Turing Award Winner: Early AI, LLM Predictions, Causality | Judea Pearl

Judea Pearl is a Turing Award winner and a pioneer in artificial intelligence and causal reasoning. We talked about how he got into science, his major breakthroughs and his predictions for AI today.• My ergonomic keyboard project I mentioned, you can follow along here: https://read.compose.llc/• The Kickstarter page for it: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/ryanlpeterman/compose-simple-ergonomics-beautifully-donePodcast links:• YouTube: https://youtu.be/FleTXB1fAcQ• Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-peterman-pod/id1777363835• Transcript: https://www.developing.dev/p/turing-award-winner-early-ai-llmThank you to this episode's sponsor for supporting my work:• WorkOS: makes your app Enterprise Ready with easy to use APIs to add SSO, SCIM, RBAC, and more in just a few lines of code, check them out at https://workos.com/Timestamps:(00:00) Intro(00:54) How he got into AI(11:17) Greatest scientist of all time(20:15) What people thought of AI in the 80s(26:23) Entering academia and researching AI(34:52) The invention of Bayesian networks(46:28) Pioneering work in causality(55:38) The causal hierarchy(59:34) LLMs and predictions(01:20:12) A restless mind pays(01:24:36) Advice for his younger self(01:26:37) OutroWhere to find Judea:• X/Twitter: https://twitter.com/yudapearl• Website: https://bayes.cs.ucla.edu/jp_home.html• Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judea_PearlWhere to find Ryan:• Newsletter: https://www.developing.dev/• X/Twitter: https://x.com/ryanlpeterman• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ryanlpeterman/• Threads: https://www.threads.com/@ryanlpeterman• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ryanlpeterman• TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@ryanlpetermanReferenced in this episode:• The Book of Why: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Book_of_Why• Bayesian networks: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bayesian_network• Alpha-beta pruning: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alpha%E2%80%93beta_pruning• Pearl vortex: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pearl_vortex• Graphoid: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graphoid• Causality: Models, Reasoning, and Inference: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Causality_(book)• Coexistence and Other Fighting Words: Selected Writings of Judea Pearl, 2002–2025: https://bayes.cs.ucla.edu/COEXISTENCE/