📚 12 Books mentioned in "Eugenia Kuyda: Friendship with an AI Companion | Lex Fridman Podcast #121" of Lex Fridman Podcast

and then there were some other books like i don't know uh mostly just self-help books around how to be the best conversationalist or um how to make people like you or some other stuff like dale carnegie or whatever uh and then there was this one book the most human human by brian christensen that really was important for me to read back in the day because he was on the um human side

Eugenia mentions this book by Brian Christian (mispronounced as Christensen) and how it was important for her thinking about what makes humans human in conversation, especially in the context of the Loebner Prize.

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he's a this navy seal person uh he's wrote this book can't hurt me He's basically one of the toughest human beings on earth

Lex mentions David Goggins and his book 'Can't Hurt Me' while describing Goggins's toughness and philosophy.

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so yeah my life's been i've been incredibly lucky and things just miracles happen all the time with this company with people i know with everything around me And so i didn't mention that book but maybe in search of miraculous or in search for miraculous or whatever the english translation for that is good russian book too for everyone to read

Eugenia mentions this book as a good Russian book that relates to her belief in miracles and optimism.

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uh sorry but the been studying hitler a lot recently and uh going through mineconf he uh pretty much rode out of minecon for everything he was gonna do Unfortunately most leaders including stalin didn't read the read it

Lex mentions studying Hitler and reading 'Mein Kampf' in the context of political systems and history.

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so that's one that um probably the most important book for replica was carl rogers on becoming a person um and that's really and so i think when i think about our company it's all about there's so many there's so many little magical things that happened over the course of working on it

Eugenia lists this as the most important book for Replica, discussing its ideas about therapeutic relationships and unconditional positive regard.

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and i was reading this you know the the book the year of magical thinking by joan didion about her losing and blue knights about her losing her husband her daughter and the way to cope for her was to write those books

Eugenia mentions reading this book by Joan Didion about coping with loss, relating it to her own experience after Roman's death.

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my choice is um so the one book that really influenced me a lot when i was building starting out this company maybe 10 years ago uh was gb go to leicester block and um i like everything about it

Eugenia lists this as one of the three books that had a big impact on her, mentioning its ideas about complexity and meaning emerging from simple components.

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There's a philosopher ernest becker who wrote a book um denial of death I'm not sure if you're familiar with any of those folks um there's a in psychology a whole field called terror management theory

Lex mentions the philosopher Ernest Becker and his book 'The Denial of Death' in the context of discussing the fear of death.

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i'm reading the rise and fall of the third reich Oh my god So i'm like really steeped into like world war ii and stalin and hitler and just these dramatic personalities that brought so much evil to the world

Lex mentions he is currently reading this book and how it relates to his interest in World War II history.

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and i was reading this you know the the book the year of magical thinking by joan didion about her losing and blue knights about her losing her husband her daughter and the way to cope for her was to write those books

Eugenia mentions reading this book by Joan Didion about coping with loss, relating it to her own experience after Roman's death.

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uh his whole idea is that ernest becker i think i i find this idea really compelling is uh that everything human beings have created like our whole motivation in life is to uh create like escape death is to try to uh construct an illusion of um that we're somehow immortal It's like everything around us this room your startup your dreams all everything you do is a kind of um creation of a brain unlike any other mammal or species is able to be cognizant of the fact that it ends for us i think so you know there's there's the question of like the meaning of life that you know you look at like what drives us uh humans and when i read ernest becker that i highly recommend people read is the first time i this scene it felt like this is the right thing at the core uh sheldon's work is called warm at the core

Lex mentions Sheldon's work, referring to a book related to Ernest Becker's ideas and terror management theory.

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It was um the ludwig whitney constant quote the limits of my language the limits of my world what was the quote the limits of my language are the limits of my world um and i love the truck tattoos i think it's just it's just a beautiful it's a book by wickedthat

Eugenia mentions a quote attributed to Ludwig Wittgenstein, which is from his book 'Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus', and says it's a book by 'wickedthat' (Wittgenstein). She put the quote on a neon sign in their office.

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