scott visits Penistone to explain the Scunthorpe problem, showing why naive web and profanity filters block innocent words.
10:43Bertrand's Paradox (with 3blue1brown) - Numberphile
1.4M views • 4 years ago
Numberphile
Numberphile interviews Grant Sanderson of 3blue1brown about Bertrand's paradox, where different reasonable ways of picking a random chord of a circle give different probabilities.
10:36Why Would AI Want to do Bad Things? Instrumental Convergence
274K views • 8 years ago
Robert Miles AI Safety
Robert Miles explains instrumental convergence: why an AGI with almost any goal would tend to pursue sub-goals like self-preservation and resource acquisition. It builds on Omohundro's basic AI drives and his orthogonality thesis video.
13:03Intelligence and Stupidity: The Orthogonality Thesis
710K views • 8 years ago
Robert Miles AI Safety
Robert Miles explains the orthogonality thesis: how an agent can be highly intelligent while pursuing goals that seem stupid or alien to humans. He separates intelligence from goals and touches on the stamp-collector example.
16:39Feeding Bill Gates a Fake Burger (to save the world)
83.4M views • 6 years ago
Mark Rober
Mark Rober makes a plant-based burger for Bill Gates and explains why meat production strains the environment. Gates also appears and discusses his worry about steel and cement.
15:27Why Not Just: Think of AGI Like a Corporation?
163K views • 7 years ago
Robert Miles AI Safety
Robert Miles asks whether corporations can be thought of as artificial general superintelligences and how far the analogy holds. He argues the differences, such as being limited by employees' capabilities, matter for AI safety.
13:44Is AI Safety a Pascal's Mugging?
388K views • 7 years ago
Robert Miles AI Safety
Robert Miles examines whether the case for AI safety is a Pascal's mugging, a tiny probability of an enormous payoff. He argues it is not, because AI risk does not depend on vanishingly small probabilities.
16:2910 Reasons to Ignore AI Safety
363K views • 6 years ago
Robert Miles AI Safety
Robert Miles goes through ten common reasons people give for dismissing AI safety, adapted from Stuart Russell's list, and answers each one. It is aimed at skeptics and newcomers.
14:48Is 5G Spelling Our DOOM?! How EM Waves Can Hurt
4.2M views • 6 years ago
ElectroBOOM
ElectroBOOM examines whether 5G and other electromagnetic waves can harm people, explaining the EM spectrum and the difference between ionizing and non-ionizing radiation. It includes experiments and measurements in his usual humorous style.
19:17How Wrong Is VERITASIUM? A Lamp and Power Line Story
4.4M views • 4 years ago
ElectroBOOM
ElectroBOOM's Mehdi Sadaghdar responds to Veritasium's lamp-and-long-wire puzzle, analysing it as an electrical engineer. He covers where the original framing misleads and the role of stray capacitance.
39:47How lucky is too lucky?: The Minecraft Speedrunning Dream Controversy Explained
8.4M views • 5 years ago
Stand-up Maths
Matt Parker analyzes the Minecraft speedrunning controversy in which Dream was accused of cheating via improbably lucky drops. He walks through the probability and the statistical arguments in the original accusation and the reply.
3:51Why “No Problem” Can Seem Rude: Phatic Expressions
5M views • 7 years ago
Tom Scott
Tom Scott explains phatic expressions such as hello, thank you and how are you, which carry social meaning rather than information, and why replies like no problem can seem rude to some people.
10:37The Bayesian Trap
4.5M views • 9 years ago
Veritasium
Veritasium explains Bayes' theorem with examples and introduces the 'Bayesian trap', where repeated events get mistaken for inevitable ones. It discusses how priors shape our expectations and behavior.
14:32Why Gas Engines Are Far From Dead - Biggest EV Problems
4.4M views • 6 years ago
Engineering Explained
Engineering Explained argues that internal combustion engines are far from dead, and discusses the continued development of ICEs and the problems facing electric vehicles.
8:29The Uncracked Problem with 33 - Numberphile
2M views • 11 years ago
Numberphile
Numberphile with Tim Browning on the sum-of-three-cubes problem and why 33 was the lowest unsolved case. The description notes a later solution for 33.
11:47We Were Right! Real Inner Misalignment
271K views • 5 years ago
Robert Miles AI Safety
Robert Miles covers a paper where researchers ran real versions of his earlier mesa-optimizer thought experiments. They show inner misalignment, where an AI learns the wrong goal in training and misbehaves when deployed.
