#AcademicRunPlaylist - 3/7/25

I had a busy day shuttling the kids around, but at least I was able to catch some talks for my #AcademicRunPlaylist!

First was a timely talk by Yifan Gong on developing energy efficient AI systems at CU Boulder https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tWnq2j3mV7w

Next was an interesting talk by Guandao Yang on building spatial intelligence with limited data at the GRASP Lab https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yIMuKEipOjw

Next was a fantastic talk by Shiya Wang on gender differences in initial salary offers at the Women and Public Policy Program at the Harvard Kennedy School (WAPPP). Using real world data Wang convincingly demonstrates significant offer bias for masculine-typed roles, with strong implications for corporate and government policies. Highly recommend https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TSaPbRzCjn8

Next was an informative talk by Gerald Cohen on today's employment report at the Kenan Institute of Private Enterprise https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nO1iaABzk8Y

Next was a great talk by Erika Kirgios on the effects of diversity incentives on women's leadership aspirations at WAPPP https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R54UxSrd64I

Next was an essential talk by Sangbae Kim on physical intelligence and cognitive biases toward AI at Stanford. Kim masterfully deconstructs the complexity of physical intelligence, how we devalue it, and how biases and a forgiving space tilt the scales towards credence of large model outputs. Highly recommend https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z-5F-b1t1C0

Next was the second day of the National Bureau of Economic Research's changing nature of work conference. I particularly liked the talk by Emilie Jackson on the evolution of platform gig work https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7BXtAgpwPvU

Next was an engaging panel on how GMs approach roster building across sports at the Sloan Sports Analytics Conference with Daryl Morey, Nick Caserio, David Stearns, and Michele Steele. I loved the section around focusing on process improvement and the long term instead of near term results based analysis https://www.youtube.com/live/5qeJC6St8jo?si=UNwyUjlNwr0xwRIq&t=22579

Next was a nice talk by Fangchen Liu on developing robots that can learn and perform in diverse environments at Ai2 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KsCRAlgzmaQ

Last was "Coffee: A Comprehensive Guide to the Bean, the Beverage, and the Industry," edited by Robert Thurston, Jonathan Morris, and Shawn Steiman. When they say "comprehensive," they're not kidding. Covering everything from the biology of the coffee plant, coffee economics, consumption history, and agricultural and production methods, each chapter serves as an introduction to a specific area of coffee. I wanted to read this from more of a workplace/economics perspective, and for those of you who want to do the same I highly recommend the producer and consumer country profile chapters, the entire section on the history of coffee and its social life, and the chapter on mechanization https://rowman.com/ISBN/9781442214408/Coffee-A-Comprehensive-Guide-to-the-Bean-the-Beverage-and-the-Industry