SCIoI podcast “Punching Cards” is back with a second season filled with deep dives into the world of intelligence
After a successful first season, Punching Cards, “the podcast about all things intelligent” is back with more episodes on the different facets of intelligence. This time, SCIoI worked with a group of eager Master students, who went and spoke to leading experts in the field to uncover the most interesting aspects of intelligence research. The first episode, featuring Sepp Hochreiter and Alan Akbik, is now out so get listening!
“What makes a person, a cat, a bonobo, a dolphin, an octopus, a cockatoo intelligent?” asks SCIoI PI Dimitri Coelho Mollo in the introduction to the Punching Cards podcast. It’s a fitting question, as it gives listeners an accurate idea of what’s to come: A series of talks and reflections about intelligence, and many attempts to define and describe this unique feature. First conceived during the pandemic and released a year later, Punching Cards is the brainchild of a group of SCIoI researchers who wanted to explore the many dimensions of intelligence and make them accessible to a curious general audience. “The idea was to focus on the diverse forms intelligence can take—human, animal, artificial, and collective—and explain how it evolved, how it works, and what its boundaries might be,” said Nicolas Roth, a SCIoI researcher and member of the podcast team.
After such an exciting first season, it was only natural to wish for a second one. So when Nicolas Roth and Benjamin Lang organized the course “Communicating Hot Topics in Intelligence Research,” they decided to give their thirty-five Master students the opportunity to continue on this journey by teaching them how to conceive, write, and produce a podcast. “We divided the students into seven groups and gave them the opportunity to interview leading experts across various fields of intelligence research. Their collaborative work resulted in a series of episodes that we are very proud to share,” said Nicolas.
Building on the foundations set in the first season, the second part of the podcast dives into hot topics and contemporary debates across various disciplines of intelligence research. These include the role of large language models for machine learning, exploration of cultural differences and human universals in psychology, and how human-like animals are in behavioral biology.
The podcast is aimed at a curious general audience with an interest in understanding intelligence in its many forms. Whether you’re intrigued by how animals think, how machines learn, or what makes human cognition unique, the podcast provides accessible insights without requiring prior expertise. According to Nicolas, “it’s perfect for anyone eager to explore cutting-edge debates and timeless questions about intelligence.”
The first episode, airing on 9 January, features an interview with Sepp Hochreiter, a trailblazer in artificial intelligence whose groundbreaking contributions have shaped the field, and Alan Akbik, a large language model specialist, professor at HU Berlin, and researcher at SCIoI. The discussion focuses on the current state and future developments of large language models, with a particular emphasis on the new xLSTM architecture. Sepp shares how he aims to revolutionize the field once more with this innovative approach, while Alan provides expert insights into its potential and broader implications.
Check out the Punching Cards website for more updates and episode release dates.
