#AcademicRunPlaylist - 11/19/25

My whole family except for me was incapacitated with various maladies today, and while serving as their nurse for the day I listened to talks for my #AcademicRunPlaylist!

First was a whole slate of talks from the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology 2025 school in (quantum) physics:

Bill Munro - primer on quantum communication - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-snNWdGQZjE

Bill Munro - quantum relays and repeaters - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mq9Z4ByEq-Y

Bill Munro - quantum networks and the internet - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ws6JNrjE6CY

Artur Ekert - computation is a physical process - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LfuL7w1rCVc

Mina Doosti - secure communication using quantum information -https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KA_KTLYAdWQ

Rod Van Meter - the past, present, and future of classical and quantum networks - highly recommend https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ko528XGOydE

Steven Sagona-Stophel - quantum memories - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dXP-CwTzLXw

Next was an intriguing talk by Rahul Mazumder on simplifying complex machine learning models at UW Statistics https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x2Kw7H5VkV4

Next was a fascinating talk by Chris Campisano on humans' evolutionary family tree at the ASU Institute of Human Origins https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1P-ntN9IZQM

Next was an essential discussion between Daniel Solove and Anu Bradford on the EU's misguided deregulatory push around privacy, AI, and tech more broadly. I strongly agree with essentially every point brought up here, particularly Bradford's diagnosis of the root of the EU's entrepreneurial malaise and the likely self-defeating nature of this new effort. Highly recommend https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zOSEYB_MWVU

Last was “The Evolution of Agency” by Michael Tomasello. Despite the title, this book is primarily about how different animals make decisions. Viewed through this lens, it's an interesting review of how different classes of animals behave and choose different courses of action. Tomasello does hypothesize an awful lot about "agency," but strangely doesn't really define what he means by the term until the final chapter, and as far a evolution is concerned offers literally zero supporting evidence for how this characterization developed. Beyond that, the sections on neuroscience, psychology, and cognitive science are woefully out of date (protip: don't unironically cite cognitive science papers from the 50s). There are at least a lot of pointers to interesting studies to read more about https://mitpress.mit.edu/9780262047005/the-evolution-of-agency/