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To some extent, this is also a science popularizer. Although listening to a real practicing specialist is much more interesting. I don't know where he could have obtained a doctoral or master's degree. Perhaps he used some authors, like https://essays.edubirdie.com/thesis-writing or something similar for this. Maybe he has a thesis, and he knows a lot of popular words, but essentially, he just talks a lot without taking action

So I resolved this market as, "NO" because there were no "YES" votes and I didn't want to blatantly piss people off. I also wanted to get this thing over with so that I'm not like, an intellectual manikin for Lex Fridman or whatever...but truthfully, after looking at more of his videos and podcasts finally, and listening to him, I really think he's more of a humanities guy and I think he would be proud of that. Most of anything he ever presented on Machine Learning that I could find seems to be presenting other researcher's work. He seems very much not a skeptic and more of a dreamer, interested in literary and non-esoteric topics. Seems like he got his start by interviewing Machine Learning topics, was tied to some early projects as a coder, but he's really fully more of a storyteller and literary guy. That being said, I think Taleb's criticism went a bit far, I just think it seems that Lex is focused more on speaking to the masses, being a podcast host, whereas Taleb is really interested in teaching skills...doesn't mean Lex is a fraud, it just means when you do podcast hosting you have to focus on entertainment first.

Further doubling down from Taleb.

So far the studies submitted by Manifold users (thank you for that) have been over 7 years old...so I guess, on the, "he's not really X" side, he may have at one point done some research, but now he seems to concentrate on being a podcaster.

On the other hand, on the, "he really is X," side, there's the question of, "to whom?" I didn't really specify to whom, other than to myself, and I'm realizing that since I may have a certain level of expertise, not necessarily the, "top," but enough where any research Lex has done seems old to me, it's not necessarily old to 90%+ of others since the future is unevenly distributed.

Looking for more evidence on the pro/con side before resolving but would be open to resolving early. I definitely think the discussion on Manifold below has been 10X better than elsewhere, as usual,

I don't watch Lex for Lex. I watch for the guests. He is a nerds Charlie Rose. Though he and I were born the same month and both grew up in suburbs of Chicago so I guess I feel like he is my peer.

from wikipedia

Fridman's career began at Google, where he worked on machine learning.[14] He currently serves as a research scientist at MIT.[15][16][17][18] In 2017, he worked on computer vision, deep learning, and planning algorithms for semi-autonomous vehicles.[19] More recent contributions in his field of study have involved research into human-centered artificial intelligence, autonomous vehicle development, deep learning, and personal robotics.[14][20]

jumping off points are his PHD/MS, or his publications

google scholar https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=wZH_N7cAAAAJ

this doesn't mean his podcast is interesting, he just pals around with his guests for a few hours, it isnt worth much. but being a complex, engaging intellectual and 'being a coder' are not the same thing

this paper he was first author on appears to be a 'real coding stuff' paper: https://ietresearch.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdfdirect/10.1049/iet-cvi.2015.0296 dataset, algorithms, methods, and lex is first author

https://arxiv.org/pdf/1507.04760.pdf also first author on this, which seems pretty algorithmy and not very humanitiesy

this https://arxiv.org/pdf/1503.08479.pdf also seems quite technical and not at all 'humanities'

obviously he still does "bullshit and spew out hashtags and key words" on his podcasts, that's kinda necessary to be a top podcast, but it's entirely possible to be able to code and do that

@jacksonpolack Interesting, thanks