Episode Details

David Sussillo is a neuroscientist, technologist, and author of Emergence: A Memoir of Boyhood, Computation, and the Mysteries of Mind. Kate first met David when they were classmates at the Milton Hershey School in Hershey, Pennsylvania. 

David has made a career at the cutting edge of neuroscience and technology, yet his path there was anything but a straight line. Born to drug-addicted parents in New Mexico, he navigated a childhood marked by violence and neglect. But a seed was planted at the unlikeliest of places—the local arcade. 

What follows is a remarkable journey of resilience and transformation, from the chaotic corridors of group homes to the halls of Columbia and Stanford. Along the way, Sussillo takes readers on an illuminating tour of the century-long dance between neuroscience, physics, and computation that has laid the groundwork for neural networks—the technology that drives modern artificial intelligence. As he advances in the field, working to demystify these networks, he also begins to pursue an answer to a more personal question: why, and how, did he succeed against all odds? 

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