Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/mlst Discord: https://discord.gg/ESrGqhf5CB The discussion between Tim Scarfe and David Foster provided an in-depth critique of the arguments made by panelists at the Munk AI Debate on whether artificial intelligence poses an existential threat to humanity. While the panelists made thought-provoking points, Scarfe and Foster found their arguments largely speculative, lacking crucial details and evidence to support claims of an impending existential threat. Scarfe...
Jul 02, 2023•2 hr 8 min•Season 1Ep. 124
Sponsored Episode - YouAi What if an AI truly knew you—your thoughts, values, aptitudes, and dreams? An AI that could enhance your life in profound ways by amplifying your strengths, augmenting your weaknesses, and connecting you with like-minded souls. That is the vision of YouAi. YouAi founder Dmitri Shapiro believes digitizing our inner lives could unlock tremendous benefits. But mapping the human psyche also poses deep questions. As technology mediates our self-understanding, what risks rend...
Jun 29, 2023•2 hr 46 min•Season 1Ep. 123
Support us! https://www.patreon.com/mlst MLST Discord: https://discord.gg/aNPkGUQtc5 Twitter: https://twitter.com/MLStreetTalk The first 10 mins of audio from Joscha isn't great, it improves after. Transcript and longer summary: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1TUJhlSVbrHf2vWoe6p7xL5tlTK_BGZ140QqqTudF8UI/edit?usp=sharing Dr. Joscha Bach argued that general intelligence emerges from civilization, not individuals. Given our biological constraints, humans cannot achieve a high level of gener...
Jun 20, 2023•2 hr 31 min•Season 1Ep. 122
In this wide-ranging conversation, Tim Scarfe interviews Neel Nanda, a researcher at DeepMind working on mechanistic interpretability, which aims to understand the algorithms and representations learned by machine learning models. Neel discusses how models can represent their thoughts using motifs, circuits, and linear directional features which are often communicated via a "residual stream", an information highway models use to pass information between layers. Neel argues that "s...
Jun 18, 2023•4 hr 10 min•Season 1Ep. 121
Please check out Numerai - our sponsor using our link @ http://numer.ai/mlst Numerai is a groundbreaking platform which is taking the data science world by storm. Tim has been using Numerai to build state-of-the-art models which predict the stock market, all while being a part of an inspiring community of data scientists from around the globe. They host the Numerai Data Science Tournament, where data scientists like us use their financial dataset to predict future stock market performance. Suppo...
Jun 04, 2023•1 hr 15 min•Season 1Ep. 120
Support us! https://www.patreon.com/mlst MLST Discord: https://discord.gg/aNPkGUQtc5 Twitter: https://twitter.com/MLStreetTalk In this eye-opening discussion between Tim Scarfe and Prof. Jim Hughes, a professor of gene regulation at Oxford University, they explore the intersection of creativity, genomics, and artificial intelligence. Prof. Hughes brings his expertise in genomics and insights from his interdisciplinary research group, which includes machine learning experts, mathematicians, and m...
May 31, 2023•43 min•Season 1Ep. 119
Please check out Numerai - our sponsor @ https://numerai.com/mlst Numerai is a groundbreaking platform which is taking the data science world by storm. Tim has been using Numerai to build state-of-the-art models which predict the stock market, all while being a part of an inspiring community of data scientists from around the globe. They host the Numerai Data Science Tournament, where data scientists like us use their financial dataset to predict future stock market performance. Support us! http...
May 21, 2023•2 hr 2 min•Season 1Ep. 118
Support us! https://www.patreon.com/mlst MLST Discord: https://discord.gg/aNPkGUQtc5 Twitter: https://twitter.com/MLStreetTalk In a historic and candid Senate hearing, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, Professor Gary Marcus, and IBM's Christina Montgomery discussed the regulatory landscape of AI in the US. The discussion was particularly interesting due to its timing, as it followed the recent release of the EU's proposed AI Act, which could potentially ban American companies like OpenAI and Google...
