The Local Maximum with Max Sklar

The Local Maximum with Max Sklar

Join Max Sklar and guests in this podcast about AI, technology, and society. Email localmaxradio@gmail.com for questions and feedback. Show notes page on the website: www.localmaxradio.com localmaximum.substack.com

Episodes

September 1, 2025 58 mins

Returning after a Hiatus

* Today is just going to be a hangout with me and Aaron if you’re into that.. And later, we’ll return to more specific topics

* Give a little personal history & history of the show

Full Move to NYC

Teaching

* Less time

Hopscotch Labs

* Working on that

* Beebot - coming SOON!!

* Internship Program

Hope for The Local Maximum

Reading Habits and Strategies (for the busy)

* Is it still worth reading books in the AI era?

* Wh...

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Author, entrepreneur, and AI professor Graham Morehead joins the Local Maximum to talk about Artificial Thought and human potential working with AI in his book, “The Shape of Thought”

https://grahammorehead.com/



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October 24, 2024 47 mins

The Local Maximum returns from a hiatus with today’s interview of James Barnes, founder of Autobiographer, and AI-based app developed at Betaworks that helps you tell your own story.



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Today’s guest is Eric Daimler, co-founder and CEO of Conexus (conexus.com). Max talks to Eric about the enormous shift in focus in the industry since his last appearance in 2022, and gets his perspective on the promise and pitfalls of the latest generation of AI.



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Max and Aaron go deeper into the ideas of the singularity and the law of accelerating returns as articulated in Ray Kurzweil’s Singularity is nearer. They talk about Nanotechnology, Longevity Escape Velocity, and Computronium.



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Max and Aaron discuss Ray Kurzweil’s new book, The Singularity is Nearer, and talk about the prospect for a technological singularity by 2045 and AGI by the end of this decade.



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July 16, 2024 45 mins

On Freund, co-founder and CEO of Wilco, talks to Max to explore the future of software development in a post-AI world. Learn about the evolving roles of developers, the significance of real-world problem-solving, and the continuous journey of upskilling and reskilling.



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Max talks to Codium.ai Founder Itamar Friedman about the rise of LLMs, the evolution of AI as practiced, and the philosophical ideas that will help us get the most out of it.

https://codium.ai/



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Max and Aaron discuss Max's new initiatives in startups and academia, his concerns about the current direction of Foursquare, and the structure and evolution of computer science courses. Max talks about his role next semester as the data structures course instructor at NYU, and all that might entail. They shared their personal experiences in being students at Yale and MIT.



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Max talks to Tiffany Grossman, a blogger, marketing specialist, and co-host of the 'Spill the T' podcast. Tiffany shares her journey into the podcasting world. We delve into the importance of networking, the challenges of starting a podcast, and choosing topics that resonate personally while providing value to listeners. 



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Today’s interview is with Fused.io cofounder Isaac Brodsky. We talk about geo-spatial visualization, dealing with large amounts of data, computer science, and career.



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Today’s discussion is on Cellular Automata by looking at Conway’s Game of Life, William Poundstone’s “The Recursive Universe” and Stephen Wolframs “A New Kind of Science”. We run into concepts like artificial life, Von Neumann probes, and more!



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April 21, 2024 22 mins

Max reflects back on his podcast and radio show as he turns forty, and discusses the non-stop news events of this month of a seemingly epoch-defining nature, from the earthquake to the eclipse, to the Bitcoin halving.



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Fresh off of his trip to the Fort Mojave Indian Reservation for the Yale Alumni Service Corps, Max talks to Aaron about his trip. They then get into some of the ideas of Cal Newport and Digital Minimalism, as well as a recent warning from Jonathan’s Haidt’s research on children and mobile technology.



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February 26, 2024 29 mins

Max talks about the intensifying AI trends in 2024, including video creation and context windows, as well as Google's misstep with their image generation in Gemini. Will we be replaced by AI?



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Michael Callahan, host of "Where We Go Next" (wherewegonext.com) comes onto the Local Maximum to share what he's learned about hosting open conversations about Identity and Ideas.



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January 9, 2024 61 mins

Max appears on the podcast Where We Go Next with Michael Callahan to talk about technology’s effects on the health of society.https://wherewegonext.com/episodes/max-sklar



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Max and Aaron welcome 2024 by talking about the most interesting episodes of 2023, and possible areas for exploration in the New Year. Their conversation runs the gamut from copyright to crypto to digital habits and to international politics.



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December 25, 2023 55 mins
Max and Aaron finished their discussion on "The Fourth Turning is Here" and talk about what may be in store for the rest of the Fourth Turning Crisis and what the next several decades might look like as a result.

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