Episodes

  • Daniel Kahneman

    Daniel Kahneman
    Jul 18 2024
    Think fast! But ideally don't. In this podcast, Nick, Peter, and Fraser discuss Daniel Kahneman, the Nobel-prize-winning psychologist whose scholarship challenged economists' presumed rationality of human decision-making. From coining the term 'cognitive bias' and the development of prospect theory with Amos Tversky in 1979 to articulating the frequent errors which affect our decision-making heuristics, they reflect on his lasting contributions to economic science. A few things we mentioned in this podcast: - Daniel Kahneman, Nobel laureate who upended economics https://www.washingtonpost.com/obituaries/2024/03/27/daniel-kahneman-dead/ - Dual Process Theory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dual_process_theory - Living, and thinking about it: Two perspectives on life https://kahneman.scholar.princeton.edu/sites/g/files/toruqf3831/files/kahneman/files/living_dk_jr_2005.pdf - Peak-end Rule https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peak%E2%80%93end_rule For more information on Aleph Insights visit our website https://alephinsights.com or to get in touch about our podcast email podcast@alephinsights.com Image: Andreas Weigand via Flickr
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    33 mins
  • Legacy Issues

    Legacy Issues
    Jul 4 2024
    Cremated, buried or donated to science? How much have you thought about what happens to you or your body after you die? Who owns your body after you die? And is having a legacy truly important? In this podcast, Nick, Peter and Fraser revisit the Hull funeral investigation, touch on how different cultures, religions and the animal kingdom deal with death and grief, and ask if what happens to us after we die really matters. A few things we mentioned in this podcast: - Legacy funeral pair were arrested at Heathrow - police https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-humber-68631122 - Blackstone on Property https://oll.libertyfund.org/pages/blackstone-on-property-1753 - Law Regarding Who Has the Right to Deal with an Adult’s Body after Death https://www.lawteacher.net/free-law-essays/english-legal-system/law-regarding-who-has-the-right-to-deal-with-an-adults-body-after-death-3419.php - R. v Bentham (2005) - A hand cannot be an imitation firearm https://www.cps.gov.uk/legal-guidance/firearms#:~:text=Putting%20a%20hand%20inside%20a,Bentham%20%5B2005%5D%20UKHL%2018. - The Depths of Animal Grief https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/article/animal-grief/ For more information on Aleph Insights visit our website https://alephinsights.com or to get in touch about our podcast email podcast@alephinsights.com
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    41 mins
  • User Interfaces

    User Interfaces
    Jun 19 2024
    In this podcast, we explore user interfaces. Specifically, we discuss the development, integration, progress and limitations of interfaces, and consider what could be next. ChatGPT with a brain? Neuralink? Tom Cruise's desk in Minority Report? A few things we mentioned in this podcast: - Smartphone typing speeds catching up with keyboards https://www.aalto.fi/en/news/smartphone-typing-speeds-catching-up-with-keyboards - The rate of inner speech https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.2466/pms.1990.71.3.1043 -Content Agility 2013 - Minority Report UI [Congility] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7SFeCgoep1c For more information on Aleph Insights visit our website https://alephinsights.com or to get in touch about our podcast email podcast@alephinsights.com
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    40 mins
  • Plagiarism

    Plagiarism
    May 8 2024
    Plagiarism is a complex concept that spans a spectrum from inspiration to theft. But is plagiarism strictly black and white? Can it occur unintentionally and can it be considered permissible under certain circumstances? As the rise of generative AI continues, are users inadvertently plagiarising when they use these tools? In this week’s episode, we discuss plagiarism. We speak about the recent Claudine Gay case, definitions and historical examples of plagiarism, the entropy of plagiarising exact wording, legal concepts that relate to plagiarism such as copyright law, patents and trademark infringement and how generative AI could create new forms of plagiarism. Finally, we share our favourite plagiarism examples. A few things we mentioned in this podcast: - Harvard’s Claudine Gay was ousted for ‘plagiarism’. How serious was it really https://www.theguardian.com/education/2024/jan/06/harvard-claudine-gay-plagiarism - Harvard retains President Claudine Gay despite alleged plagiarism on her part https://whyevolutionistrue.com/2023/12/12/harvard-retains-its-president-despite-allegations-of-plagiarism-on-her-part/ -Entropy and Redundancy in English https://cs.stanford.edu/people/eroberts/courses/soco/projects/1999-00/information-theory/entropy_of_english_9.html - George Harrison Guilty of Plagiarism https://www.nytimes.com/1976/09/08/archives/george-harrison-guilty-of-plagiarizing-subconsciously-a-62-tune-for.html - LLMs are definitionally plagiaristic https://nickfthilton.medium.com/llms-are-definitionally-plagiaristic-fc8c00299ae3 - Why ChatGPT can't Plagiarise https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/why-chatgpt-cant-plagiarize-mike-mcaulay/ For more information on Aleph Insights visit our website https://alephinsights.com or to get in touch about our podcast email podcast@alephinsights.com
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    43 mins
  • Madness Vs Genius

