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PODCAST

Manifold

Steve Hsu is Professor of Theoretical Physics and Computational Mathematics, Science, and Engineering at Michigan State University. Join him for wide-ranging conversations with leading writers, scientists, technologists, academics, entrepreneurs, investors, and more.

science natural sciences

All Episodes

50:43

AIs Win Math Olympiad Gold: Prof. Lin Yang (UCLA) – #97

Manifold ·

2025/10/23

Lin Yang is a professor of computer science at UCLA. Recently, he and his collaborator built an AI pipeline using commercial models such as Gemini, ChatGPT, and Grok that performed at the gold medal level on International Mathematics Olympiad problems. Steve and Lin discuss this research, which relies on "verifier-refiner" LLM instances and large token budgets to reliably solve difficult problems. They discuss how these methods can be used to advance AI for scientific research, legal

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66:35

The Global AI Race: Z.ai and the View from Beijing — #96

Manifold ·

2025/10/09

Zixuan Li is Director of Product and genAI Strategy at Z.ai. He was educated at Renmin and Tsinghua University in China, and at MIT and Carnegie Mellon. Z.ai has released frontier open source LLMs but is largely unknown in the West except among AI experts. Steve and Zixuan discuss the AI race from the perspective of a startup in Beijing.https://chat.z.ai/Follow Z.AI on X: @Zai_orgChapter markers:(00:00) - Introduction and Guest Background (05:14) - Z.ai's Evolution and Challenges (10:37)

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48:49

Seeking Truth From Facts: Weeks Where Decades Happen...

Manifold ·

2025/09/25

This episode is a co-release with the Seeking Truth From Facts podcast: https://substack.com/@seekingtruthfromfactsThe theme of this episode derives from Lenin:“There are decades where nothing happens; and there are weeks when decades happen.” ― Vladimir Ilyich Lenin Steve and Alf discuss:(00:00) - Introduction(01:32) - China Victory Day Parade and new military technology (12:27) - The SCO summit and its implications (20:24) - Modi's presence and the prospect of a Sino-Indian

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70:51

Kyle Chan on the Future of US-China Competition — #94

Manifold ·

2025/09/11

Kyle Chan is a Postdoctoral Research Associate and Lecturer in Sociology at Princeton University. His research focuses on industrial policy, clean technology, and infrastructure with a regional focus on China and India. He is currently working on a book on Chinese industrial policy that aims to explain how China came to dominate certain industries today that had originally been led by the US, Japan, and other industrialized nations. These industries include electric vehicles, solar,

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59:07

Joleen Liang: 40M+ kids educated by adaptive AI — #93

Manifold ·

2025/08/28

Dr. Joleen Liang is Co-founder of Squirrel AI, which pioneered adaptive learning at scale, first in China and now in the US. By 2021 its technology had served over 60,000 public schools in 1,200 cities across Asia. Squirrel AI has implemented large knowledge graphs mapping out the main concepts in the K-12 math, science, and language curriculum. The Squirrel learning tablet actively observes student behavior (including eye-tracking during video lessons) and adapts its presentation and

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54:46

Max Dama on HFT: Millisecond Algos and Bid/Ask...

Manifold ·

2025/08/14

Max Dama is the co-chairman of Headlands Technologies LLC, a global quantitative proprietary trading firm headquartered in Chicago, with offices in New York, Austin, London, Amsterdam and Singapore. He earned a B.A. in Mathematics, Statistics, Computer Science, and Business from the University of California, Berkeley.A generation of quants know Max through his notes on automated trading and on interview brain

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64:37

Andrew Song: Global Cooling with Sulfur Dioxide in...

