The content highlights the profound legacy of mathematician David Blackwell, a pioneer in probability theory and statistics whose foundational work underpins modern artificial intelligence, and whose story is now being brought to light through a documentary and recognition by Nvidia.
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This is a very important segment.
>> Hey. [applause] >> Hey.
>> Hey.
>> How are you?
>> How are you?
>> How are you?
>> We are good. How you feeling?
>> I'm feeling great. It's I'm just a
pleasure to be here and so much fun to
listen to you guys. This is great. It's
it not only is it good stuff, it's
interesting and fun. I love the way you
present it and I'm like, "Yes, okay. I'm
right. I'm taking notes right here."
>> Thank you. Thank you. So, this is
vitally important. So,
>> okay, Lisa Blackwell. So, all right,
some backstory. If you follow Nvidia,
you know that they every year they come
out with a new chip
>> and they name the chip after a
historical figure like one of the top
scientists in the world, somebody that
has contributed to artificial
intelligence, somebody that you know
like a a pioneer in this space.
Last year, Chip was named Blackwell. So,
Blackwell before Reuben is this year.
Reuben hasn't come out yet. So,
currently Blackwell is the most advanced
chip ever created. Um,
>> now the interesting thing is that
Blackwell was named after David Blackwell.
Blackwell.
>> David Blackwell is Lisa's grandfather.
>> Correct. This this is a very interesting
story and we're gonna play a visual.
We're gonna play a visual to talk about
it and then we But before we play the
visual, can you just ceue up Can you
queue this up for us?
>> Sure. So, you're about to see 10 minutes
of what is a concept reel for the
documentary that we're creating about my
grandfather's story. And
it it really has a little bit of the
sort of lynch pin that everything turned
around on like when I start digging into
the story and what I discovered. And you
guys are getting ready to see sort of um
what that looks like. And again, this is
the concept reel for the documentary.
>> Let's play it, shall we?
>> Let's do it. >> Okay.
>> Okay.
>> National Medal of Science to David
Blackwell, University of California,
Berkeley. I would like to introduce you
to a very very big GPU named after David Blackwell
>> for fundamental contributions to
probability theory, mathematical
statistics, information theory,
mathematical logic and Blackwell games.
>> David Blackwell was a a great amongst
greats. He was the great great great
[music] mathematician among great mathematicians.
mathematicians.
>> Blackwell was a pioneer who was ahead of
>> [music]
>> I thought I knew my grandfather. Eggs at
dawn, martinis at dusk, and a 5% [music]
dividend man all the way.
Years later, Nvidia named their platform
Blackwell. That's [music] when I started
digging and discovered my grandfather,
Professor Blackwell, architect [music]
of the mathematics behind artificial intelligence.
A lot of his ideas really caused people
to rethink how do we interpret data?
There are many many standard tools that
people use all the time that are named
after David. You know, Blackwell spaces
and the row Blackwell theorem.
>> Blackwell nowadays is known for what's
called the Blackwell row theorem.
Sort of like saying if something happens
frequently enough,
you should be able to kind of predict
what's going to happen next. However,
there might be some bias in some of that data.
data.
That's essentially what the Blackwell
Ralph theorem tells you is that there's
a way you can kind of estimate what
should happen but then minimize the bias
that you would have there in the data.
And this is an amazing approach to doing statistics.
statistics.
If Blackwell were alive today, he would
certainly be the one to raise up his
hand and say, you know, look, there's
bias in AI. There's bias in the training
data that we're using, and we really
need to think about minimizing these as
I was very clear that I was going to be
a school teacher. My father had a friend
who was on the school board and before I
finished high school, he already told my
father that if I went to college and got
a degree, he would get me a job
teaching. And this was in the
depression. And it was a great relief to
me and everybody else when it was clear
what my future was going to be. After I
got my bachelor's degree in three years,
I decided to spend my fourth year
getting a master's degree. But then at
the end of my fourth year, I was
encouraged to apply for a fellowship to
go on for a PhD and I did. And then of
course my objective changed. There were
perhaps 25 awards. 22 of them required
teaching assistant responsibilities.
And everybody applied for both things.
And the lucky three got the fellowships.
And one of my colleagues who also
applied told me
that I was going to get one of the fellowships.
fellowships.
And I said, "How do you know?" And he
said, "Well, they're good enough to be
supported and they're not going to put
And he was right.
>> They were not going to put you in front
of a classroom because
David, you know,
he he was he was a black mathematician
and there are no black mathematicians
that would that it work but but there
very few anyway. What was it like to be
David Blackwell? I never could get him
to talk about that. Anything about what
his experiences were in Berkeley? He had
the problems of not being hired in the 1950s
1950s
because the wife of the chairman of the
Berkeley math department said, "Well, I
wouldn't want to see us hire somebody
that I couldn't invite to my home." Yet
Jersey Neon realized that David
Blackwell was David Blackwell and did
hire him over these awful people's dead
bodies. [music] But to try to get David
to tell any story of that sort, he just
My grandfather came to UC Berkeley in 1954.
1954.
That was the same year that the Brown
versus the Board of Education came down, 1954.
1954.
And my grandparents are driving across
the country with their seven kids
[music] with the green book. There was
this book that they had to use to get
across the country so they knew where
they could sleep, safe places that they
could sleep.
Then when he got here, he wasn't offered
the customary hospitality
and so [music] he went and they didn't
have housing. They slept in Tilden Park
for 2 months while and he would go
commute and teach at the school. Seven children
when we traveled and we did travel a lot
in the car in the the station wagon.
