David Sussillo did not have an auspicious beginning in life. He grew up in Albuquerque’s International District when it was commonly called the War Zone with parents who struggled with addiction, and spent years in the child welfare system. His new book, “Emergence: A Memoir of Boyhood, Computation, and the Mysteries of Mind,” traces how those early experiences led him to an unlikely career in neuroscience and AI research.
DAVID SUSSILLO: Both of my parents obviously were drug addicts during the ‘70s heroin epidemic. So, that meant I grew up in a lot of the bad parts of town. My parents were divorced by the time I was, I guess, five or six, so I ended up at the Albuquerque Christian Children’s home that’s on the West side of town.
KUNM: In the book, you describe moving through multiple homes and living more in these institutional settings. What did that environment feel like as a kid? And what do you wish people who have never had to experience the child welfare system understood about it?…