Scientific Controversies: Deep Thoughts of Artificial Minds
Yann LeCun is one of the foundational figures in modern AI. A Turing Award winner, he’s the chief architect behind deep learning and convolutional neural networks. While much of the public’s conversation around AI focuses on its social and ethical implications, we turn to those who truly understand what could actually be happening inside this AI black box, the opaque internal system of the AI. How close are machines to thinking? Will machines have minds, and if so, will they have any insight into their own thoughts? What might their minds reveal about our minds? So many questions.
Join AI pioneer Yann LeCun and DeepMind contributor Adam Brown for a conversation hosted by our Director of Sciences, Janna Levin. The trio will explore how machines do what they’re doing and if machines can indeed actually think. Together, they’ll probe the boundaries of current machine learning, human understanding, and the tantalizing possibility of machine consciousness.
Before and after the conversation, enjoy grooves by DJ Black Helmet, bites and refreshments, and stargazing in the garden with the Amateur Astronomers’ Association, weather-permitting. A special-edition patch designed by artist Andrea Lauer will be available for purchase at the event.
Speaker Bios
Yann LeCun is VP and Chief AI Scientist at Meta and the Jacob T. Schwartz Professor at NYU, an affiliate of the Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences and the Center for Data Science. He was the founding Director of FAIR and the NYU Center for Data Science. He received an Engineering Diploma from ESIEE (Paris) and a PhD from Sorbonne Université. After a postdoctoral fellowship in Toronto, he joined AT&T Bell Labs in 1988, and AT&T Labs in 1996 as Head of Image Processing Research. He joined NYU as a professor in 2003 and Meta/Facebook in 2013. His interests include AI, machine learning, computer perception, robotics, and computational neuroscience. He is the recipient of the 2018 ACM Turing Award (with Geoffrey Hinton and Yoshua Bengio) for "conceptual and engineering breakthroughs that have made deep neural networks a critical component of computing," a member of the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering, and the French Académie des Sciences.
Adam Brown is a founder and lead at BlueShift, a team at Google DeepMind working on mathematics and reasoning in AI. He holds a visiting appointment at Stanford University. He investigates foundational problems in physics—topics such as inflation, multiverse theories, space elevators, “bubbles of nothing”—and the interfaces between physics and computer science. Recent work focuses on how large language models might evolve to perform scientific reasoning and how trends in AI could intersect with the future of theoretical physics.
Janna Levin is the founding director of sciences at Pioneer Works and the co-editor-in-chief of Broadcast. She is a professor of physics and astronomy at Barnard College of Columbia University. A Guggenheim fellow, she has contributed to an understanding of black holes and cosmology and frequently contributes to documentaries and the news. She has authored books on black holes and the universe as well as a PEN award–winning novel. Her most recent book is Black Hole Survival Guide. Her most recent writings can be found on her Substack publication, Extra Dimensions.
Participant Bios
DJ Black Helmet (Azikiwe Mohammed) is a New York-based DJ and musician who specializes in long-form live mixes and generative ambient works. He has performed at venues such as Elsewhere, Bembe, Pioneer Works, Public Records, Roulette Intermedium, The Highline, MoMA, and MoMA PS1. He currently has a weekly radio show on WFMU’s “Give The Drummer” radio called “Your Boy Black Helmet Radio.” He is founder and director of the Black Painters Academy, the home for the New Davonhaime Food Bank—a food bank based in Manhattan’s Chinatown that focuses on health equity and community wellness.
Andrea Lauer is an artist and designer whose work spans costume and set design, styling, and innovation across the arts and sciences. With over 50 national and international production credits—including Broadway, music tours, and television—her designs have been featured in Vogue, Rolling Stone, and Interview. Lauer is the founder of RISEN DIVISION, a sustainable fashion label known for its signature jumpsuits. Her practice explores the intersection of storytelling, material culture, and embodied experience. She often incorporates technology, sustainability, and symbolic forms. She is an alumna resident of Pioneer Works, and she collaborates on the Scientific Controversies series to create collectible patches, bandanas, and artifacts that visually interpret complex scientific ideas with bold, poetic design.