#AcademicRunPlaylist - 10/15/25

It was a take the car to the shop day, which meant I had some time to go for a run and listen to talks for my #AcademicRunPlaylist!

First was an engaging conversation with Devesh Kapur and Arvind Subramanian on India's economic development since independence on the VoxDev podcast https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RoFXg-DQlI8

Next was a great discussion between Ann Lipton and Michael Levin on a bizarre majority vote standard proposal and amending bylaws/certificates of incorporation on the Shareholder Primacy podcast https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yESbkLbu7Ts

Next was an intriguing talk by Torsten Hoefler on computational architectures for more efficiently training large models at the Carnegie Mellon University School of Computer Science https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LnXp9rBl0_I

Next was a fantastic talk by Carl Benedikt Frey on why progress isn't inevitable at the Oxford Martin School. Frey clearly articulates the mounting barriers arrayed against further economic and political progress, drawing on historical examples to help chart a path forward. Highly recommend https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gqliq0mYzSs

Next was a thought-provoking talk by Bo Waggoner on algorithms for strategic settings at the University of Colorado Boulder College of Engineering & Applied Science https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GTgs9UdpHwo

Next was an incredible talk by Elle O'Brien on the effects of coding LLM usage by scientists at the University of Washington eScience Institute. Through rich survey data O'Brien paints a concerning picture of slop accumulation and deskilling of young researchers, with profound implications for the future of science https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i_Op27piQis

Last was "The Name of War" by Jill Lepore. This book feels personal to me since I live in the Boston area - the part of Natick near the Charles River where the praying Indians gathered before being shipped off to Deer Island, where over half of them would starve before being allowed to return a few years later, is on my regular running route. I've read about King Philip's War before, but Lepore's book is on a completely different level, explaining the context behind the spark of John Sassamon's killing (whose name is still plastered all over Natick), the motivations behind the different players in the conflict, the arc of the war, and its extremely long aftermath. The combination of a wide variety of primary sources to piece together spotty portions of history and exploring the implications of different explanations is impressive, and I appreciated the sections on naming conventions. If you live in, or have lived in, Massachusetts, this is required reading. Highly recommend https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/100085/the-name-of-war-by-jill-lepore/