#148 – Charles Isbell and Michael Littman: Machine Learning and Education

The following is a conversation with Charles Isbell and Michael Litman. Charles is the dean of the College of Computing at Georgia Tech and Michael is a computer science professor at Brown University. I've spoken with each of them individually on this podcast, and since they are good friends in real life, we all thought it would be fun to have a conversation together. Quick mention of each sponsor, followed by some thoughts related to the episode. Thank you to athletic greens, the all in one drink that I start every day with to cover all my nutritional bases, aid sleep, a mattress that cools itself and gives me yet another reason to enjoy sleep. Masterclass online courses from some of the most amazing humans in history and cash app, the app I use to send money to friends. Please check out these sponsors in the description to get a discount and to support this podcast. As a side note, let me say that having two guests on the podcast is an experiment that I've been meaning to do for a while, in particular because down the road I would like to occasionally be a kind of moderator for debates between people that may disagree in some interesting ways. If you have suggestions for who you would like to see debate on this podcast, let me know. As with all experiments of this kind, it is a learning process. Both the video and the audio might need improvement. I realized I think I should probably do three or more cameras next time as opposed to just two, and also tried different ways to mount the microphone for the third person. Also, after recording this intro, I'm going to have to go figure out the thumbnail for the video version of the podcast, since I usually put the guest's head on the thumbnail and now there's two heads and two names to try to fit into the thumbnail. It's a kind of bin packing problem, which in theoretical computer science happens to be an np hard problem. Whatever I come up with, if you have better ideas for the thumbnail, let me know as well. And in general, I always welcome ideas how this thing can be improved. If you enjoy it, subscribe on YouTube, review it with five stars and Apple Podcast, follow on Spotify, support on Patreon, or connect with me on Twitter at Lex Friedman. As usual, I'll do a few minutes of ads now and no ads in the middle. I try to make these interesting, but I do give you timestamps, so you can go ahead and skip if you must, but please do check out the sponsors by clicking the links in the description. It's the best way to support this podcast. This show is sponsored by Athletic Greens, the all in one daily drink to support better health and peak performance. It replaced the multivitamin for me and went far beyond that with 75 vitamins and minerals. I do intermittent fasting of 16 to 24 hours every day and always break my fast with athletic greens. I can't say enough good things about these guys. It helps me not worry whether I'm getting all the nutrients I need. One of the many reasons I'm a fan is that they keep iterating on their formula. I love continuous improvement. Life is not about reaching perfection, it's about constantly striving for it and making sure each iteration is a positive delta. The other thing I've taken for a long time outside of athletic greens is fish oil, so I'm especially excited. Even though I genetically don't seem to be capable of generating the sound of excitement with my voice. I'm excited now that they're selling fish oil and are offering listeners of this podcast free one month's supply of wild caught omega three fish oil. When you go to athleticgreens.com lex to claim this special offer, click athleticgreens.com lex in the description to get the fish oil and the all in one supplement I rely on for the nutritional foundation of my physical and mental performance. This episode is also sponsored by eight sleep and its pod pro mattress. It controls temperature with an app. It's packed with sensors. It can cool down to as low as 55 degrees on each side of the bed separately. It's been a game changer for me. I just enjoy sleep and power naps more. I feel like I fall asleep faster and get more restful. Sleep. Combination of cool bed and warm blanket is amazing. Now, if you love your current mattress but still looking for temperature control, asleep's new pod pro cover adds dynamic cooling and heating capabilities onto your current mattress. It can cool down to 55 degrees or heat up to 110 degrees and do so on each side of the bed separately. It's magic, really. Also, it can track a bunch of metrics like heart rate variability, but honestly, cooling alone is worth the money. Go to asleep Lex and when you buy stuff there during the holidays, you get special savings as listeners of this podcast. And you know the savings are special because I use the word special again. That's eight sleep Lex. This show is also sponsored by Masterclass, $180 a year for an all access pass to watch courses from literally the best people in the world on a bunch of different topics. Let me list some that I have watched and enjoyed. Chris Hatfield on space exploration, Neil degrasse Tyson on scientific thinking communication. I probably should get Neil on this podcast soon. Will Wright, creator of Simcity and Sims on game design, Carlos Santana on guitar. I'm working on Europa right now, actually. Gary Kasparov on Chess, Daniel Negrano on poker, Neil Gaiman on storytelling, Martin Scorsese on filmmaking, Tony Hawk on skateboarding and Jane Goodall on conservation. By the way, you can watch it on basically any device. Sign up@masterclass.com slash Lex for the Buy one, get one free membership for you and a friend. That's Masterclass.com slash Lex. This show is presented by Cash app, the number one finance app in the App Store. When you get it, use code Lex podcast cash app lets you send money to friends, buy bitcoin, and invest in the stock market with as little as $1. In fact, just yesterday I think I tweeted that the Mars economy will run on cryptocurrency. I do believe that's true. It's kind of the obvious trajectory, but it's also fun to talk about. And I wonder what that cryptocurrency will be right now. Bitcoin and Ethereum seem to be dominating the space, but who knows what 1020, 30, 5100 years from now looks like. Anyway, I hope to talk to a bunch of folks from the cryptocurrency space on this podcast soon, including once again, the great, the powerful Vitalik Butyrin. So again, if you get cash app from the App Store, Google Play and use code Lex podcast, you get $10. And cash app will also donate $10 to first, an organization that is helping to advance robotics and stem education for young folks around the world. And now here's my conversation with Charles Isbell and Michael Lidman. You'll probably disagree about this question, but what is your biggest, would you say, disagreement about either something profound and very important or something completely not important at all?