The Local Maximum with Max Sklar

The Local Maximum returns from a hiatus with today’s interview of James Barnes, founder of Autobiographer, and AI-based app developed at Betaworks that helps you tell your own story.

Today’s guest is Eric Daimler, co-founder and CEO of Conexus (conexus.com). Max talks to Eric about the enormous shift in focus in the industry since his last appearance in 2022, and gets his perspective on the promise and pitfalls of the latest generation of AI.

Max and Aaron go deeper into the ideas of the singularity and the law of accelerating returns as articulated in Ray Kurzweil’s Singularity is nearer. They talk about Nanotechnology, Longevity Escape Velocity, and Computronium.

Max and Aaron discuss Ray Kurzweil’s new book, The Singularity is Nearer, and talk about the prospect for a technological singularity by 2045 and AGI by the end of this decade.

On Freund, co-founder and CEO of Wilco, talks to Max to explore the future of software development in a post-AI world. Learn about the evolving roles of developers, the significance of real-world problem-solving, and the continuous journey of upskilling and reskilling.

Max talks to Codium.ai Founder Itamar Friedman about the rise of LLMs, the evolution of AI as practiced, and the philosophical ideas that will help us get the most out of it.

https://codium.ai/

Max and Aaron discuss Max's new initiatives in startups and academia, his concerns about the current direction of Foursquare, and the structure and evolution of computer science courses. Max talks about his role next semester as the data structures course instructor at NYU, and all that might entail. They shared their personal experiences in being students at Yale and MIT.

Max talks to Tiffany Grossman, a blogger, marketing specialist, and co-host of the 'Spill the T' podcast. Tiffany shares her journey into the podcasting world. We delve into the importance of networking, the challenges of starting a podcast, and choosing topics that resonate personally while providing value to listeners. 

Today’s interview is with Fused.io cofounder Isaac Brodsky. We talk about geo-spatial visualization, dealing with large amounts of data, computer science, and career.

Today’s discussion is on Cellular Automata by looking at Conway’s Game of Life, William Poundstone’s “The Recursive Universe” and Stephen Wolframs “A New Kind of Science”. We run into concepts like artificial life, Von Neumann probes, and more!