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Lex Fridman misrepresents his role at MIT to make himself sound more accomplished than he really is, and the way he went about putting out his self driving car

Lex Fridman misrepresents his role at MIT to make himself sound more accomplished than he really is, and the way he went about putting out his self driving car research directly to the press instead of going through peer review is shady. The guy is a cringeworthy grifter. He’s trying to be viewed as some AI expert but he’s totally full of shit.

fossuser 5y ago
I’ve also had a really hard time understanding why people praise him so much, I’ve tried multiple times to listen to his stuff and it’s just super disappointing. Worse than most lay people in depth. For people interested in AGI there are many better sources (MIRI, Yudkowsky), for people interested in self-driving: Andrej Karpathy. Max Tegmark also has some great public facing physics writing. There’s so much great stuff out there, Friedman seems to get disproportionate attention. Personal attacks aside, I find him tedious to listen to and he often comes across as if he hasn’t done even cursory reading of his guest’s work. It often feels like a sophomore in college waxing about “big ideas” with little substance to back them up. Even at 2x speed I found the talks low signal.
- josephg 5y ago
  The one aspect of Friedman I really enjoy is the quality of his guests. I don’t know how he does it, but he seems to attract a lot of guests who I’ve never heard of, and yet are super interesting to listen to. For example, I loved his interviews with Joshua Bach and Jim Keller. I’d never heard of either of those guys before they went on Lex Friedman’s podcast and they’re both brilliant.
  - teatree 5y ago
    A HN reader not knowing Jim Keller is a bit surprising. He is a well known name in tech communities.
    - macintux 5y ago
      It’s a big world.
    - caymanjim 5y ago
      I'm a moderate consumer of DIY engineering/repair/tech and science content on YouTube and I haven't heard of nearly any of the names in this thread. I don't aggressively seek out content. There's a lot out there to weed through. Most of my YouTube comes from mainstream pop science like Veritasium and Arvin Ash; science hackers like Nile Red and CodysLab; geeky DIY like Ben Eater; repair porn like My Mechanics; and whatever YouTube's recommendation engine throws my way based on those entry points.
      - teatree 5y ago
        Well, my bad. It was a wrong assumption on my part.
YetAnotherNick 5y ago
Yes, he is not an expert on most of the things he talks about. Also you can almost predict what he will be going to ask to the guests. But nonetheless as a podcast, I judge more on the basis of the conversation and the guest he had, and in both the metrics he is really great. He is really good in making the guests speak in easy and intuitive terms and making them speak the idea behind the discovery/invention. He sometimes even irritates the people in asking question behind the intuition when many guests are more accustomed with saying strictly provable statements in other places. And that is a part that is really missing in the world and that gives the sense of what's going on, instead of talking just formally provable sentences and terse description of their work.
jjcon 5y ago
I’ll second this - I work in ai and have been pretty disappointed by many of his interviews. I also hardly think that ‘humility’ comes to mind as OP suggests, he argues (often incorrectly) with guests on some of the most trivial facts. It’s one thing to not be an expert and ask poor questions due to lack of knowledge, it’s another to pretend to be all knowledgeable and still make baffling arguments.
systemvoltage 5y ago
This is unfair. He is a podcaster now that spans many disciplines. There is no way one can learn and be an expert at all of this. Lex is a humble, open minded podcaster that tries to bring all sorts of topics on the table. Even uncomfortable ones like Anarchy and Religion. This is exactly what we need in times of a massive echo chambers of left and right. I consider Lex to be one of the best, polite, and cordial interviewer that doesn’t inject too much of their personal agenda into the interviewee’s space (like Joe Rogan). One of the best interviews was with Jim Keller where it gets a little confrontational and see how he deals with it.
doopy1 5y ago
In the last 1-2 years he has diverged greatly from the AI stuff to just being a podcaster that brings on interesting guests.
soheil 5y ago
Completely agree and very interesting how shallow the bar to praiseworthiness has become. Just put the words MIT, AI and self-driving car research on your bio line and you can sell snake oil to millions on Youtube.
dang 5y ago
(We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27254865 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27254865.)

