Waymo’s mission is to make it safe and easy for people and things to get where they’re going. After describing the state of the industry, Drago Anguelov - Principal Scientist and Head of Research at Waymo - takes us on a deep dive into the world of AI-powered autonomous driving. Starting with Waymo’s approach to autonomous driving, Drago then delights Daniel and Chris with a tour of the algorithmic tools in the autonomy toolbox. Join the discussion Changelog++ members get a bonus 2 minutes at th...
Sep 01, 2020•1 hr 1 min•Ep. 103
Hilary Mason is building a new way for kids and families to create stories with AI. It’s called Hidden Door , and in her first interview since founding it, Hilary reveals to Chris and Daniel what the experience will be like for kids. It’s the first Practical AI episode in which some of the questions came from Chris’s 8yo daughter Athena. Hilary also shares her insights into various topics, like how to build data science communities during the COVID-19 Pandemic, reasons why data science goes wron...
Aug 24, 2020•56 min•Ep. 102
Everyone working in data science and AI knows about Anaconda and has probably “conda” installed something. But how did Anaconda get started and what are they working on now? Peter Wang, CEO of Anaconda and creator of PyData and popular packages like Bokeh and DataShader, joins us to discuss that and much more. Peter gives some great insights on the Python AI ecosystem and very practical advice for scaling up your data science operation. Join the discussion Changelog++ members get a bonus 2 minut...
Aug 17, 2020•59 min•Ep. 101
We made it to 100 episodes of Practical AI! It has been a privilege to have had so many great guests and discussions about everything from AGI to GPUs to AI for good. In this episode, we circle back to the beginning when Jerod and Adam from The Changelog helped us kick off the podcast. We discuss how our perspectives have changed over time, what it has been like to host an AI podcast, and what the future of AI might look like. ( GIVEAWAY! ) Join the discussion Changelog++ members get a bonus 2 m...
Aug 11, 2020•1 hr 10 min•Ep. 100
Come hang with the bad boys of natural language processing (NLP)! Jack Morris joins Daniel and Chris to talk about TextAttack, a Python framework for adversarial attacks, data augmentation, and model training in NLP. TextAttack will improve your understanding of your NLP models, so come prepared to rumble with your own adversarial attacks! Join the discussion Changelog++ members get a bonus 2 minutes at the end of this episode and zero ads. Join today! Sponsors: Linode – Our cloud of choice and ...
Aug 03, 2020•48 min•Ep. 99
Sash Rush, of Cornell Tech and Hugging Face, catches us up on all the things happening with Hugging Face and transformers. Last time we had Clem from Hugging Face on the show (episode 35), their transformers library wasn’t even a thing yet. Oh how things have changed! This time Sasha tells us all about Hugging Face’s open source NLP work, gives us an intro to the key components of transformers, and shares his perspective on the future of AI research conferences. Join the discussion Changelog++ m...
Jul 27, 2020•47 min•Ep. 98
DevOps for deep learning is well… different. You need to track both data and code, and you need to run multiple different versions of your code for long periods of time on accelerated hardware. Allegro AI is helping data scientists manage these workflows with their open source MLOps solution called Trains . Nir Bar-Lev, Allegro’s CEO, joins us to discuss their approach to MLOps and how to make deep learning development more robust. Join the discussion Changelog++ members save 3 minutes on this e...
Jul 20, 2020•51 min•Ep. 97
The multidisciplinary field of AI Ethics is brand new, and is currently being pioneered by a relatively small number of leading AI organizations and academic institutions around the world. AI Ethics focuses on ensuring that unexpected outcomes from AI technology implementations occur as rarely as possible. Daniel and Chris discuss strategies for how to arrive at AI ethical principles suitable for your own organization, and what is involved in implementing those strategies in the real world. Tune...
Jul 14, 2020•53 min•Ep. 96
Daniel and Chris get you Fully-Connected with open source software for artificial intelligence. In addition to defining what open source is, they discuss where to find open source tools and data, and how you can contribute back to the open source AI community. Join the discussion Changelog++ members support our work, get closer to the metal, and make the ads disappear. Join today! Sponsors: Linode – Our cloud of choice and the home of Changelog.com. Deploy a fast, efficient, native SSD cloud ser...
Jul 07, 2020•47 min•Ep. 95
A lot of effort is put into the training of AI models, but, for those of us that actually want to run AI models in production, performance and scaling quickly become blockers. Nikita from MemSQL joins us to talk about how people are integrating ML/AI inference at scale into existing SQL-based workflows. He also touches on how model features and raw files can be managed and integrated with distributed databases. Join the discussion Changelog++ members support our work, get closer to the metal, an...
