In these three episodes, Stephen Wolfram details the backstory of the Wolfram Physics Project.

How We Got Here: The Backstory of the Wolfram Physics Project

Stephen Wolfram plays the role of Salonnière in this new, on-going series of intellectual explorations with special guests, this time specifically with Nassim Nicholas Taleb. Watch all of the conversations here: https://wolfr.am/youtube-sw-conversations

A conversation between Nassim Nicholas Taleb and Stephen Wolfram (July 2, 2021)

Stephen Wolfram answers questions from his viewers about the future of science and technology as part of an unscripted livestream series, also available on YouTube here: https://wolfr.am/youtube-sw-qa

Questions include: Aside from faster processing speeds, what are some other ways computers may be improved in the future? - Will we still use books in 5-10 years, or will they be replaced by chatting with an AI? - It's moving toward narrative-driven, AI-powered, procedural generated VR environments with metahuman characters interacting with AI speech and whisper.... Create me a film experience.... - Yeah, I can't read books on the computer beyond like two hundred pages–too much eye strain. - Are we close to imitating senses of smell and touch in VR? - I lost my sense of smell due to a brain injury in 2016. Is there any realistic way this could ever be fixed? - How much of biology is untapped? I'm in the biology/biotech/genetics/metabolics field and it feels like most researchers never leave the lab. - Do you think deep neural nets etc. can help us build models of the human perceptual systems with vision and audio? How do we solve the problem of getting accurate training data for subjective experiences? - Technology and science mean nothing until we can chat with our dogs and cats. Will this ever be possible? - Do you think it will be possible to transition a real, living person into VR or code? Or it will be just a "JPG of a person"? - Isn't it too early to assume that we can replace all parts of the brain with digital tech?

Future of Science & Technology Q&A (May 19, 2023)

Stephen Wolfram answers questions from his viewers about the future of science and technology as part of an unscripted livestream series, also available on YouTube here: https://wolfr.am/youtube-sw-qa

Questions include: Do you think the latest electric car is worth buying these days? What is the future of cars? - With technology integration, would we be able to do away with having to sleep in the future? - As far as human evolution, do you believe the human race is still evolving or have we peaked as a species? What's next in the stage of human evolution? - Will we ever have technology that will allow us to learn while we sleep? - Noise seems to be almost inevitable when it comes to flying, do you think there's a way to solve it? - How do you optimize the sky for regular air travel to accommodate flying cars? It doesn't seem feasible to build roads and traffic lights in the sky. - What about the future of tunnels? We've got 2 options for 3-D travel space! - About flying cars... Flying is dangerous and requires more training and skill and safety than ground cars. - Flying cars would take up an incredible amount of energy. Do you think it's even feasible that they would replace ground transportation? - What kind of architecture would we need in order to build an AI that is as good at math as LLMs are at language? Do you think this will be a fundamentally different architecture than a neural network? If so, how do humans do math in any self-consistent way at all? - Does AI being an interface to books mean there will be more subject matter experts, or fewer of them? - Will technology carry us away from the human condition, or allow it to flourish? - What does the future of libraries look like? - Lots of libraries have eBook checkouts now. - The future of the library is the anti-library, more books collected than read. - Even with modern internet mass information available, I still greatly value my personal physical library, several thousand technical reference books, documentation and circuit diagrams for all manner of things. Much of which cannot be found online yet.

Future of Science & Technology Q&A (June 2, 2023)

Stephen Wolfram answers questions from his viewers about the future of science and technology as part of an unscripted livestream series, also available on YouTube here: https://wolfr.am/youtube-sw-qa

