#AcademicRunPlaylist - 7/17/25

Author

Ben Waber
July 17, 2025

A selfie of me on a bridge above a stream winding through an immaculately landscaped park, with a Japanese wooden bridge spanning the two mostly grass sides. Trees loom up farther down on the left side. A larger river cuts through the landscape on the right, with a large bridge and a city skyline beyond on a bright day. I'm a bald, middle-aged, white man with a red beard flecked with white. I'm wearing black sunglasses and a dark blue running shirt.

It was hotter than I would've liked, but I still went on a decent run through a bunch of Kanagawa while listening to talks for my #AcademicRunPlaylist!

First was a fantastic talk by Vivienne Sze on designing more efficient computational hardware for AI systems at the MIT Institute for Data, Systems, and Society (IDSS). After underlining why this is hugely important for the future of AI, Sze positions memory as a big current bottleneck and presents some compelling solutions as well as highlighting other work in the space. Highly recommend https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JfUHPhgAfcc

Next was the second day of the National Bureau of Economic Research innovation conference. I highly recommend the entire day, and especially liked the talk by Samuel Goldberg on how generative AI images are impacting a stock images marketplace https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wMklk4pPmWc

Next was an excellent conversation between Ann Lipton and Michael Levin on Tesla's next annual shareholder meetings, possible reasons for its odd timing, and the legal implications of likely votes on the Shareholder Primacy podcast. Highly recommend https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x0XDxaKzUCA

Next was the third day of the NBER labor market conference. I highly recommend the talk by Malte Jacob Rattenborg on wage expectations and job search https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zlKUyUUhuo4

Last was "The Other Slavery" by Andres Resendez. This book digs into an issue only hinted at in other histories - the varied, winding history of Indian slavery. One of the challenges in characterizing the enslavement of Indians in the Americas is that it wasn't a single institution, but Reséndez does a great job situating different practices, their economic, social, and political roles, their toll on indigenous populations, and surprisingly early efforts to outlaw these practices. Much of the focus here is on the Spanish American empire, although later chapters also get into Indian slavery in the US. Highly recommend https://www.harpercollins.com/products/the-other-slavery-andres-resendez