Guest Thinkers — December 14, 2010

Julian Assange: “Krill to the Baleen of the Feminine”

A weekly newsletter featuring the biggest ideas from the smartest people

Who won the Bad Sex in Fiction Award in 2006? Whoever it was, it should have been Julian Assange for this self-description:

Thu 29 Jun 2006 : Krill to the baleen of the feminine

Krill: small, crunchy, easily sucked in…

[Photo credit: Hanjeanwat, Creative Commons.]

A weekly newsletter featuring the biggest ideas from the smartest people

The Present

Khan Academy’s founder on how AI can supercharge “mastery learning”

“We should be informed and educated about the risks of AI, but we can’t be afraid,” Khan Academy founder Sal Khan told Big Think.

Charles bridge in prague, czech republic.

Neuropsych

An untold story of LSD psychotherapy in communist Czechoslovakia

Uncovering the story of Milan Hausner, the Sadská clinic, and LSD psychotherapy behind the Iron Curtain.

Two men sitting in front of a modern typewriter.

The Past

How random chance changed the man who invented modern probability

Probability, lacking solid theoretical foundations and burdened with paradoxes, was jokingly called the “theory of misfortune.”

a blurry image of a man standing in front of a blue background.

Neuropsych

The creative sweet spot of dreaming

A recently identified stage of sleep common to narcoleptics is a fertile source of creativity.

a computer generated image of a man's head in a doorway.

The Future

ChatGPT is not “true AI.” A computer scientist explains why

Large language models are an impressive advance in AI, but we are far away from achieving human-level capabilities.

Up Next

Guest Thinkers

DOSTI: Empowering Afghan Women via Soccer Balls

War-torn Afghanistan has a long path to healing ahead, but one nonprofit, Business Council for Peace, is quietly pushing things along with a smart social enterprise that trains Afghan women […]