Manifold ·

2025/07/31

Andrew Song is a co-founder of Make Sunsets, a company focused on addressing climate change through solar geoengineering. The company launches balloons filled with sulfur dioxide (SO2) into the stratosphere with the aim of reflecting sunlight to cool the Earth.https://makesunsets.com/Previous Manifold episodes on

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54:45

Manifold Discord Channel: Live Q&A with Steve — #90

Manifold ·

2025/07/17

Manifold has its own Discord channel! https://discord.gg/dvcHS6NXThe purpose of the channel is to create a community of listeners with shared interests. It developed from a series of in-person meetups with Steve in cities like SF, NYC, Singapore, Beijing, Shanghai.Chapter markers:(00:00) - Manifold Discord Channel, Live Q&A(02:36) - Genomics and Predictive Genetics (09:28) - Trump Administration, Epstein, and Political Commentary (29:42) - Missile Defense Systems: Historical

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65:29

Omar Shams: AI Founder and Google AI Agent Lead — #89

Manifold ·

2025/07/03

Shams was trained in theoretical physics before becoming an AI engineer at DeepMind and founding the company Mutable, which was acquired by Google. He is now lead engineer for Google's software agent group.Steve and Omar discuss:(00:00) - Introduction(01:18) - Journey from Physics to AI (10:51) - Elon Tried to Buy DeepMind (16:52) - Building Mutable and Auto Wiki as Context for LLMs (33:39) - The Value of AI Talent and Meta's AI Hiring Spree (42:58) - AI and The Workforce (58:02) - The

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59:33

Patrick McGee: Apple In China — #88

Manifold ·

2025/06/19

Patrick McGee is a longtime FT business reporter with extensive experience reporting on China. He is the author of the highly acclaimed Apple in China: the capture of the world's greatest company. Steve and Patrick discuss the history of Apple and its impact on technology development in China. “The best book about Apple ever written, one of the best books about China ever written, and one of the best books about tech, period.” —Ben Thompson, Stratechery. Apple in China on Amazon:

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62:24

GODZILLA DOWN! India-Pakistan Clash and Chinese...

Manifold ·

2025/06/05

Steve and TP discuss the implications of the recent air battle between India and Pakistan, which involved over 100 fighter jets and took place entirely beyond visual range (BVR). What is sensor fusion, and have the Pakistanis achieved it with Chinese technology? Does the PL-15 outrange and outperform Western air-to-air missiles? What are the implications for US-China military competition?Read TP Huang on X: https://x.com/tphuang (00:00) - GODZILLA IS DOWN! India-Pakistan Clash and Chinese

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67:22

Robots, Small Models, and RL with DeepSeek Alumnus...

Manifold ·

2025/05/22

Zihan Wang is an AI researcher at Northwestern University, where he works on vision-language models, robotics, and reinforcement learning. Previously, he interned at DeepSeek, contributing to projects like DeepSeek-V2.Zihan's homepage: https://zihanwang314.github.io/(00:00) - Introduction(01:13) - Zihan's Background, CS and AI Research in China (11:09) - DeepSeek; Human capital flow from PRC to US (16:07) - DeepSeek, Open Source and AI Research (31:52) - Model Size and Performance

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78:03

Dan Collins: Tariffs and the Future of US...

Manifold ·

2025/05/08

Dan Collins is Founder of Tyrell Chemical. He studied at Tsinghua University and spent 20 years working for companies like General Motors in China, helping to localize automotive manufacturing. Dan and Steve discuss tariffs, deindustrialization in America, the Go-Go days of rapid economic growth in PRC, and the future of the US-China relationship.Follow Dan on X: https://x.com/DanCollins2011(00:00) - Introduction(01:25) - Dan's Early Life and Education in Michigan (02:30) - Experiences in

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45:42

Seeking Truth From Facts: AI, China, Tariffs,...

Manifold ·

2025/04/24

This episode is a co-release with the podcast Seeking Truth From Facts: https://seekingtruthfromfacts.substack.com/(00:00) - Introduction(01:11) - China AI (02:30) - DeepSeek (04:21) - Redirecting Human Capital from finance (08:42) - US Policy and Financial Incentives (12:54) - China Meritocracy (24:24) - Trump's Tariffs and China (37:12) - European Defense and Security (41:49) - US-China-Europe Relations Music used with permission from Blade Runner Blues Livestream improvisation by State

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85:16

Incels, Evo Psych, and Modern Literature with ARX-Han...