When we would travel, he would have a
map and he would give each of us a map
and he would have gasoline estimates,
time estimates for how long it was going
to take us, estimates for how long we go
to the bathroom, estimates for what the
traffic was going to be. But along the
way, he kept us all engaged at our own
level. And it was remarkable [music] to
have children 10 years apart. One is
very young, the other one is much more
mature and still keep them all engaged.
They somehow felt equal to the
challenge. It was just reflective of his
considerate manner of teaching. [music]
>> Your grandfather was the most
delightful, friendly, warmest person. I
just remember him with a smile on his face.
All the years I had heard people talk
about David Blackwell. [music] They
never talked about him being angry or
bitter. Most importantly, they never
[music] talked about him saying anything
negative about anyone else. And that
[music] I think truly is a testament to
his character. That's what I strive to
do is to really say maybe things have
happened negatively [music] but let me
not try to dwell on that and let me try
to move forward to say what are positive
things [music] that are happening and
what are ways that I can make this world
You have arrived
at a developers conference.
There will be a lot of science described,
described,
algorithms, computer architecture, mathematics.
In March last year, Nvidia unveiled its
most ambitious GPU architecture.
We named [music] it Blackwell in honor
of Dr. Blackwell.
Today, we're witnessing the dawn of the
AI era, and the Blackwell architecture
is the engine [music] that's powering
this new industrial revolution.
We strive each day to honor Dr.
Blackwell's remarkable legacy by
bringing the promise [music] of AI to
industries, developers, and researchers worldwide.
Specifically to African-Ameans,
I would say don't consider your race as
a handicap. If you want to go in a
direction, go in that direction. In
other words, make decisions on the same
basis as if you were Chinese or white or
anything else.
Don't worry so much about race. It's
going to be a factor, but let it let
other people worry about it. Don't don't
you worry about it.
We had a booth at a math conference. An
individual walked by. He he wasn't a
black mathematician.
He pauses at the table, looks at the
picture of Blackwell, and is very confused
confused
and then says, "You know, I'm a
statistician, but that picture can't be
right. David Blackwell wasn't black." So
I asked him, "So how are you convinced
that he wasn't black?" And he said, "Well,
"Well,
there's this Blackwell Ralph theorem,
and it's an amazing theorem. It just
never crossed my mind that Blackwell
So imagine if David Blackwell didn't
have to be hidden 50 years ago. If he
wasn't hidden 50 years ago, what would
STEM look like today?
What's it [music] going to look like
tomorrow if we don't uphold his face in
>> Yes. >> Wow.
>> Wow.
>> There you have it. >> Wow.
>> Wow. [applause]
>> Amazing.
It it's incredible watching it. Uh
talking to you, getting to know you over
the past few months has just been
incredible. Uh the chat is going crazy.
You know, we don't need a month or we
don't need a day to celebrate our
history. We make history every day. And
um I'm so happy that you [clears throat]
put this piece together.
>> And just for full context for people
like, you know, it's interesting because
we talk about AI so much. And who really
knew that one of the forefathers of
artificial intelligence was black and
held in such high regard in in in the
world of science that the largest
company in the history of the world
which is Nvidia named their
most advanced
>> piece of software ever
after a black man. And you know, once
again, it just goes back to I think you
said this at NVIDIA, like if if he was
wellknown, what would what would that do
to to STEM in our community because we
aspire to be things that we we see
success in? So, we aspire to be athletes
and entertainers because we see success
in that. It's not just because we're
talented in athletics and entertainment.
We are, but we're also talented in math
and science, but we don't see we don't
we haven't we haven't been exposed to
that. So, that's not something that we
aspire to be. But what if what if his
story was so well known? How would that
potentially change the trajectory of
young people wanting
>> knowing that artificial intelligence was
practically started by somebody that was black?
black? >> Mhm.
>> Mhm.
>> Yeah. Yeah. Lisa, it it you know, we we
had this call and just I mean, when we
talk about relationships early in the
show, this is just one of these
relationships that was kind of just like
God, right? Like I remember we we had a
call and it got emotional for a sec
because unbeknownst to you we were
already going to Nvidia. Shout out to
our brother Tui and I know Noel's on on
the check-in. They were like, "Hey Troy,
there's this person that you guys should
meet. I think she'd be incredible." I'm
like, "Who is this person?" I saw the
deck. I'm like, "Oh, this is this is a
great story." But when we connected, I
it was fresh off investfest and I was
like, there was this message that I got
from my brother Marcus Rosa about, you
know, being who you're going to be so
somebody else can be who they're going
to be. And when I relayed that message
to you, I said, "Yes, Jensen and Chris,
the co-founders of Nvidia, named the
Chip Blackwell. They did their part.
They may not have told his story, but
they did their part so that we could now
do our part." I want to know what this
moment feels like for you. Obviously,
being on the campus, being there,
meeting the co-founder. What was this
moment like for you? [snorts]
>> You know, I want to say that this moment
right now is bigger to me than that moment.
moment.
>> This moment to me is bigger because this
is my community.
This this is what my This is who my
grandfather cared about. and these are
the people I care about and so this is
bigger and to see their excitement about
this that this moves me in a way I
cannot express. Um but to answer your
question directly
it was
interesting. It's a full circle moment
in so many ways because I just want to
put a a finer point on something you
said earlier where Nvidia named um has a
history of naming their products after
um accomplished scientists and things
like that. Well, Vera Rubin, who's the
next one, she's actually an astronomer
and then another person like they're
just different people who who are who
have made profound contributions to
science. He's the only one who's really
done something in AI specifically and
part of the reason is there are only a
few of them and most of them just like
um Claude Shannon is one and I'm I think
that's what Claude is named after.
>> But so when we came in there and saw
what they had what they're creating with
his work, it's just so powerful. But
it's also
something else because nobody knows that
he was there doing it, you know? So,
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