Jun 29, 2020•54 min•Ep. 94
This full connected has it all: news, updates on AI/ML tooling, discussions about AI workflow, and learning resources. Chris and Daniel breakdown the various roles to be played in AI development including scoping out a solution, finding AI value, experimentation, and more technical engineering tasks. They also point out some good resources for exploring bias in your data/model and monitoring for fairness. Join the discussion Changelog++ members support our work, get closer to the metal, and make...
Jun 22, 2020•50 min•Ep. 93
Daniel and Chris go beyond the current state of the art in deep learning to explore the next evolutions in artificial intelligence. From Yoshua Bengio’s NeurIPS keynote, which urges us forward towards System 2 deep learning, to DARPA’s vision of a 3rd Wave of AI, Chris and Daniel investigate the incremental steps between today’s AI and possible future manifestations of artificial general intelligence (AGI). Join the discussion Changelog++ members support our work, get closer to the metal, and ma...
Jun 15, 2020•50 min•Ep. 92
The CEO of Darwin AI, Sheldon Fernandez, joins Daniel to discuss generative synthesis and its connection to explainability. You might have heard of AutoML and meta-learning. Well, generative synthesis tackles similar problems from a different angle and results in compact, explainable networks. This episode is fascinating and very timely. Join the discussion Changelog++ members support our work, get closer to the metal, and make the ads disappear. Join today! Sponsors: Linode – Our cloud of choic...
Jun 08, 2020•47 min•Ep. 91
On the heels of NVIDIA’s latest announcements, Daniel and Chris explore how the new NVIDIA Ampere architecture evolves the high-performance computing (HPC) landscape for artificial intelligence. After investigating the new specifications of the NVIDIA A100 Tensor Core GPU, Chris and Daniel turn their attention to the data center with the NVIDIA DGX A100, and then finish their journey at “the edge” with the NVIDIA EGX A100 and the NVIDIA Jetson Xavier NX. Join the discussion Changelog++ members s...
May 26, 2020•53 min•Ep. 90
Chandler McCann tells Daniel and Chris about how DataRobot engaged in a project to develop sustainable water solutions with the Global Water Challenge (GWC). They analyzed over 500,000 data points to predict future water point breaks. This enabled African governments to make data-driven decisions related to budgeting, preventative maintenance, and policy in order to promote and protect people’s access to safe water for drinking and washing. From this effort sprang DataRobot’s larger AI for Good ...
May 11, 2020•43 min•Ep. 89
Daniel and Chris get you Fully-Connected with AI questions from listeners and online forums: What do you think is the next big thing? What are CNNs? How does one start developing an AI-enabled business solution? What tools do you use every day? What will AI replace? And more… Join the discussion Changelog++ members support our work, get closer to the metal, and make the ads disappear. Join today! Sponsors: DigitalOcean – DigitalOcean’s developer cloud makes it simple to launch in the cloud and s...
May 04, 2020•51 min•Ep. 88
Daniel and Chris have a fascinating discussion with Anna Goldie and Azalia Mirhoseini from Google Brain about the use of reinforcement learning for chip floor planning - or placement - in which many new designs are generated, and then evaluated, to find an optimal component layout. Anna and Azalia also describe the use of graph convolutional neural networks in their approach. Join the discussion Changelog++ members support our work, get closer to the metal, and make the ads disappear. Join today...
Apr 27, 2020•45 min•Ep. 87
In the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, Daniel and Chris have a timely conversation with Lucy Lu Wang of the Allen Institute for Artificial Intelligence about COVID-19 Open Research Dataset (CORD-19). She relates how CORD-19 was created and organized, and how researchers around the world are currently using the data to answer important COVID-19 questions that will help the world through this ongoing crisis. Join the discussion Changelog++ members support our work, get closer to the metal, and mak...
Apr 20, 2020•44 min•Ep. 86
AI legend Stuart Russell, the Berkeley professor who leads the Center for Human-Compatible AI , joins Chris to share his insights into the future of artificial intelligence. Stuart is the author of Human Compatible , and the upcoming 4th edition of his perennial classic Artificial Intelligence: A Modern Approach , which is widely regarded as the standard text on AI. After exposing the shortcomings inherent in deep learning, Stuart goes on to propose a new practitioner approach to creating AI tha...
Apr 13, 2020•53 min•Ep. 85
So many AI developers are coming up with creative, useful COVID-19 applications during this time of crisis. Among those are Timo from Deepset-AI and Tony from Intel. They are working on a question answering system for pandemic-related questions called COVID-QA. In this episode, they describe the system, related annotation of the CORD-19 data set, and ways that you can contribute! Join the discussion Changelog++ members support our work, get closer to the metal, and make the ads disappear. Join t...