Manifold ·

2025/04/10

Steve speaks with ARX-Han, an anonymous writer, about his book "Incel."(00:00) - Introduction(02:09) - Discussing the Novel 'Incel' (06:08) - Character Analysis and Literary Influences (13:32) - Themes of Evolutionary Psychology and Nihilism (18:38) - Historical Context and Modern Inceldom (26:18) - Impact of Dating Apps on Modern Relationships (32:47) - Representation and Character Dynamics (40:21) - Literary Comparisons and Philosophical Depth (45:38) - Philosophical Underpinnings of

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106:14

Callum Williams: Economics, AI, and Technological...

Manifold ·

2025/03/27

Callum Williams is a senior economics writer for The Economist. He was educated at Oxford, Harvard, and Cambridge, and is the author of The Classical School: The Birth of Economics in 20 Enlightened Lives.(00:00) - Introduction(02:07) - US-Russia Relations (03:18) - Trump and US Foreign Policy (05:30) - Sanctions and Their Impact on Russia (09:28) - Economic Resilience and Sanctions Evasion (14:14) - Historical Context and Predictions (29:37) - US Wealth Inequality (40:37) - Debating

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53:48

Misha Laskin, Reflection.ai — From Physics to...

Manifold ·

2025/03/13

Misha Laskin is CEO of Reflection.ai. He was trained in theoretical physics at Yale and Chicago before becoming an AI scientist. He made important contributions in Reinforcement Learning as a researcher at Berkeley, Google DeepMind, and on the Google Gemini project.https://x.com/MishaLaskinSteve and Misha discuss:(00:00) - Introduction(00:47) - Misha's Early Life and Education (03:50) - Transition from Physics to AI (05:47) - First Startup Experience (07:19) - Discovering Deep

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85:38

Taylor Ogan, Snow Bull Capital: China's tech...

Manifold ·

2025/02/27

Taylor Ogan is Chief Executive Officer of Snow Bull Capital, based in Shenzhen, China. His firm invests in Chinese technology companies, with a focus on areas such as clean energy, AI, and automation. Part 1 of this discussion, from November 2023: https://www.manifold1.com/episodes/taylor-ogan-snow-bull-capital-chinas-tech-frontier-the-view-from-shenzhen-47 Steve and Taylor discuss: (00:00) - Introduction(01:23) - Shenzhen: The Tech Hub of China (04:14) - The Rise of Huawei and Its

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67:05

Ken Liu: Art in the Age of AI — #79

Manifold ·

2025/02/13

Ken Liu (born 1976) is an American author of science fiction and fantasy. Liu has won multiple Hugo and Nebula Awards for his novel translations and original short fiction. Liu's short story "The Paper Menagerie" is the first work of fiction, of any length, to win all of the Nebula, Hugo, and World Fantasy Awards. Besides his original work, Liu's translation of Liu Cixin's Chinese language novel The Three-Body Problem (the first in the Remembrance of Earth's Past trilogy) won the 2015 Hugo

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121:54

US-PRC Tech War: DeepSeek AI and 6th Generation...

Manifold ·

2025/01/30

(00:00) - Introduction: AI, Miltech, and Balance of Power(00:32) - DeepSeek AI R1 model (02:36) - DeepSeek: top performance, 30x efficient compute (10:37) - DeepSeek technical innovations (15:38) - The AI Race: U.S. vs. China (34:20) - Fighter Jets and Military Technology (42:54) - Fifth to Sixth Generation Fighter Programs (46:13) - Technology of China's 6th Generation Planes (52:20) - Chinese Sixth Generation Aircraft Capabilities (01:00:50) - Strategic Implications for the U.S. and

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148 results

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