May 16, 2023•50 min•Season 1Ep. 117
Generative Deep Learning, 2nd Edition [David Foster] https://www.oreilly.com/library/view/generative-deep-learning/9781098134174/ Support us! https://www.patreon.com/mlst MLST Discord: https://discord.gg/aNPkGUQtc5 Twitter: https://twitter.com/MLStreetTalk In this conversation, Tim Scarfe and David Foster, the author of 'Generative Deep Learning,' dive deep into the world of generative AI, discussing topics ranging from model families and auto regressive models to the democratization of ...
May 11, 2023•3 hr 32 min•Season 1Ep. 115
https://www.perplexity.ai/ https://www.perplexity.ai/iphone https://www.perplexity.ai/android Interview with Aravind Srinivas, CEO and Co-Founder of Perplexity AI – Revolutionizing Learning with Conversational Search Engines Dr. Tim Scarfe talks with Dr. Aravind Srinivas, CEO and Co-Founder of Perplexity AI, about his journey from studying AI and reinforcement learning at UC Berkeley to launching Perplexity – a startup that aims to revolutionize learning through the power of conversational searc...
May 08, 2023•1 hr•Season 1Ep. 115
Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/mlst Discord: https://discord.gg/ESrGqhf5CB Twitter: https://twitter.com/MLStreetTalk In this exclusive interview, Dr. Tim Scarfe sits down with Minqi Jiang, a leading PhD student at University College London and Meta AI, as they delve into the fascinating world of deep reinforcement learning (RL) and its impact on technology, startups, and research. Discover how Minqi made the crucial decision to pursue a PhD in this exciting field, and learn from his valuable s...
Apr 16, 2023•3 hr 47 min•Season 1Ep. 114
Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/mlst Discord: https://discord.gg/ESrGqhf5CB Twitter: https://twitter.com/MLStreetTalk Chris Eliasmith is a renowned interdisciplinary researcher, author, and professor at the University of Waterloo, where he holds the prestigious Canada Research Chair in Theoretical Neuroscience. As the Founding Director of the Centre for Theoretical Neuroscience, Eliasmith leads the Computational Neuroscience Research Group in exploring the mysteries of the brain and its complex...
Apr 10, 2023•2 hr 50 min•Season 1Ep. 113
Support us! https://www.patreon.com/mlst MLST Discord: https://discord.gg/aNPkGUQtc5 In this podcast with the legendary Connor Leahy (CEO Conjecture) recorded in Dec 2022, we discuss various topics related to artificial intelligence (AI), including AI alignment, the success of ChatGPT, the potential threats of artificial general intelligence (AGI), and the challenges of balancing research and product development at his company, Conjecture. He emphasizes the importance of empathy, dehumanizing ou...
Apr 02, 2023•3 hr 40 min•Season 1Ep. 112
Support us! https://www.patreon.com/mlst MLST Discord: https://discord.gg/aNPkGUQtc5 Send us a voice message which you want us to publish: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/machinelearningstreettalk/message In a recent open letter, over 1500 individuals called for a six-month pause on the development of advanced AI systems, expressing concerns over the potential risks AI poses to society and humanity. However, there are issues with this approach, including global competition, unstoppable p...
Apr 01, 2023•27 min•Season 1Ep. 111
HUGE ANNOUNCEMENT, CHATGPT+WOLFRAM! You saw it HERE first! YT version: https://youtu.be/z5WZhCBRDpU Support us! https://www.patreon.com/mlst MLST Discord: https://discord.gg/aNPkGUQtc5 Stephen's announcement post: https://writings.stephenwolfram.com/2023/03/chatgpt-gets-its-wolfram-superpowers/ OpenAI's announcement post: https://openai.com/blog/chatgpt-plugins In an era of technology and innovation, few individuals have left as indelible a mark on the fabric of modern science as our est...
