| These three had a big impact on me: Geoff Hinton, The Next Generation of Neural Networks (2007):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AyzOUbkUf3M While the exact approach described there didn't end up being necessary (restricted Boltzmann machines), all the summaries of the competition results made me realize machine image and voice recognition was going to accelerate massively and rival humans in many areas in the very near term. ---- Cracking the neural code: Speaking the language of the brain with optics (2009): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5SLdSbp6VjM This one made me realize how gene manipulation would be a near term thing and how big of an impact it would have. They used mostly old techniques but all the in situ modifications of cells in mammals were something I hadn't been aware were possible to that degree. One of the guys from his lab, Feng Zhang, went on to be one of the major forces behind CRISPR. ---- Breakthrough in Nuclear Fusion? - Prof. Dennis Whyte (2016): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KkpqA8yG9T4 New design for a tokamak fusion reactor, made much cheaper by new super conductors that use liquid nitrogen instead of helium/etc. and which have more structural strength by being bound into a metallic ribbon. This one made me really optimistic (it hasn't been borne out like the others yet, but they recently raised $50 million). |
Geoff Hinton, The Next Generation of Neural Networks (2007): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AyzOUbkUf3M
I watched that talk probably 10 times after it first came out and wrote some visual basic stuff to try and replicate his results.