Stephen Wolfram is the creator of Mathematica, Wolfram|Alpha and the Wolfram Language; the author of A New Kind of Science; and the founder and CEO of Wolfram R...
Future of Science and Technology Q&A (March 14, 2025)
Stephen Wolfram answers questions from his viewers about the future of science and technology as part of an unscripted livestream series, also available on YouTube here: https://wolfr.am/youtube-sw-qaQuestions include: What, exactly, is an "AI agent"? "Agentic"? It seems like nobody knows what those words actually mean today. - Can you tell us about the future of media/information consumption? Will we become a society of "AI summaries" as our main form of information gathering? - Before AI summaries, there were encyclopedias and textbooks and CliffsNotes and such, and while they were useful and convenient, they never became de facto. - When will we get the first AI/robot news reporter? I see these being useful in cases of dangerous live broadcasting like hurricanes, to keep people up to date. - How far are we from LLMs generating a Stephen Wolfram–style long-form post, with similar elucidations, based on a short prompt of the key insight or topic? - When you say the teaching is delegated to the machine, are you saying that the machine is telling the student what to think about instead of just answering questions? - Can a sentient AI "understand" how humans learn? If we would delegate to them the teaching of human kids, would that be compatible with a biological point of view? - Have you ever considered entering the robotics space? A Wolfram Robotics, so to speak? - But if people delegate all calculations to the machines, then might it not happen that the machine actually learns to ask better questions than the humans can, since the machines have the experience built from the calculations and the humans don't? - What will AI not be able to do? Do you believe that something like that exists? - Tiny humans care about those questions about clouds and trees. - Robotic trade shows sound interesting. The company Boston Dynamics shows a lot of progress in the humanoid department. - Anything to say about the future of pi? (Happy Pi Day!) - ​​Do you expect LLM development to hit significant diminishing returns within the next 2–3 years? - Automated theorem proving is so interesting. I'm trying to figure out how to make a theorem prover that demonstrably collapses a/the wavefunction. Like Stephen said; quantum LLMs.
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Business, Innovation and Managing Life (March 12, 2025)
Stephen Wolfram answers questions from his viewers about business, innovation, and managing life as part of an unscripted livestream series, also available on YouTube here: https://wolfr.am/youtube-sw-business-qaQuestions include: Is academia the only real career path if one just wants to learn and do research? - What are the risks for using AI/LLMs to do my technical writing job so I can focus on prompt engineering for the future of my field? - You've at the very least been told all sorts of interesting things that you can't currently repeat publicly. Would you ever consider writing a book or articles that would be locked for x years? - How would you guarantee an AI doesn't break an NDA accidentally? - Will "LLM psychologist" be a future career path? - Are websites receiving fewer visits due to the rise of AI agent/assistant apps that provide advice on products or services? - I, Robot by Asimov is a highly recommended, excellent collection of problems with the three laws. - Any suggestions on how to get someone to review my papers? I'm an antisocial autodidact with no academic backing. It's been impossible to get anyone to even consider my work. - If you make better rules, people will find better loopholes. - What are your thoughts on how a business specifically can do high-quality science? Companies like big AI labs seem to be doing well in this respect. Are they a good model for other companies doing science in other fields? - Historically, how much effort have great scientists with important contributions put into showing, or "marketing," their ideas? - The best teachers are the ones that ask the right questions from the students. Not telling them what to think. - How is a STEM background useful in entrepreneurship?
Stephen Wolfram answers general questions from his viewers about science and technology as part of an unscripted livestream series, also available on YouTube here: https://wolfr.am/youtube-sw-qaQuestions include: ​​Can you talk about lambda calculus? - Any thoughts on numerology? - My current favorite approximation to a constant (e, in this case) is (1 + 9^-4^(7*6))^3^2^85, which uses each of the digits 1–9 only once and is accurate to 18 septillion digits. - Atmospheric noise is about as random as we can get, I think. - How does IBM Watson AI stand against modern LLMs? - Would the LLM have the same reaction time to compete and press the buzzer as humans? - Is it possible someday we may predict the weather years in advance? - Well then, is weather a good random sequence? - How do you calculate wind speed if wind is just a pressure difference? - If the Earth started rotating in reverse, would that have an effect on weather? - What would it take to stabilize the weather (like using wind farms in reverse or controlling ground albedo or atmosphere composition) so that we know it exactly? - Can the Earth's tilt ever be affected? What kind of changes would this cause? - There is a rather large difference between what the ideal climate would be and what changes will mean trouble for us, given our current infrastructure. - Even the weather can't agree on what the weather should be.
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History of Science & Technology Q&A (March 5, 2025)
Stephen Wolfram answers questions from his viewers about the history of science and technology as part of an unscripted livestream series, also available on YouTube here: https://wolfr.am/youtube-sw-qaQuestions include: What is the history of game theory? What are some successful and less successful applications of this theory? Can you speak about John Nash's work? Did that have any influence on your automata work? - ​​I wonder if that code by Nash exists anywhere? It would be interesting to read. - Do you view the world as being governed by randomness or order? - Would you ever write a book intended to explain the history of the ruliad/Physics Project? - Have you studied the history of cognitive neurological abilities of scientists throughout the ages, things like long-term memory, imagination, creativity...? - Do scientists invent tools first and then look for a problem to use them on, or do they find a problem first and then invent the tool to crack it? - What is your favorite "age" of science? - How did early mechanical computers like the Babbage Engine influence modern computing? - Do you think Ada would have had more success in science and math today than she did when she was alive? - Would you say you research more of the history of people or history of their projects/research? Which do you find more useful?
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Business, Innovation and Managing Life (February 26, 2025)
Stephen Wolfram answers questions from his viewers about business, innovation, and managing life as part of an unscripted livestream series, also available on YouTube here: https://wolfr.am/youtube-sw-business-qaQuestions include: Physicists that "could code" used to be the hot commodity; is it helpful now? Seems like CS/ML people are more in demand than physicists now—why? - ​​I find that building simple frameworks in software GREATLY helps understanding of the underlying material. Mathematics especially, but I don't think it's limited to hard sciences. - I kind of doubt my trying to self-teach cryptanalysis is going to be very transferrable. - Would you consider "science communicator" a career? What skills would be most important? - How would you think about approaching school in the age of AI and LLMS? Should I, as a university student, embrace AI and LLMs? Or should I avoid them to eliminate risks of being too dependent on technology? - I did specialized things for the government and just got laid off. There are no similar jobs in the public sector. How can/should I pivot? - Is it better to stay at one job and "move up the ladder" over decades like our parents did or adopt this trend of staying at a company for no more than three years before salary-shopping elsewhere? - ​​Do you see any solution to the "iron law of oligarchy" on the scale of generations? - Interesting point; so how do we break the mold? I'm northeast England, a deprived region—any advice to get my children (15F, 20F) to realize their potential? - What about economic barriers to "success" and fields where someone can be successful needing expensive education? - What would you say to someone who could change the world but who lacks any resources or academic backing, so nobody wants to help?
Stephen Wolfram is the creator of Mathematica, Wolfram|Alpha and the Wolfram Language; the author of A New Kind of Science; and the founder and CEO of Wolfram Research. Over the course of nearly four decades, he has been a pioneer in the development and application of computational thinking—and has been responsible for many discoveries, inventions and innovations in science, technology and business.
On his podcast, Stephen discusses topics ranging from the history of science to the future of civilization and ethics of AI.
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