If Lex Fridman has a PhD in CS from MIT, MIT must be a joke
I just listened to several CS heavy interviews with Lex and several guests. Knowing nothing about the host I would have assumed that he has no higher education at all, let alone a Ph.D. in CS from MIT. Am I wrong?
As far as I am concerned he lucked out because someone got him into MIT and he lucked out the second time because he got on the Joe Rogan podcast. The rest is history. But I was just amazed how dumb the man sounds on his own podcast and the quality of guests he gets.
I'll be honest, I am probably jealous, but damn, I almost think like his podcast has negative value. Every time his guests speaks I get smarter, every time he speaks I just get angry that someone this dumb got this lucky.
Edit: Typo + It turns out that Lex actually has a PhD from Drexel University, not MIT, as pointed out by slater.
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[ 3.0 ms ] story [ 58.6 ms ] threadedit: also, according to Wikipedia, he does not hold a PhD in CS from MIT.
"Fridman was born in Moscow, and after moving to the United States he studied at Drexel University, where he received a B.S. (Bachelor of Science), M.S. (Master of Science), and a Ph.D. (Doctor of Philosophy)."
shrug
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lex_Fridman#Early_life_and_edu...
Do you have an example of one of his dumb questions or statements?
It would be easy to know what you are complaining about if you just provided an example. An episode number and time index would do.
You’ll never know if you don’t try.
> I say he remains silent and switches topics because he is dumb
Earlier you said this was obvious. Now it seems like you have no confidence that anyone but you can even tell.
I will listen to some of the Jim Keller episode, but even some clue of where you got the impression from would help.
Edit: I’m 30 minutes in. It’s a great podcast. Nothing obvious about what Lex is doing to make it worse.
https://youtu.be/1CSeY10zbqo
That's just what I had a moment to find right now and it was well labeled and I remembered that moment. As for your other comments, my only possible response would be insulting, and I have no desire to insult you.
Thank you for highlighting that point in the interview. That's another excellent example of Lex being incompetent in the very Science he proclaims to have a PhD in. If you don't know that, you basically just proved why I chose not to get into this argument with you. And Jim didn't concede, he moved on from a really stupid conversation topic onto something else.
You keep saying things like this, but frankly in so doing you make yourself appear yourself to be intellectually dishonest.
You have been unable to explain or substantiate any of your complaints throughout this conversation, hiding behind the idea that anyone who doesn’t agree with you is too ignorant to be worth explaining it to, which is clearly an evasion.
There is no rational explanation for why you don’t produce an explanation other than that you don’t actually have one.
The simplest explanation is that your hypothesis that you are jealous of Lex is correct, and there is no substance to any of your criticisms, because if there were you’d have presented some.
In case you hadn’t seen it, your posting has been flagged.
In any case, let's argue in good faith about this one specific moment you pointed out. The question in hand is if Gradient Descent in ML should be considered a "Search" problem. Lex argues that it is a "Search" problem and Jim is arguing that "Search" has a specific meaning in CS, and ML Training is NOT that.
Jim's understanding of the word "Search" matches my own. Search is a process of looking for a particular data or __specific__ outcome. What happens in ML during training could be described as optimization, filtering, and, obviously, training, but in no way does it fit the definition of "search".
For reference, my definition of "Search" corresponds to the formal definition described hear: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Search_problem, Lex's does NOT, and this is what Jim was pointing out. He eventually gave up when he figured out that Lex was using a colloquial definition of search, not the technical CS definition of the same word, and "conceded" by saying "sure, if that's what you mean by search" or something to that effect.
I would appreciate if you wouldn't flag this comment, but rather engaged with it, like an adult. Thank you.
Also from watching some of their courses, they do have world class teachers and I assume TA to student ratios that are enviable so I'm sure there is a quality education there too.
This is increasingly obvious in the modern world. Specialist taking over, generalist are devalued. Or may be generalist isn't a correct term, but some type of polymath.