Neuron Podcast with Lenka Zdeborová
In 2021 she received the Neuron Award for promising young scientists in physics for outstanding research results using algorithms based on neural networks. Lenka Zdeborová, professor of physics and computer science at EPFL in Lausanne, also became a patron of the Neuron Foundation: the Neuron Award comes with a personal financial premium, which she donated to the further education of children. Specifically to support Fyziklání, organised by the FYKOS group, with which Lenka Zdeborová associates her own scientific beginnings. She has now been a guest on our partner podcast Brain We Are.
What are the present and future of artificial intelligence? Lenka Zdeborová works in statistical physics — a field lying at the interface between computer science, mathematics, machine learning and physics, and one with few parallels anywhere. Her goal is to solve complex problems beyond the reach of the human mind. And to do so using computers and neural networks.
The object of her interest is therefore nothing less than the behaviour of systems and the prediction of their future development. In our interview Lenka Zdeborová likened statistical physics to psychohistory from Isaac Asimov's Foundation novels. Psychohistory tries to understand human behaviour at the level of whole civilisations and, through their past interactions, to get at the causes of how we ended up where we are now. And more than that, to predict future events.
Lenka Zdeborová studies the development of algorithms themselves, so we talk above all about neural networks and artificial intelligence. Enjoy listening.
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- PODCAST WITH ONDŘEJ PEJCHA ON BLACK HOLES AND A LIFT INTO SPACE
- PODCAST WITH MICHAL MALINSKÝ ON WHY MATTER EXISTS AND WHETHER THE PROTON IS IMMORTAL
- PODCAST WITH HANA CAHOVÁ MACÍČKOVÁ ON HOW RNA WORKS AND WHY VACCINATION MATTERS
- PODCAST WITH TOMÁŠ MIKOLOV ON ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE AND WORKING FOR THE TECH GIANTS
- PODCAST WITH PETR KOHOUT ON THE SYMBIOSIS OF FUNGI AND OTHER PLANTS IN THE FOREST
