The student-led Stanford Psychology Podcast invites leading psychologists to talk about what’s on their mind lately. Join Eric Neumann, Anjie Cao, Kate Petrova,...
147 - Geoff Hinton & Jay McClelland: Two AI Pioneers in Conversation
Eric chats with 2024 Nobel Laureate Geoffrey Hinton and Stanford Professor Jay McClelland, two pioneers who have spent nearly half a century laying the groundwork for modern-day AI, advancing research on neural networks long before it captured the world's imagination.In fact, their early work faced significant skepticism from the scientific community - an experience they candidly discuss in this episode. This wide-ranging conversation covers everything from the capabilities of recent breakthrough LLMS like DeepSeek to AI agents, the nature of memory and confabulation, the challenges to aligning AI with human values when we humans don’t even agree on our values, and Geoff's fascinating new theory of language, featuring an analogy of words as thousand-dimensional, shape-shifting Lego blocks with hands.Geoff, who retired in 2023, divided his time between the University of Toronto and Google DeepMind. With numerous accolades including the 2018 Turing Award and 2024 Nobel Prize in Physics, he is perhaps best known for co-developing the backpropagation algorithm - now a cornerstone of AI research. Jay, currently at Stanford and Google DeepMind, has revolutionized our understanding of human learning through his work on Parallel Distributed Processing (PDP), applying neural network principles to understand phenomena like language acquisition. His insights into human learning have profoundly influenced how we understand machine learning.Their friendship dates back to the late 1970s and grew stronger as both collaborated with fellow pioneer David Rumelhart. They share some touching memories about Dave in this episode. Remarkably, despite decades of friendship and building upon each other's work, this appears to be their first recorded conversation together. Eric challenged them to discuss their latest insights and disagreements.This episode was recorded on January 29, 2025.JOIN OUR SUBSTACK! Stay up to date with the pod and become part of the ever-growing community! https://stanfordpsypod.substack.com/If you found this episode interesting at all, consider leaving us a good rating! It just takes a second but will allow us to reach more people and make them excited about psychology.Links:Geoff's websiteGeoff's Google ScholarJay's websiteJay's Google ScholarEric's websiteEric's X @EricNeumannPsyPodcast X @StanfordPsyPodPodcast Substack https://stanfordpsypod.substack.com/Let us know what you think of this episode, or of the podcast! stanfordpsychpodcast@gmail.com
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146 - Alex Shaw: The Price of Neutrality
This week, Misha chats with Dr. Alex Shaw, Associate Professor at the University of Chicago's Department of Psychology. His research explores how children and adults navigate the complex world of social behavior, with a particular focus on morality, fairness, and social judgments.In this episode, Dr. Shaw discusses his fascinating research on why attempts to stay neutral in moral and political disagreements can sometimes backfire. His work reveals that when people choose not to take sides on contentious issues, they may actually be viewed as less trustworthy than those who openly disagree. Through a series of experiments, Dr. Shaw and his colleagues found that this distrust stems from observers perceiving neutrality as strategic deception. The conversation also covers broader insights about human social behavior and includes advice for PhD applicants.Alex's paperAlex's faculty pageLab websiteMisha's websitePodcast Twitter: @StanfordPsyPod Podcast Substack: https://stanfordpsypod.substack.com/ Let us know what you thought of this episode, or of the podcast! :) stanfordpsychpodcast@gmail.com
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145 - Marginalia Episode: Erica Bailey on Authenticity