Mar 23, 2023•57 min•Season 1Ep. 110
YT version: https://youtu.be/P1j3VoKBxbc (references in pinned comment) Support us! https://www.patreon.com/mlst MLST Discord: https://discord.gg/aNPkGUQtc5 Dan McQuillan, a visionary in digital culture and social innovation, emphasizes the importance of understanding technology's complex relationship with society. As an academic at Goldsmiths, University of London, he fosters interdisciplinary collaboration and champions data-driven equity and ethical technology. Dan's career includes r...
Mar 20, 2023•3 hr 51 min•Season 1Ep. 109
Support us! https://www.patreon.com/mlst MLST Discord: https://discord.gg/aNPkGUQtc5 We are honoured to welcome Dr. Joel Lehman, an eminent machine learning research scientist, whose work in AI safety, reinforcement learning, creative open-ended search algorithms, and indeed the philosophy of open-endedness and abandoning objectives has paved the way for innovative ideas that challenge our preconceptions and inspire new visions for the future. Dr. Lehman's thought-provoking book, "Why Gre...
Mar 16, 2023•2 hr 10 min•Season 1Ep. 108
Support us! https://www.patreon.com/mlst MLST Discord: https://discord.gg/aNPkGUQtc5 Dr. Raphaël Millière is the 2020 Robert A. Burt Presidential Scholar in Society and Neuroscience in the Center for Science and Society, and a Lecturer in the Philosophy Department at Columbia University. His research draws from his expertise in philosophy and cognitive science to explore the implications of recent progress in deep learning for models of human cognition, as well as various issues in ethics and ae...
Mar 13, 2023•2 hr 44 min•Season 1Ep. 107
This show is sponsored by Numerai, please visit them here with our sponsor link (we would really appreciate it) http://numer.ai/mlst Prof. Karl Friston recently proposed a vision of artificial intelligence that goes beyond machines and algorithms, and embraces humans and nature as part of a cyber-physical ecosystem of intelligence. This vision is based on the principle of active inference, which states that intelligent systems can learn from their observations and act on their environment ...
Mar 11, 2023•3 hr 59 min•Season 1Ep. 106
Access Numerai here: http://numer.ai/mlst Michael Oliver is the Chief Scientist at Numerai, a hedge fund that crowdsources machine learning models from data scientists. He has a PhD in Computational Neuroscience from UC Berkeley and was a postdoctoral researcher at the Allen Institute for Brain Science before joining Numerai in 2020. He is also the host of Numerai Quant Club, a YouTube series where he discusses Numerai’s research, data and challenges. YT version: https://youtu.be/61s8lLU7sFg TOC...
Mar 04, 2023•1 hr 21 min•Season 1Ep. 105
Support us! https://www.patreon.com/mlst MLST Discord: https://discord.gg/aNPkGUQtc5 Christopher Summerfield, Department of Experimental Psychology, University of Oxford is a Professor of Cognitive Neuroscience at the University of Oxford and a Research Scientist at Deepmind UK. His work focusses on the neural and computational mechanisms by which humans make decisions. Chris has just released an incredible new book on AI called "Natural General Intelligence". It's my favourite book on AI...
Feb 22, 2023•1 hr 29 min•Season 1Ep. 104
Support us! https://www.patreon.com/mlst MLST Discord: https://discord.gg/aNPkGUQtc5 YT: https://youtu.be/i9VPPmQn9HQ Edward Grefenstette is a Franco-American computer scientist who currently serves as Head of Machine Learning at Cohere and Honorary Professor at UCL. He has previously been a research scientist at Facebook AI Research and staff research scientist at DeepMind, and was also the CTO of Dark Blue Labs. Prior to his move to industry, Edward was a Fulford Junior Research Fellow a...