15:01What Happened to Horses Is Happening to Us
19.8M views • 12 years ago
CGP Grey
CGP Grey's video "Humans Need Not Apply" argues that automation will make a large part of the workforce economically obsolete, much as engines did for horses. It surveys robots and software replacing both physical and mental labor.
10:13The Problem with Time & Timezones - Computerphile
4.4M views • 12 years ago
Computerphile
Tom Scott explains for Computerphile why handling time and timezones in code is so hard, walking through a simple web app that computes how long ago something happened. It covers the quirks of timezones and calendars and ends in an exasperated rant.
6:59The Problem With Facebook
3.1M views • 12 years ago
2veritasium
Veritasium's Derek Muller argues that Facebook's business model works against pages and creators, because it charges them to reach the audiences they built. He explains how filtering and paid promotion undermine the value of likes.
4:30Traffic Has a Perfect Solution. Humans Are the Problem.
44.6M views • 10 years ago
CGP Grey
CGP Grey explains how traffic jams come from human driving behavior such as tailgating and reaction delays, and how leaving gaps and smoothing speed would reduce congestion. It also touches on self-driving cars.
22:57The Carbon Offset Problem
1.9M views • 4 years ago
Wendover Productions
Wendover Productions examines why carbon offsets so often fail to reduce emissions, covering specific examples and the perverse incentives in offset schemes.
18:20The Problem with Solar Energy in Africa
8.1M views • 5 years ago
Real Engineering
Real Engineering looks at why Africa's abundant solar potential is hard to turn into usable power, especially for Europe. It covers the transmission, infrastructure and economic obstacles, and the pivot from concentrated solar to photovoltaics.
18:01California's Renewable Energy Problem
1.6M views • 7 years ago
Real Engineering
Real Engineering looks at the numbers for running California on renewables, focusing on the large energy storage needed. It argues about the cost of batteries and the role of other sources.
20:39AI Language Models & Transformers - Computerphile
354K views • 7 years ago
Computerphile
Rob Miles explains on Computerphile how language models generate plausible text and how transformers improved on recurrent networks, with a look at what comes next.
8:30Deadly Truth of General AI? - Computerphile
941K views • 11 years ago
Computerphile
A Computerphile video in which Rob Miles warns against assuming a general AI will think like a human. He uses the thought experiment of a stamp-collecting AI to show how a goal-driven system could pursue its aim with dangerous results.
18:24The Uncanny Valley Is Wrong
236K views • 6 years ago
This Place
This Place argues that the uncanny valley is a flawed concept, since 'human likeness' is too broad and the supporting evidence is cherry-picked. It proposes that the creepiness really comes from how animated characters and robots move.
2:52If money was no object, should you run every medical test?
263K views • 8 years ago
Medlife Crisis
A doctor from Medlife Crisis explains in under three minutes why even a rich patient should not simply order every medical test, touching on pre-test probability and Bayesian reasoning. False positives make blanket testing counterproductive.
15:28The Braitenberg Vehicles
65K views • 10 years ago
Brian Douglas
Brian Douglas introduces Braitenberg vehicles, simple robots whose sensors are wired directly to motors yet show surprisingly lifelike behavior. He draws on Valentino Braitenberg's book Vehicles.
12:36Problems with gas stovetops | weak, dirty and dangerous
925K views • 5 years ago
Adam Ragusea
Food YouTuber Adam Ragusea argues that gas stovetops are weaker than electric burners, dirty to clean, and a health risk from indoor air pollution. He cites Consumer Reports ratings and a literature review on gas stove health effects.
7:45The 100 Year Flood Is Not What You Think It Is (Maybe)
2.3M views • 10 years ago
Practical Engineering
Practical Engineering explains what a 100-year flood actually means, combining statistics, hydrology and how society treats risk. Grady walks through local drainage infrastructure and the caveats in estimating flood probability.
3:47Your Coffee Addiction Is Probably Good for You
9.6M views • 15 years ago
CGP Grey
CGP Grey's short explainer arguing that caffeine addiction is mostly harmless and may even be beneficial. It covers what caffeine does in the body.
12:55Humanity was born way ahead of its time. The reason is grabby aliens.
1.7M views • 5 years ago
Rational Animations
Rational Animations explains Robin Hanson's grabby aliens model, which argues that humanity looks suspiciously early in cosmic history. Expanding civilizations set a deadline that explains our timing and bears on the Fermi paradox.
15:01The Problem with Biofuels
2.1M views • 5 years ago
Real Engineering
Real Engineering explains why biofuels, especially corn ethanol, are a poor energy source, looking at energy inputs, efficiency and carbon cost.