Marginalia Episode is a collaboration between the Stanford Psychology Podcast and Marginalia Science. Marginalia Science is a community committed to promoting work of scholars who are traditionally underrepresented in academia. Their mission really resonated with our values at the Stanford Psychology Podcast.In each Marginalia Episode, we feature a guest who has been featured in the Marginalia Science Monthly Newsletter. In this episode, Enna chats with Professor Erica Bailey at UC Berkeley Haas School of Business. Erica broadly studies the construct of authenticity, asking questions like, how do we know who we are? When do we feel the most like ourselves? Why do we often fail, despite our best efforts, to share our inner world with others? In this episode, we discuss her recent paper on how self-perceptions influence subjective authenticity. To learn more about Erica, you can read the Marginalia Science Newsletter below.Episode on Marginalia Science: https://www.stanfordpsychologypodcast.com/episodes/episode/7927b876/104-special-episode-marginalia-scienceMarginalia Newsletter featuring Erica: https://substack.com/home/post/p-153969383 Erica’s Paper: https://osf.io/preprints/psyarxiv/9tc27 Erica’s Website: https://sites.google.com/view/ericarbailey Erica’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/erica-bailey-ph-d-22038172/ Erica’s Twitter: @ericarbaileyEnna’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ennayuxuanchen/ Enna’s Twitter: @EnnaYuxuanChenPodcast Twitter: @StanfordPsyPodPodcast Substack: https://stanfordpsypod.substack.com/ Podcast Contact: stanfordpsychpodcast@gmail.com
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144 - Sandra Matz: AI, Social Media, And Data Privacy
Eric chats with Sandra Matz, Associate Professor of Business at Columbia Business School. Sandra is a renowned computational social scientist, using AI and big data to study human behavior and preferences. Sandra was named as one of the Poets & Quants 40 under 40 Business School Professors in 2021.In this episode, Eric and Sandra discuss Sandra’s new book “Mindmasters” on how companies and academics are using AI to predict and shape people’s personalities. They discuss how to align AI with human preferences, how social media is harnessing our attention, how to protect our privacy as AI is becoming more and more powerful, and whether to use or avoid AI friends and therapists.JOIN OUR SUBSTACK! Stay up to date with the pod and become part of the ever-growing community :) https://stanfordpsypod.substack.com/If you found this episode interesting at all, consider leaving us a good rating! It just takes a second but will allow us to reach more people and make them excited about psychology.Links:Sandra’s new book MindmastersSandra’s websiteSandra’s Google ScholarEric's websiteEric's X @EricNeumannPsyPodcast X @StanfordPsyPodPodcast Substack https://stanfordpsypod.substack.com/Let us know what you think of this episode, or of the podcast! stanfordpsychpodcast@gmail.com
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143 - Casey Kenyon Brown: Can Your Relationships Make You Depressed?
This week, Enna chats with Dr. Casey Kenyon Brown, Professor at Georgetown University in the Department of Psychology and the Interdisciplinary Program in Neuroscience. She has received numerous honors and awards, including the prestigious Pathway to Independence Award from the National Institute on Aging and the Rising Star Award from the Association for Psychological Science.Casey’s research examines how we share, understand, and influence one another’s emotions. She’s interested in how these interpersonal emotional processes are beneficial for healthy aging, and how these processes may go awry and contribute to depression. In this episode, Casey shares her journey in psychology, talks about her research on emotion and relationships, and provides advice on how we can build strong connections with people we love. Please join our substack (https://stanfordpsypod.substack.com/) to stay connected with our community of listeners from all over the world! If you found this episode interesting, please consider leaving us a good rating. It just takes a minute but will allow us to reach more listeners to share our love for psychology. Casey’s Lab Website: https://careslab.facultysite.georgetown.edu/ Casey’s Lab Twitter: @CARESlab_GUCasey’s paper on empathy and shared depression: https://doi.org/10.1177/21677026221141852 Enna’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ennayuxuanchen/ Enna’s Twitter: @EnnaYuxuanChenPodcast Contact: stanfordpsychpodcast@gmail.com Podcast Twitter: @StanfordPsyPod
The student-led Stanford Psychology Podcast invites leading psychologists to talk about what’s on their mind lately. Join Eric Neumann, Anjie Cao, Kate Petrova, Bella Fascendini, Joseph Outa and Julia Rathmann-Bloch as they chat with their guests about their latest exciting work. Every week, an episode will bring you new findings from psychological science and how they can be applied to everyday life. The opinions and views expressed in this podcast represent those of the speaker and not necessarily Stanford's. Subscribe at stanfordpsypod.substack.com. Let us hear your thoughts at stanfordpsychpodcast@gmail.com. Follow us on Twitter @StanfordPsyPod. Visit our website https://stanfordpsychologypodcast.com. Soundtrack: Corey Zhou (UCSD). Logo: Sarah Wu (Stanford)