In 30 seconds
In a 2019 interview, Pearl encourages students to follow questions and test ideas rather than defer automatically to authority.
- 1QuestionsPearl encourages asking freely.
- 2Trial and errorTest ideas and learn when they do not work.
- 3IndependenceThe discussion challenges academic inertia.
Takeaways
- Ask questions freely.
- Use trial and error to test ideas.
- Develop an independent way of understanding.
Read the edited text by chapter
Ask freely
Lex Fridman asks Judea Pearl what advice he would give students who want to develop new ideas about intelligent systems despite criticism and established conventions.
Lex Fridman asks Judea Pearl what advice he would give students who want to develop new ideas about intelligent systems despite criticism and established conventions.
Pearl encourages students to ask questions freely, pursue their own approaches and not accept rejection without investigation.
Find your own way
He says trial and error will reveal when an idea leads nowhere, but students should follow their questions and try to understand things in their own way.
He says trial and error will reveal when an idea leads nowhere, but students should follow their questions and try to understand things in their own way.
Fridman connects that advice to inertia in science and academia. They discuss independent thinking and a rebellious spirit in students.
Against inertia
Pearl refers to a manifesto encouraging students not to wait for a professor to get everything right. The auto captions do not clearly identify its author, so the reference remains unspecified.
Pearl refers to a manifesto encouraging students not to wait for a professor to get everything right. The auto captions do not clearly identify its author, so the reference remains unspecified.
More from this channel
3:34:27EN
Lex Fridman· Oct 26, 2026Podcast · 4 speakersAI, Mathematics, and the Meaning of a ProofGuest Steven Brunton, Ankur Moitra, Alex Kontorovich · Host Lex FridmanLex Fridman and three mathematicians discuss recent AI-generated research, hard open problems and what human understanding contributes.
3:36:56ENLex Fridman· Sep 16, 2026PodcastPsychiatry Has Never Found Its PenicillinHost Lex FridmanHistorian Andrew Scull tells Lex Fridman why the field can ease symptoms, has never cured a major mental illness, and keeps paying for overconfidence with patients' lives.
5:15:51ENLex Fridman· Aug 26, 2026Podcast · 2 speakersDHH Did Not Write a Line of Omarchy QuattroGuest DHH · Host Lex FridmanThirteen months after a skeptical conversation with Lex Fridman, the Rails creator describes how Opus 4.5, a swarm of coding agents, and a one-minute Linux installer ended his era of hand-chiseled Ruby.
3:12:58ENLex Fridman· Aug 12, 2026Podcast · 2 speakersOne Cold Shower, Twenty Champions: How Khabib Nurmagomedov Was ForgedGuest Khabib Nurmagomedov · Host Lex FridmanIn a Makhachkala school gym, seventy men shared one shower, and the water was only cold.
3:46:18ENLex Fridman· Jul 28, 2026Podcast · 2 speakersIf You Take Slavery Out of the Picture, There Is No Civil WarGuest Gary Gallagher · Host Lex FridmanIn 1860, enslaved people were worth more than every railroad and factory in the United States combined.
3:51:47ENLex Fridman· Jun 30, 2026Podcast · 2 speakersForty-Six Percent of Emperors Were Overthrown. The Empire Lasted AnywayGuest Anthony Kaldellis · Host Lex FridmanHistorian Anthony Kaldellis walks Lex Fridman through 2,200 years of Roman history and argues that what we call Byzantium was Rome itself.