Feb 11, 2023•1 hr 2 min•Season 1Ep. 103
Support us! https://www.patreon.com/mlst MLST Discord: https://discord.gg/aNPkGUQtc5 YT: https://youtu.be/Vbi288CKgis Michael Levin is a Distinguished Professor in the Biology department at Tufts University, and the holder of the Vannevar Bush endowed Chair. He is the Director of the Allen Discovery Center at Tufts and the Tufts Center for Regenerative and Developmental Biology. His research focuses on understanding the biophysical mechanisms of pattern regulation and harnessing endogenous bioel...
Feb 11, 2023•55 min•Season 1Ep. 102
Dr. Patrick Lewis is a London-based AI and Natural Language Processing Research Scientist, working at co:here. Prior to this, Patrick worked as a research scientist at the Fundamental AI Research Lab (FAIR) at Meta AI. During his PhD, Patrick split his time between FAIR and University College London, working with Sebastian Riedel and Pontus Stenetorp. Patrick’s research focuses on the intersection of information retrieval techniques (IR) and large language models (LLMs). He has done extens...
Feb 10, 2023•26 min•Season 1Ep. 100
YT version (with references): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lxaTinmKxs0 Support us! https://www.patreon.com/mlst MLST Discord: https://discord.gg/aNPkGUQtc5 Carla Cremer and Igor Krawczuk argue that AI risk should be understood as an old problem of politics, power and control with known solutions, and that threat models should be driven by empirical work. The interaction between FTX and the Effective Altruism community has sparked a lot of discussion about the dangers of optimization, and Carl...
Feb 05, 2023•2 hr 40 min•Season 1Ep. 99
Support us! https://www.patreon.com/mlst MLST Discord: https://discord.gg/aNPkGUQtc5 YT version: https://youtu.be/YLNGvvgq3eg We are living in an age of rapid technological advancement, and with this growth comes a digital divide. Professor Luciano Floridi of the Oxford Internet Institute / Oxford University believes that this divide not only affects our understanding of the implications of this new age, but also the organization of a fair society. The Information Revolution has been trans...
Feb 03, 2023•1 hr 6 min•Season 1Ep. 98
Support us! https://www.patreon.com/mlst MLST Discord: https://discord.gg/aNPkGUQtc5 YT version: https://youtu.be/YLNGvvgq3eg (If music annoying, skip to main interview @ 14:14) We are living in an age of rapid technological advancement, and with this growth comes a digital divide. Professor Luciano Floridi of the Oxford Internet Institute / Oxford University believes that this divide not only affects our understanding of the implications of this new age, but also the organization of a fair soci...
Feb 03, 2023•1 hr 7 min•Season 1Ep. 98
Research has shown that humans possess strong inductive biases which enable them to quickly learn and generalize. In order to instill these same useful human inductive biases into machines, a paper was presented by Sreejan Kumar at the NeurIPS conference which won the Outstanding Paper of the Year award. The paper is called Using Natural Language and Program Abstractions to Instill Human Inductive Biases in Machines. This paper focuses on using a controlled stimulus space of two-dimensional bina...
Jan 28, 2023•25 min•Season 1Ep. 97
Pedro Domingos, Professor Emeritus of Computer Science and Engineering at the University of Washington, is renowned for his research in machine learning, particularly for his work on Markov logic networks that allow for uncertain inference. He is also the author of the acclaimed book "The Master Algorithm". Panel: Dr. Tim Scarfe TOC: [00:00:00] Introduction [00:01:34] Galaxtica / misinformation / gatekeeping [00:12:31] Is there a master algorithm? [00:16:29] Limits of our understanding [00...
Dec 30, 2022•3 hr 49 min•Season 1Ep. 96
Canadian Excellence Research Chair in Autonomous AI. Irina holds an MSc and PhD in AI from the University of California, Irvine as well as an MSc in Applied Mathematics from the Moscow Gubkin Institute. Her research focuses on machine learning, neural data analysis, and neuroscience-inspired AI. In particular, she is exploring continual lifelong learning, optimization algorithms for deep neural networks, sparse modelling and probabilistic inference, dialog generation, biologically plausible rein...
Dec 26, 2022•39 min•Season 1Ep. 95