311 - Guest: Tomaso Poggio, Computational Neuroscientist, part 1

311 - Guest: Tomaso Poggio, Computational Neuroscientist, part 1

From Artificial Intelligence and You by aiandyou

June 1, 2026 · 30 min · Episode 312

About this episode

Tomaso Poggio discusses the intersection of neuroscience and computing in the field of artificial intelligence.

This and all episodes at: https://aiandyou.net/ . Studying human intelligence is a matter of neuroscience, and creating software is a matter of computing, so creating artificial intelligence would be at the intersection of those fields, called computational neuroscience, and I have with me one of the founders of that field. Tomaso Poggio is the Eugene McDermott professor in the Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences at MIT and the Director of the Center for Brains, Minds, and Machines. He is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and a founding fellow of the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence. His home page says that he “develops models of brain function that illuminate human intelligence and builds intelligent machines that can mimic human performance.” Wow. His new book, Brains, Minds, Machines, The Mystery of Human Intelligence, the Enigmas of the Artificial, comes out this summer. Tomaso defines computational neuroscience, and then we talk about computation in the human brain, how large language models landed for him, holography, limitations of LLMs, and backpropagation…

People in this episode

Host: aiandyou

Guest: Tomaso Poggio

Topics covered

  • computational neuroscience
  • human intelligence
  • artificial intelligence
  • large language models
  • brain function
  • AI headlines

Keywords

  • computational neuroscience
  • human intelligence
  • artificial intelligence
  • large language models
  • brain function

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: MIT, American Academy of Arts and Sciences, American Association for the Advancement of Science, Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence

Books & works: Brains, Minds, Machines, The Mystery of Human Intelligence, the Enigmas of the Artificial

More episodes of Artificial Intelligence and You

Explore listener stats, chart rankings, contacts and more on the Artificial Intelligence and You podcast page.