Guido van Rossum: Python | Lex Fridman Podcast #6

Guido van Rossum, the creator of Python, reflects on his views of human nature, the influence of literature, and the early days of personal computing. He recalls his initial disinterest in computers, his early programming experiments with Conway's Game of Life, and his surprise at the emergent complexity of simple systems. Van Rossum also shares his thoughts on consciousness, suggesting it's a spectrum tied to sensory input, particularly visual processing, and speculates that self-driving cars might develop something akin to consciousness. He further discusses the evolution of programming, the challenges of balancing productivity with code performance, and the design decisions behind Python, including the shift from Python 2 to Python 3.