Questions include: Can you comment on the future of LLMs being running in the cloud vs. being run on one's local machine? - Does the NANOGrav discovery spark ideas for experimental validation of the Physics Project? - Can you discuss the next evolution for AI models? So far we have: language models, image – text (classifiers), text – image (generators), etc. - What can be said for training multimodal AI models? - Do you think that we have reached a point of singularity such that any child born from today onward will never be able to surpass AI at any intellectual task, i.e. are we the last "useful" generation? - Is VR the future of UIs? - Given the two contrasting scenarios of a "Pink Plasma Heaven," where artificial general intelligence optimally solves problems for all sentient life, and a "Matrix Hell," where AI exploits humans as energy sources, how can we establish a guiding framework to navigate between these extremes? - To what degree do you think LLMs provide us with insights on the internal workings of our brain? Do you think there will be more lessons to learn from the structure of the human brain when designing the next generation of LLMs? - Does the spread of LLMs incentivize scientists (and humans in general) to become more deeply specialized (to "out-compete" LLMs in a narrow domain) or to become more broadly spread (in order to creatively generate connections between apparently remote domains)? - Will it be possible to use LLMs to achieve world peace? Or if world peace isn't big enough, can we beam LLM chats into outer space to try and get universal peace? - What do you think of power laws? What do you think are some good entry points for explaining the principles behind power laws? - What do you think of the future of AI in video games? They can be used to control the actions and dialog of NPCs, the design of the game's world and even the design of assets on the fly using little data. Video game assets can take up a lot of data, and if we could use AI to generate assets on the fly using a smaller amount of data, we could cut down on the download size of games as well as the effort needed to make assets. - How will we be able, in the future, to tell what we're seeing on screen isn't AI generated? Anything we could do today? (I think you might be a bot.) - Thinking in terms of inter-concept space, do you think there is an approach to using technology to develop a way in which we may better understand or gain experience to bridge the gap of inter-concept space between what we know and what we don't know? - When will this statement, "I think you might be a bot", be a compliment, rather than a criticism or an insult?

Future of Science and Technology Q&A: Live from the Wolfram Summer School (July 7, 2023)

The last five years (since Stephen's last birthday livestream: https://youtu.be/2-aAi6QXsl0) have been his most productive yet. Join him as he celebrates by looking back at the last five years and looking forward to what's next.

Watch the original livestream on YouTube: https://youtu.be/7Eqhd34ytoc

Birthday Livestream: the Last 5 years & the Future

Stephen reads a recent blog from https://writings.stephenwolfram.com and then answers questions live from his viewers.

Read the blog along with Stephen: https://writings.stephenwolfram.com/2024/10/on-the-nature-of-time/

Watch the original livestream on YouTube: https://youtu.be/uMyx3h-J-QU

Stephen Wolfram Readings: On the Nature of Time

Stephen Wolfram answers questions from his viewers about the history of science and technology as part of an unscripted livestream series, also available on YouTube here: https://wolfr.am/youtube-sw-qa

Questions include: What is the history of game theory? What are some successful and less successful applications of this theory? Can you speak about John Nash's work? Did that have any influence on your automata work? - ​​I wonder if that code by Nash exists anywhere? It would be interesting to read. - Do you view the world as being governed by randomness or order? - Would you ever write a book intended to explain the history of the ruliad/Physics Project? - Have you studied the history of cognitive neurological abilities of scientists throughout the ages, things like long-term memory, imagination, creativity...? - Do scientists invent tools first and then look for a problem to use them on, or do they find a problem first and then invent the tool to crack it? - What is your favorite "age" of science? - How did early mechanical computers like the Babbage Engine influence modern computing? - Do you think Ada would have had more success in science and math today than she did when she was alive? - Would you say you research more of the history of people or history of their projects/research? Which do you find more useful?

History of Science & Technology Q&A (March 5, 2025)

Stephen Wolfram answers questions from his viewers about business, innovation, and managing life as part of an unscripted livestream series, also available on YouTube here: https://wolfr.am/youtube-sw-business-qa

Topics discussed: Building companies that do real science - New frontiers in science, complex systems and generative art - Risks of algorithmic trading and LLMs in finance - Balancing science and profits - Blockchain ideas that aren't just buzzwords

Business, Innovation and Managing Life (May 14, 2025)

Stephen reads a blog from https://writings.stephenwolfram.com and then answers questions live from his viewers.

