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PODCAST

The Gradient: Perspectives on AI

Deeply researched, technical interviews with experts thinking about AI and technology. thegradientpub.substack.com

technology

All Episodes

108:43

2024 in AI, with Nathan Benaich

The Gradient: Perspectives on AI ·

2024/12/26

Episode 142Happy holidays! This is one of my favorite episodes of the year — for the third time, Nathan Benaich and I did our yearly roundup of all the AI news and advancements you need to know. This includes selections from this year’s State of AI Report, some early takes on o3, a few minutes LARPing as China Guys……… If you’ve stuck around and continue to listen, I’m really thankful you’re here. I love hearing from you. You can find Nathan and Air Street Press here on Substack and on Twitter,

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60:04

Philip Goff: Panpsychism as a Theory of Consciousness

The Gradient: Perspectives on AI ·

2024/12/12

Episode 141I spoke with Professor Philip Goff about:* What a “post-Galilean” science of consciousness looks like* How panpsychism helps explain consciousness and the hybrid cosmopsychist viewEnjoy!Philip Goff is a British author, idealist philosopher, and professor at Durham University whose research focuses on philosophy of mind and consciousness. Specifically, it focuses on how consciousness can be part of the scientific worldview. He is the author of multiple books including Consciousness and

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34:25

Some Changes at The Gradient

The Gradient: Perspectives on AI ·

2024/11/21

Hi everyone!If you’re a new subscriber or listener, welcome. If you’re not new, you’ve probably noticed that things have slowed down from us a bit recently. Hugh Zhang, Andrey Kurenkov and I sat down to recap some of The Gradient’s history, where we are now, and how things will look going forward. To summarize and give some context:The Gradient has been around for around 6 years now – we began as an online magazine, and began producing our own newsletter and podcast about 4 years ago. With a team of

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112:43

Jacob Andreas: Language, Grounding, and World Models

The Gradient: Perspectives on AI ·

2024/10/10

Episode 140I spoke with Professor Jacob Andreas about:* Language and the world* World models* How he’s developed as a scientistEnjoy!Jacob is an associate professor at MIT in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science as well as the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory. His research aims to understand the computational foundations of language learning, and to build intelligent systems that can learn from human guidance. Jacob earned his Ph.D. from UC Berkeley,

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79:59

Evan Ratliff: Our Future with Voice Agents

The Gradient: Perspectives on AI ·

2024/09/26

Episode 139I spoke with Evan Ratliff about:* Shell Game, Evan’s new podcast, where he creates an AI voice clone of himself and sets it loose. * The end of the Longform Podcast and his thoughts on the state of journalism. Enjoy!Evan is an award-winning investigative journalist, bestselling author, podcast host, and entrepreneur. He’s the author of the The Mastermind: A True Story of Murder, Empire, and a New Kind of Crime Lord; the writer and host of the hit podcasts Shell Game and Persona: The

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97:45

Meredith Ringel Morris: Generative AI's HCI Moment

The Gradient: Perspectives on AI ·

2024/09/12

Episode 138I spoke with Meredith Morris about:* The intersection of AI and HCI and why we need more cross-pollination between AI and adjacent fields* Disability studies and AI* Generative ghosts and technological determinism* Developing a useful definition of AGII didn’t get to record an intro for this episode since I’ve been sick. Enjoy!Meredith is Director for Human-AI Interaction Research for Google DeepMind and an Affiliate Professor in The Paul G. Allen School of Computer Science & Engineering

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80:50

Davidad Dalrymple: Towards Provably Safe AI

The Gradient: Perspectives on AI ·

2024/09/05

Episode 137I spoke with Davidad Dalrymple about:* His perspectives on AI risk* ARIA (the UK’s Advanced Research and Invention Agency) and its Safeguarded AI ProgrammeEnjoy—and let me know what you think!Davidad is a Programme Director at ARIA. He was most recently a Research Fellow in technical AI safety at Oxford. He co-invented the top-40 cryptocurrency Filecoin, led an international neuroscience collaboration, and was a senior software engineer at Twitter and multiple startups.Find me on Twitter

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147:35

Clive Thompson: Tales of Technology

The Gradient: Perspectives on AI ·

2024/08/29

Episode 136I spoke with Clive Thompson about:* How he writes* Writing about the climate and biking across the US* Technology culture and persistent debates in AI* PoetryEnjoy—and let me know what you think!Clive is a journalist who writes about science and technology. He is a contributing writer forWired magazine, and is currently writing his next book about micromobility and cycling across the US.Find me on Twitter for updates on new episodes, and reach me at editor@thegradient.pub for feedback,

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92:39

Judy Fan: Reverse Engineering the Human Cognitive...

The Gradient: Perspectives on AI ·

2024/08/22

Episode 136I spoke with Judy Fan about:* Our use of physical artifacts for sensemaking* Why cognitive tools can be a double-edged sword* Her approach to scientific inquiry and how that approach has developedEnjoy—and let me know what you think!Judy is Assistant Professor of Psychology at Stanford and director of the Cognitive Tools Lab. Her lab employs converging approaches from cognitive science, computational neuroscience, and artificial intelligence to reverse engineer the human cognitive

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107:20

L.M. Sacasas: The Questions Concerning Technology

The Gradient: Perspectives on AI ·

2024/08/15

Episode 135I spoke with L. M. Sacasas about:* His writing and intellectual influences* The value of asking hard questions about technology and our relationship to it* What happens when we decide to outsource skills and competency* Evolving notions of what it means to be human and questions about how to live a good lifeEnjoy—and let me know what you think!Michael is Executive Director of the Christian Study Center of Gainesville, Florida and author of The Convivial Society, a newsletter about

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172:57

Pete Wolfendale: The Revenge of Reason

The Gradient: Perspectives on AI ·

2024/08/08

Episode 134I spoke with Pete Wolfendale about:* The flaws in longtermist thinking* Selections from his new book, The Revenge of Reason* Metaphysics* What philosophy has to say about reason and AIEnjoy—and let me know what you think!Pete is an independent philosopher based in Newcastle. Dr. Wolfendale got both his undergraduate degree and his Ph.D in Philosophy at the University of Warwick. His Ph.D thesis offered a re-examination of the Heideggerian Seinsfrage, arguing that Heideggerian scholarship

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61:48

Peter Lee: Computing Theory and Practice, and GPT-4's...