    Madness Vs Genius
    Apr 24 2024
    Where is the much vaunted line between genius and madness? At a glance, it seems like they could be two sides of the same coin. Is the opposite of genius simply sheer stupidity? Is there a difference between the two or are they outputs of the same phenomenon? And where might there be some overlap? In this week’s episode we discuss genius and madness. We discuss mental health conditions, historical figures and concepts that were considered quackery or fraudulent during their time, neurodiversity, Copernican heliocentrism, the germ theory of disease, AlphaGo and correlations between personality traits and levels of intelligence. Finally, we share examples of where we felt we were in the presence of genius. For more information on Aleph Insights visit our website https://alephinsights.com or to get in touch about our podcast email podcast@alephinsights.com
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    31 mins
  • Eternal Youth

    Eternal Youth
    Apr 10 2024
    The pursuit of immortality is a tantalising idea that appears in science and technology as well as works of art and literature. But who actually wants to live forever? What does it mean to ‘cure’ ageing? And what might be some unforeseen consequences of perpetual longevity? In this week’s episode, we discuss the age-old problem of ageing. We discuss the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents dataset, demographics, education, governance, resource allocation, economics, intergenerational social interactions, family life, monogamy and cultural stagnation vs innovation. Finally, we share our best examples of the elderly. For more information on Aleph Insights visit our website https://alephinsights.com or to get in touch about our podcast email podcast@alephinsights.com
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    39 mins
  • Neatness

    Neatness
    Mar 27 2024
    The observant among us will have noted that 2023 ended on a Sunday. For those who believe Sunday marks the end of the week, this seems like a logical day to end the year. But why do we find these types of phenomena satisfying? Is it slightly obsessive or should we strive for this symmetry in our daily lives? The bigger question might be: is it even possible to produce neatness in our messy world? In this week’s episode, we discuss neatness. We debate which day is the first day of the week, and discuss the universal three-act structure, epicycles, special relativity, Kolmogorov complexity, prime numbers, crosswords, emergent complexity and the metric system. Finally, we share our best and worst attempts to impose neatness on the world around us. A few things we mentioned in this podcast: - Kolmogorov Complexity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kolmogorov_complexity - Sabbath https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shabbat - A Mathematician’s Apology: https://archive.org/details/AMathematiciansApology-G.h.Hardy For more information on Aleph Insights visit our website https://alephinsights.com or to get in touch about our podcast email podcast@alephinsights.com
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    45 mins
  • Moaners

    Moaners
    Mar 13 2024
    You would be forgiven for missing it, but late last year Google Maps changed its colour scheme. This caused an outcry across the Twittersphere and social media platforms, with many outraged the change took place without their endorsement or consent. After observing this spectacle unfold we thought that it prompted some thought-provoking ideas - should we just swallow our discontent with technical features to enjoy free services? Do we complain too much in this day and age? Have we forgotten how difficult life was without recent technological advances? In this episode, we discuss moaners. We speak about Google Maps, Google Earth, cartography, complaining, the origins of legal liability, journalism and newspapers, the concept of gratitude and a crisis in open-source software. Finally, we share some of our favourite maps. - Is Gratitude a Moral Affect? https://www.researchgate.net/publication/230896629_Is_Gratitude_a_Moral_Affect#:~:text=Gratitude%20is%20conceptualized%20as%20a,such%20as%20empathy%20and%20guilt - First World Problems https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_World_problem - Map of Southern Sommerlund from Lone Wolf https://shop-magnamund.com/cdn/shop/products/Screenshot2022-03-23at19.33.11.jpg?v=1668683483 For more information on Aleph Insights visit our website https://alephinsights.com or to get in touch about our podcast email podcast@alephinsights.com
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    35 mins