Read the blog along with Stephen: https://writings.stephenwolfram.com/2023/12/observer-theory/

Watch the original livestream on YouTube: https://youtu.be/qm3Y6qxdOwM

Stephen Wolfram on Observer Theory

Stephen reads a recent blog from https://writings.stephenwolfram.com and then answers questions live from his viewers.

Read the blog along with Stephen https://writings.stephenwolfram.com/2025/05/what-if-we-had-bigger-brains-imagining-minds-beyond-ours/ 

Watch the original livestream on YouTube: https://youtu.be/qUIj_t-YbIk

What If We Had Bigger Brains? Imagining Minds beyond Ours

Stephen Wolfram answers questions from his viewers about the history of science and technology as part of an unscripted livestream series, also available on YouTube here: https://wolfr.am/youtube-sw-qa

Topics: AI milestones and conceptual shifts -  Encounters with physicists - Attributes and personalities of influential thinkers - Naming conventions in science and technology

History of Science & Technology Q&A (June 4, 2025)

Stephen Wolfram answers questions from his viewers about business, innovation, and managing life as part of an unscripted livestream series, also available on YouTube here: https://wolfr.am/youtube-sw-business-qa

Topics discussed: Wolfram Summer School - Computational thinking and education - Parenting and learning from family - Project habits, curiosity and life decisions

Business, Innovation and Managing Life (June 11, 2025)

Stephen Wolfram answers general questions from his viewers about science and technology as part of an unscripted livestream series, also available on YouTube here: https://wolfr.am/youtube-sw-qa

Topics: Black hole mergers, event horizons and why nothing gets out - Time dilation and computing near black holes - Ions

Science & Technology Q&A for Kids (and others) [June 20, 2025]

Stephen Wolfram answers questions from his viewers about the history of science and technology as part of an unscripted livestream series, also available on YouTube here: https://wolfr.am/youtube-sw-qa

Topics: Alternate histories and missed scientific paths - How science is remembered and talked about - Scientific breakthroughs - How science gets done and who gets involved

History of Science & Technology Q&A (July 2, 2025)

Stephen Wolfram answers questions from his viewers about business, innovation, and managing life as part of an unscripted livestream series, also available on YouTube here: https://wolfr.am/youtube-sw-business-qa

Topics discussed: Using AI in daily work and research - Interfaces and the adoption of AI technology - Computation and the future of algorithms - Modern day skills and computational thinking - Productivity and procrastination - Innovation, markets, and globalization

Business, Innovation and Managing Life (July 16, 2025)

Topics discussed:  Personalized pedagogy and AI in education - Computer simulations vs. physical experimentation - Aging and longevity science AI, consciousness and human-machine interaction - Medical breakthroughs and disease eradication - Future of communication - Gene editing and CRISPR - Algorithmic decision-making 

Future of Science and Technology Q&A (July 18, 2025)

Stephen Wolfram answers questions from his viewers about the history of science and technology as part of an unscripted livestream series, also available on YouTube here: https://wolfr.am/youtube-sw-qa

Topics: Historical scientific problems and modern computation - Historical contingency in technology - Online Encyclopedia of Integer Sequences (OEIS) - Visits to scientific historical sites - History of museums and ancient artifacts - Virtual particles in physics - Einstein's Unified Field Theory - Scientists as movie subjects

History of Science & Technology Q&A (July 23, 2025)

Stephen Wolfram answers general questions from his viewers about science and technology as part of an unscripted livestream series, also available on YouTube here: https://wolfr.am/youtube-sw-qa

Topics: The Big Bang and expansion of space - Mathematics and physical reality - Computational foundations of biology - The role of kids in science and technology

Science & Technology Q&A for Kids (and others) [July 25, 2025]

Stephen Wolfram answers questions from his viewers about business, innovation, and managing life as part of an unscripted livestream series, also available on YouTube here: https://wolfr.am/youtube-sw-business-qa

Topics discussed: Choosing the right college - Early business lessons & company mission - Balancing leadership with personal projects - Software risks & bug management - The role of AI in business

