Numlock Sunday: Karen Hao on the frontiers of AI
By Walt Hickey
Welcome to the Numlock Sunday edition. Each week, I'll sit down with an author or a writer behind one of the stories covered in a previous weekday edition for a casual conversation about what they wrote.
This week, I continued the conversation with AI reporter Karen Hao started last week.
Last week, we talked about everything you need to know about what AI actually is these days, where you can spot it in the wild and just how much energy training it consumes. This week, we talk about the fundamental ambitions of AI, what’s most surprising in the field, and the story behind why we have deepfakes now.
Karen can be found on Twitter and she has a great newsletter about AI called The Algorithm that, if your interest is piqued here, you should totally check out.
This interview has been condensed and edited.
What are some of the interesting things that you've come across, surprising things? And I'd love to hear a little bit about your newsletter.
The overarching mission that I hav…