The Gradient: Perspectives on AI ·

2024/08/01

Episode 133I spoke with Peter Lee about:* His early work on compiler generation, metacircularity, and type theory* Paradoxical problems* GPT-4s impact, Microsoft’s “Sparks of AGI” paper, and responses and criticismEnjoy—and let me know what you think!Peter is President of Microsoft Research. He leads Microsoft Research and incubates new research-powered products and lines of business in areas such as artificial intelligence, computing foundations, health, and life sciences. Before joining Microsoft

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143:04

Manuel & Lenore Blum: The Conscious Turing Machine

The Gradient: Perspectives on AI ·

2024/07/25

Episode 132I spoke with Manuel and Lenore Blum about:* Their early influences and mentors* The Conscious Turing Machine and what theoretical computer science can tell us about consciousnessEnjoy—and let me know what you think!Manuel is a pioneer in the field of theoretical computer science and the winner of the 1995 Turing Award in recognition of his contributions to the foundations of computational complexity theory and its applications to cryptography and program checking, a mathematical approach

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135:21

Kevin Dorst: Against Irrationalist Narratives

The Gradient: Perspectives on AI ·

2024/07/18

Episode 131I spoke with Professor Kevin Dorst about:* Subjective Bayesianism and epistemology foundations* What happens when you’re uncertain about your evidence* Why it’s rational for people to polarize on political mattersEnjoy—and let me know what you think!Kevin is an Associate Professor in the Department of Linguistics and Philosophy at MIT. He works at the border between philosophy and social science, focusing on rationality.Find me on Twitter for updates on new episodes, and reach me at

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120:52

David Pfau: Manifold Factorization and AI for Science

The Gradient: Perspectives on AI ·

2024/07/11

Episode 130I spoke with David Pfau about:* Spectral learning and ML* Learning to disentangle manifolds and (projective) representation theory* Deep learning for computational quantum mechanics* Picking and pursuing research problems and directionsDavid’s work is really (times k for some very large value of k) interesting—I’ve been inspired to descend a number of rabbit holes because of it. (if you listen to this episode, you might become as cool as this guy)While I’m at it — I’m still hovering

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73:54

Dan Hart and Michelle Michael: Bringing AI to...

The Gradient: Perspectives on AI ·

2024/07/04

Episode 129I spoke with Dan Hart and Michelle Michael about:* Developing NSWEduChat, an AI-powered chatbot designed and delivered by the NSW Department of Education for students and teachers.* The challenges in effectively teaching students as technology develops* Understanding and defining the importance of the classroomEnjoy—and let me know what you think!Dan Hart is Head of AI, and Michelle Michael is Director of Educational Support and Rural Initiatives at the New South Wales (NSW) Department of

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77:13

Kristin Lauter: Private AI, Homomorphic Encryption,...

The Gradient: Perspectives on AI ·

2024/06/27

Episode 129I spoke with Kristin Lauter about:* Elliptic curve cryptography and homomorphic encryption* Standardizing cryptographic protocols* Machine Learning on encrypted data* Attacking post-quantum cryptography with AIEnjoy—and let me know what you think!Kristin is Senior Director of FAIR Labs North America (2022—present), based in Seattle. Her current research areas are AI4Crypto and Private AI. She joined FAIR (Facebook AI Research) in 2021, after 22 years at Microsoft Research (MSR). At MSR

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63:35

Sergiy Nesterenko: Automating Circuit Board Design

The Gradient: Perspectives on AI ·

2024/06/20

Episode 128I spoke with Sergiy Nesterenko about:* Developing an automated system for designing PCBs* Difficulties in human and automated PCB design* Building a startup at the intersection of different areas of expertiseBy the way — I hit 40 ratings on Apple Podcasts (and am at 66 on Spotify). It’d mean a lot (really, a lot) if you’d consider leaving a rating or a review. I read everything, and it’s very heartening and helpful to hear what you think. Enjoy, and let me know what you think!Sergiy is

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90:13

C. Thi Nguyen: Values, Legibility, and Gamification

The Gradient: Perspectives on AI ·

2024/06/13

Episode 127I spoke with Christopher Thi Nguyen about:* How we lose control of our values* The tradeoffs of legibility, aggregation, and simplification* Gamification and its risksEnjoy—and let me know what you think!C. Thi Nguyen as of July 2020 is Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of Utah. His research focuses on how social structures and technology can shape our rationality and our agency. He has published on trust, expertise, group agency, community art, cultural appropriation,

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115:03

Vivek Natarajan: Towards Biomedical AI

The Gradient: Perspectives on AI ·

2024/06/06

Episode 126I spoke with Vivek Natarajan about:* Improving access to medical knowledge with AI* How an LLM for medicine should behave* Aspects of training Med-PaLM and AMIE* How to facilitate appropriate amounts of trust in users of medical AI systemsVivek Natarajan is a Research Scientist at Google Health AI advancing biomedical AI to help scale world class healthcare to everyone. Vivek is particularly interested in building large language models and multimodal foundation models for biomedical

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147 results

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