Business, Innovation and Managing Life (July 30, 2025)

Stephen Wolfram answers questions from his viewers about the history of science and technology as part of an unscripted livestream series, also available on YouTube here: https://wolfr.am/youtube-sw-qa

Topics: Historical perspectives on knowledge sharing, collaboration and AI - Scientific creativity across time - Art, science and the evolution of modern expression

History of Science & Technology Q&A (August 6, 2025)

Stephen Wolfram answers questions from his viewers about the future of science and technology as part of an unscripted livestream series, also available on YouTube here: https://wolfr.am/youtube-sw-qa

Topics discussed: Optics and quantum computing - AI architectures and reasoning - Bioengineering and emerging tech - Automation and algorithm design - Technology path dependence.

Future of Science and Technology Q&A (August 8, 2025)

Stephen Wolfram answers questions from his viewers about business, innovation, and managing life as part of an unscripted livestream series, also available on YouTube here: https://wolfr.am/youtube-sw-business-qa

Topics discussed: Early academic experiences - Innovation and business dynamics - Evaluating AI companies and tools - AI Regulation - Career advice in a changing tech job market

Business, Innovation and Managing Life (August 13, 2025)

In this first episode in a four-part series on the history of science recorded at the Wolfram Summer School, Stephen Wolfram traces the roots of science to ancient Babylon and discussed scientific advancements all the way to John Locke.

A Brief History of Science with Stephen Wolfram—Part 1

In this first episode of a three-part series live from the Wolfram Summer School, Stephen Wolfram gives an overview of his thoughts on theories of ethics, symbolic discourse language, and the possibilities of digitized humanity.

The Future of AI and Civilization with Stephen Wolfram—Part 1

In this final episode of a four-part series, Stephen Wolfram revisits an essay in his book Idea Makers and blog post titled "Untangling the Tale of Ada Lovelace." Stephen outlines Ada Lovelace's contributions to the Analytical Engine and speculates what may have happened to it had Ada not died an early death. Read the blog post here: https://wolfr.am/ada

Untangling the Tale of Ada Lovelace—Part 4

Stephen Wolfram details the tech infrastructure he has created to make himself a productive scientist, CEO, and language designer. Read more here: https://wolfr.am/BVcUHXdF

Seeking the Productive Life: Some Details of My Personal Infrastructure

A version of a recent talk Stephen Wolfram gave at a blockchain conference, where he said he'd talk about "What will the world be like when computational intelligence and computational contracts are ubiquitous?" Read the written version: https://wolfr.am/DgM8rMy8

A World Run with Code

Stephen Wolfram reads a recent essay, "What We've Built Is a Computational Language (and That's Very Important!)" and explains how he's built the Wolfram Language as a way to communicate computational ideas. Read the essay: https://wolfr.am/Drl0JCmF

What We've Built Is a Computational Language (and That's Very Important!)

Join a lecture with Stephen Wolfram as he gives a thumbnail sketch of the history of mathematics live from the Wolfram Summer School 2019.

A Very Brief History of Mathematics

In this third episode in a 3-part series, Stephen Wolfram details the backstory of the Wolfram Physics Project.

How We Got Here: The Backstory of the Wolfram Physics Project-Part 3

In this second episode in a 3-part series, Stephen Wolfram details the backstory of the Wolfram Physics Project.

How We Got Here: The Backstory of the Wolfram Physics Project-Part 2

In this first episode in a 3-part series, Stephen Wolfram details the backstory of the Wolfram Physics Project.

How We Got Here: The Backstory of the Wolfram Physics Project-Part 1

Stephen Wolfram is the creator of Mathematica, Wolfram|Alpha and the Wolfram Language; the author of A New Kind of Science; and the founder and CEO of Wolfram Research. Over the course of nearly four decades, he has been a pioneer in the development and application of computational thinking—and has been responsible for many discoveries, inventions and innovations in science, technology and business.

On his podcast, Stephen discusses topics ranging from the history of science to the future of civilization and ethics of AI.

The Stephen Wolfram Podcast

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