Noam Chomsky is one of the greatest minds of our time and is one of the most cited scholars in history. He is a linguist, philosopher, cognitive scientist, historian, social critic, and political activist. He has spent over 60 years at MIT and recently also joined the University of Arizona.

This conversation is part of the Artificial Intelligence podcast. If you would like to get more information about this podcast go to https://lexfridman.com/ai or connect with @lexfridman on Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, Medium, or YouTube where you can watch the video versions of these conversations. If you enjoy the podcast, please rate it 5 stars on Apple Podcasts or support it on Patreon.

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Here’s the outline of the episode. On some podcast players you should be able to click the timestamp to jump to that time.

00:00 – Introduction

03:59 – Common language with an alience species

05:46 – Structure of language

07:18 – Roots of language in our brain

08:51 – Language and thought

09:44 – The limit of human cognition

16:48 – Neuralink

19:32 – Deepest property of language

22:13 – Limits of deep learning

28:01 – Good and evil

29:52 – Memorable experiences

33:29 – Mortality

34:23 – Meaning of life