#AcademicRunPlaylist - 10/29/25

It was mostly a writing day for me, and after lunch I went for a shorter run and listened to talks for my #AcademicRunPlaylist!

First was an interesting talk by Alessandro Roncone on using humans as models of embodied intelligence for robotics at the University of Colorado Boulder College of Engineering & Applied Science https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hd33hPOaHrY

Next was a great discussion between Ann Lipton and Michael Levin on the three year track record of universal proxy on the Shareholder Primacy podcast https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xXpQw1SIsKQ

Next was an intriguing talk by Mohsen Fayyaz on vulnerabilities in retrieval and language models at the USC Information Sciences Institute https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V7gP3J0LCy4

Next was "Boom and Bust" by William Quinn and John Turner. Particularly relevant today given our massive generative AI bubble, Quinn and Turner review and analyze different bubbles throughout history, focusing attention only on ones where new financial instruments were used or new technologies developed. By far the most interesting example here was the UK's bicycle bubble in the 19th century, which I had been completely unaware of but after the fallout did leave us with a few firms such as Dunlop and Rally that are still around. I wish there was more comparison and connective tissue between the different bubbles that they examine, although there is a bit in the final sections. The idea that some bubbles leave ruins and pain while others are mostly contained and leave some useful companies/technologies is important to understand more deeply. Highly recommend https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/boom-and-bust/D09C2E3BEA798F6EDC9D3880FC0300ED

Last was "The Human Superorganism" by Rodney Dietert. Dietert has a compelling thesis - the importance and diversity of the human microbiome is essential for understanding and improving health. At a high level it has potential, and the view of the human body as a complex system seems more plausible than other models. Missing from this book, however, is any systematic review of what the microbiome actually is. There's a lot of discussion of the implications of it, and some isolated studies are thrown in about how different phenomena are better explained by examining our microbes, but if you're hoping to gain a greater understanding of the state of the science and what actually comprises our internal ecology, look elsewhere https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/531468/the-human-superorganism-by-rodney-dietert-phd/