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Q&A
To Build Truly Intelligent Machines, Teach Them Cause and Effect
Judea Pearl, a pioneering figure in artificial intelligence, argues that AI has been stuck in a decades-long rut. His prescription for progress? Teach machines to understand the question why.
Q&A
A Revealer of Secrets in the Data of Life and the Universe
The statistician Donald Richards lives to uncover subtle patterns hiding in real-world data.
Q&A
In Search of God’s Perfect Proofs
The mathematicians Günter Ziegler and Martin Aigner have spent the past 20 years collecting some of the most beautiful proofs in mathematics.
Q&A
A Statistical Search for Genomic Truths
The computer scientist Barbara Engelhardt develops machine-learning models and methods to scour human genomes for the elusive causes and mechanisms of disease.
The Future of Quantum Computing
The Argument Against Quantum Computers
The mathematician Gil Kalai believes that quantum computers can’t possibly work, even in principle.
Q&A
In Birds’ Songs, Brains and Genes, He Finds Clues to Speech
The neuroscientist Erich Jarvis found that songbirds’ vocal skills and humans’ spoken language are both rooted in neural pathways for controlling learned movements.
Q&A
A Neurobiologist Thinks Big — and Small
By developing new tools for visualizing subcellular structure and activity in molecular detail, Ed Boyden advances on his goal of understanding how the brain works.
Q&A
In Praise of Simple Problems
The mathematician Richard Schwartz finds the hidden depth lurking in simple mathematical puzzles.
Q&A
A Mathematician Who Decodes the Patterns Stamped Out by Life
Corina Tarnita deciphers bizarre patterns in the soil created by competing life-forms.