Local Podcasts
The Joy of Why: How Is AI Changing the Science of Prediction?
by
January 8, 2025
Quanta Magazine’s The Joy of Why is a special addition to WCNY Community FM. It’s hosted by Cornell mathematician Steven Strogatz, and senior produced by Genevieve Sponsler (also a producer here at WCNY Community FM). Steve and his co-host, astrophysicist Janna Levin, take turns at the mic, interview leading researchers about the great scientific and mathematical questions of our time.
In this episode: Scientists routinely build quantitative models — of, say, the weather or an epidemic — and then use them to make predictions, which they can then test against the real thing. This work can reveal how well we understand complex phenomena, and also dictate where research should go next. In recent years, the remarkable successes of “black box” systems such as large language models suggest that it is sometimes possible to make successful predictions without knowing how something works at all.
In this episode, noted statistician Emmanuel Candès and host Steven Strogatz discuss using statistics, data science and AI in the study of everything from college admissions to election forecasting to drug discovery.
