Jay McClelland: Neural Networks and the Emergence of Cognition | Lex Fridman Podcast #222

ℹ️ EPISODE INFO

Released

September 20, 2021

Duration

2h 31m

Channel

Lex Fridman Podcast

Watch on YouTube

▶ Open ↗

📝 EPISODE DESCRIPTION

Jay McClelland is a cognitive scientist at Stanford. Please support this podcast by checking out our sponsors:

• Paperspace: https://gradient.run/lex to get $15 credit
• Skiff: https://skiff.org/lex to get early access
• Uprising Food: https://uprisingfood.com/lex to get $10 off 1st starter bundle
• Four Sigmatic: https://foursigmatic.com/lex and use code LexPod to get up to 60% off
• Onnit: https://lexfridman.com/onnit to get up to 10% off

EPISODE LINKS: Jay's Website: https://stanford.edu/~jlmcc/ PODCAST INFO: Podcast website: https://lexfridman.com/podcast Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/2lwqZIr Spotify: https://spoti.fi/2nEwCF8 RSS: https://lexfridman.com/feed/podcast/ Full episodes playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLrAXtmErZgOdP_8GztsuKi9nrraNbKKp4 Clips playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLrAXtmErZgOeciFP3CBCIEElOJeitOr41 OUTLINE: 0:00 - Introduction 0:43 - Beauty in neural networks 5:02 - Darwin and evolution 10:47 - The origin of intelligence 17:29 - Explorations in cognition 23:33 - Learning representations by back-propagating errors 29:58 - Dave Rumelhart and cognitive modeling 43:01 - Connectionism 1:05:54 - Geoffrey Hinton 1:07:49 - Learning in a neural network 1:24:42 - Mathematics & reality 1:31:50 - Modeling intelligence 1:42:28 - Noam Chomsky and linguistic cognition 1:56:49 - Advice for young people 2:07:56 - Psychiatry and exploring the mind 2:20:35 - Legacy 2:26:24 - Meaning of life SOCIAL:

• Twitter: https://twitter.com/lexfridman
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lexfridman
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/lexfridman
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lexfridman
• Medium: https://medium.com/@lexfridman
• Reddit: https://reddit.com/r/lexfridman
• Support on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/lexfridman

🎤 SPEAKERS

• Lex Fridman

  host

• Jay McClelland

  guest

🧾 EPISODE SUMMARY

In this episode of Lex Fridman Podcast, featuring Lex Fridman and Jay McClelland, Jay McClelland: Neural Networks and the Emergence of Cognition | Lex Fridman Podcast #222 explores neural Networks, Emergent Mind, and the Limits of Human Understanding Jay McClelland traces how neural networks bridge biology and cognition, arguing that thought and meaning emerge from massively parallel, connectionist systems rather than explicit symbolic rules. He recounts the early days of connectionism with Rumelhart and Hinton, including the birth of backpropagation and interactive activation models, and how these reshaped cognitive science and AI.

🔗 RELATED EPISODES

Keoki Jackson: Lockheed Martin | Lex Fridman Podcast #33

Elon Musk: Neuralink, AI, Autopilot, and the Pale Blue Dot | Lex Fridman Podcast #49

Grant Sanderson: 3Blue1Brown and the Beauty of Mathematics | Lex Fridman Podcast #64

Rohit Prasad: Amazon Alexa and Conversational AI | Lex Fridman Podcast #57

Gary Marcus: Toward a Hybrid of Deep Learning and Symbolic AI | Lex Fridman Podcast #43

Christof Koch: Consciousness | Lex Fridman Podcast #2