fossuser 5y ago

I’ve also had a really hard time understanding why people praise him so much, I’ve tried multiple times to listen to his stuff and it’s just super disappointing. Worse than most lay people in depth. For people interested in AGI there are many better sources (MIRI, Yudkowsky), for people interested in self-driving: Andrej Karpathy. Max Tegmark also has some great public facing physics writing. There’s so much great stuff out there, Friedman seems to get disproportionate attention. Personal attacks aside, I find him tedious to listen to and he often comes across as if he hasn’t done even cursory reading of his guest’s work. It often feels like a sophomore in college waxing about “big ideas” with little substance to back them up. Even at 2x speed I found the talks low signal.

josephg 5y ago
The one aspect of Friedman I really enjoy is the quality of his guests. I don’t know how he does it, but he seems to attract a lot of guests who I’ve never heard of, and yet are super interesting to listen to. For example, I loved his interviews with Joshua Bach and Jim Keller. I’d never heard of either of those guys before they went on Lex Friedman’s podcast and they’re both brilliant.
- teatree 5y ago
  A HN reader not knowing Jim Keller is a bit surprising. He is a well known name in tech communities.
  - macintux 5y ago
    It’s a big world.
  - caymanjim 5y ago
    I'm a moderate consumer of DIY engineering/repair/tech and science content on YouTube and I haven't heard of nearly any of the names in this thread. I don't aggressively seek out content. There's a lot out there to weed through. Most of my YouTube comes from mainstream pop science like Veritasium and Arvin Ash; science hackers like Nile Red and CodysLab; geeky DIY like Ben Eater; repair porn like My Mechanics; and whatever YouTube's recommendation engine throws my way based on those entry points.
    - teatree 5y ago
      Well, my bad. It was a wrong assumption on my part.

YetAnotherNick 5y ago

Yes, he is not an expert on most of the things he talks about. Also you can almost predict what he will be going to ask to the guests. But nonetheless as a podcast, I judge more on the basis of the conversation and the guest he had, and in both the metrics he is really great. He is really good in making the guests speak in easy and intuitive terms and making them speak the idea behind the discovery/invention. He sometimes even irritates the people in asking question behind the intuition when many guests are more accustomed with saying strictly provable statements in other places. And that is a part that is really missing in the world and that gives the sense of what's going on, instead of talking just formally provable sentences and terse description of their work.

jjcon 5y ago

I’ll second this - I work in ai and have been pretty disappointed by many of his interviews. I also hardly think that ‘humility’ comes to mind as OP suggests, he argues (often incorrectly) with guests on some of the most trivial facts. It’s one thing to not be an expert and ask poor questions due to lack of knowledge, it’s another to pretend to be all knowledgeable and still make baffling arguments.

systemvoltage 5y ago

This is unfair. He is a podcaster now that spans many disciplines. There is no way one can learn and be an expert at all of this. Lex is a humble, open minded podcaster that tries to bring all sorts of topics on the table. Even uncomfortable ones like Anarchy and Religion. This is exactly what we need in times of a massive echo chambers of left and right. I consider Lex to be one of the best, polite, and cordial interviewer that doesn’t inject too much of their personal agenda into the interviewee’s space (like Joe Rogan). One of the best interviews was with Jim Keller where it gets a little confrontational and see how he deals with it.

doopy1 5y ago

In the last 1-2 years he has diverged greatly from the AI stuff to just being a podcaster that brings on interesting guests.

soheil 5y ago

Completely agree and very interesting how shallow the bar to praiseworthiness has become. Just put the words MIT, AI and self-driving car research on your bio line and you can sell snake oil to millions on Youtube.

dang 5y ago

(We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27254865 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27254865.)