Meet the Writer: Hacker Noon's Contributor Craig S. Smith, Host of the Eye on AI Podcast

If you’re seeing this interview draft, it means you’ve recently published on HackerNoon a story that the community found interesting and/or valuable. For this reason, we would like to help the community get to know you better as well as find out some writing tips from you.

While this template is automatic, our interest in the answers below is genuine and our human editors (and some cyborg wannabes) will review it before publishing.

So let’s start! Tell us a bit about yourself. For example, name, profession, and personal interests.

I’m a former New York Times foreign correspondent. After spending my career in Europe, the Middle East, and Asia, I returned to North America in 2016. While writing about Canada, I met Geoff Hinton, the ‘father’ of deep learning.

I wrote a profile about him for the Times, and that woke me up to what was happening in AI. I began attending conferences (NeurIPS, ICML, etc.) and started a podcast, Eye on AI, to track the field and meet its major players.

I still write occasionally about AI for the Times and also write for Forbes and IEEE Spectrum as well as other publications.

Interesting! What was your latest Hackernoon Top story about?

I wrote about how AI, specifically no-code AI platforms, were used in donor acquisition ahead of the US midterm elections and how that helped the Democrats more than Republicans. The use of AI in elections will only grow.

Do you usually write on similar topics? If not, what do you usually write about?

I write primarily about deep learning. I am most interested in no-code, large language models, and novel applications.

Great! What is your usual writing routine like (if you have one?)

I write every day; either for myself or for others. I draw on my podcast interviews for inspiration.

Being a writer in tech can be a challenge. It’s not often our main role, but an addition to another one. What is the biggest challenge you have when it comes to writing?

The biggest challenge is reaching qualified people to comment on the tech that I’m writing about.

What is the next thing you hope to achieve in your career?

I am semi-retired but am considering a master’s program in computer science.

Wow, that’s admirable. Now, something more casual: What is your guilty pleasure of choice?

TikTok, like everybody else.

Do you have a non-tech-related hobby? If yes, what is it?

I do hand-drawn animations.

What can the Hacker Noon community expect to read from you next?

I’m going to be writing about the advances in deep learning architectures and how they relate to information processing in the brain, specifically Geoff Hinton’s new forward-forward algorithm.

What’s your opinion on HackerNoon as a platform for writers?

I like it, but it’s hard to get attention.