Apr 06, 2020•54 min•Ep. 84
Daniel Wilson and Rob Fletcher of ESRI hang with Chris and Daniel to chat about how AI powered modern geographic information systems (GIS) and location intelligence. They illuminate the various models used for GIS, spatial analysis, remote sensing, real-time visualization, and 3D analytics. You don’t want to miss the part about their work for the DoD’s Joint AI Center in humanitarian assistance / disaster relief. Join the discussion Changelog++ members support our work, get closer to the metal, ...
Mar 30, 2020•50 min•Ep. 83
Practical AI is a weekly podcast that’s marking artificial intelligence practical, productive, and accessible to everyone. If world of AI affects your daily life, this show is for you. From the practitioner wanting to keep up with the latest tools & trends… (clip from episode #68 ) To the AI curious trying to understand the concepts at play and their implications on our lives… (clip from episode #39 ) Expert hosts Chris Benson and Daniel Whitenack are here to keep you fully-connected with th...
Mar 25, 2020•2 min
Catherine Breslin of Cobalt joins Daniel and Chris to do a deep dive on speech recognition. She also discusses how the technology is integrated into virtual assistants (like Alexa) and is used in other non-assistant contexts (like transcription and captioning). Along the way, she teaches us how to assemble a lexicon, acoustic model, and language model to bring speech recognition to life. Join the discussion Changelog++ members support our work, get closer to the metal, and make the ads disappear...
Mar 23, 2020•49 min•Ep. 82
Emily Robinson, co-author of the book Build a Career in Data Science , gives us the inside scoop about optimizing the data science job search. From creating one’s resume, cover letter, and portfolio to knowing how to recognize the right job at a fair compensation rate. Emily’s expert guidance takes us from the beginning of the process to conclusion, including being successful during your early days in that fantastic new data science position. Join the discussion Changelog++ members support our w...
Mar 16, 2020•51 min•Ep. 81
Matt Brems from General Assembly joins us to explain what “data science” actually means these days and how that has changed over time. He also gives us some insight into how people are going about data science education, how AI fits into the data science workflow, and how to differentiate yourself career-wise. Join the discussion Changelog++ members support our work, get closer to the metal, and make the ads disappear. Join today! Sponsors: DigitalOcean – DigitalOcean’s developer cloud makes it ...
Mar 09, 2020•49 min•Ep. 80
Craig Wiley, from Google Cloud, joins us to discuss various pieces of the TensorFlow ecosystem along with TensorFlow Enterprise. He sheds light on how enterprises are utilizing AI and supporting AI-driven applications in the Cloud. He also clarifies Google’s relationship to TensorFlow and explains how TensorFlow development is impacting Google Cloud Platform. Join the discussion Changelog++ members support our work, get closer to the metal, and make the ads disappear. Join today! Sponsors: Digit...
Mar 02, 2020•48 min•Ep. 79
Expanding AI technology to the local languages of emerging markets presents huge challenges. Good data is scarce or non-existent. Users often have bandwidth or connectivity issues. Existing platforms target only a small number of high-resource languages. Our own Daniel Whitenack (data scientist at SIL International) and Dan Jeffries (from Pachyderm) discuss how these and related problems will only be solved when AI technology and resources from industry are combined with linguistic expertise fro...
Feb 24, 2020•55 min•Ep. 78
Daniel and Chris hang out with Mike McCourt from Invoca to learn about the natural language processing model architectures underlying Signal AI . Mike shares how they process conversational data, the challenges they have to overcome, and the types of insights that can be harvested. Join the discussion Changelog++ members support our work, get closer to the metal, and make the ads disappear. Join today! Sponsors: Linode – Our cloud of choice and the home of Changelog.com. Deploy a fast, efficient...
Feb 17, 2020•52 min•Ep. 77
Daniel and Chris explore Semantic Scholar with Doug Raymond of the Allen Institute for Artificial Intelligence. Semantic Scholar is an AI-backed search engine that uses machine learning, natural language processing, and machine vision to surface relevant information from scientific papers. Join the discussion Changelog++ members support our work, get closer to the metal, and make the ads disappear. Join today! Featuring: Douglas Raymond – GitHub , LinkedIn , X Chris Benson – Website , GitHub , L...
Feb 10, 2020•43 min•Ep. 76
Daniel and Chris do a deep dive into The AI Index 2019 Annual Report , which provides unbiased rigorously-vetted data that one can use “to develop intuitions about the complex field of AI”. Analyzing everything from R&D and technical advancements to education, the economy, and societal considerations, Chris and Daniel lay out this comprehensive report’s key insights about artificial intelligence. Join the discussion Changelog++ members support our work, get closer to the metal, and make the ...
Feb 03, 2020•45 min•Ep. 75
