The Gradient: Perspectives on AI

This episode features historian Benjamin Breen discussing the intersecting histories of psychedelics and AI research, exploring how historical perspectives on technological change can contextualize current debates about progress and apocalypse.

This episode features an interview with Kate Park about her work on data engines for AI systems, including her experience at Tesla Autopilot and Scale AI, focusing on how data quality drives machine learning performance.

This episode features Nathan Benaich discussing AI trends from 2024, insights from the State of AI report, and investment strategies at Airstreet Capital.

This episode features an interview with Iason Gabriel, who leads ethics research at DeepMind, discussing his work on value alignment, pluralistic approaches to AI ethics, language ethics, distributive justice, and the societal impacts of advanced AI systems.

This episode features an interview with philosopher Philip Goff discussing panpsychism, the theory that consciousness is a fundamental and ubiquitous aspect of the natural world, including its advantages over dualism and physicalism.

The hosts discuss upcoming changes to The Gradient, including its history and current challenges due to founders transitioning from grad school to full-time work.

This episode features an interview with Sasha Luccioni from Hugging Face about the environmental and social impacts of AI, including carbon emissions from large models and ethical considerations.

This interview explores Kristin Lauter's work in cryptography, homomorphic encryption standards, and the intersection of AI with cryptography, focusing on private AI and encrypted data training.

This episode features an interview with Davida Dalrymple, program director at ARIA, discussing the Safeguarded AI program's goal of achieving provably safe AI and exploring Dalrymple's background in whole brain emulation and optimistic forecasting tendencies.

This episode features an interview with Judy Fawn about her research on how humans use physical representations like sketches as cognitive tools for learning, communication, and problem-solving.

This episode features an interview with Suhail Doshi about his AI-powered graphics editor Playground AI, exploring its impact on the artistic community and his perspectives on undervalued aspects of the AI field.

This interview with technology critic Michael Tsikasas explores how technology shapes our moral formation and engagement with the world, particularly in the context of AI and recorded media.

This episode explores how games shape our values and agency, featuring philosopher C.

This episode explores the debate around whether large language models truly reason or merely perform approximate retrieval, featuring insights from Subbarao Kambhampati on planning, reasoning, and interpretability in AI.

This interview explores Thomas Mullaney's work on the global history of information technology, focusing on his books about Chinese typewriters and computers.

This episode explores philosophical questions about whether language models can truly refer and have propositional attitudes, featuring an interview with philosopher Harvey Lederman.

This episode features an interview with Venkatesh Rao exploring how AI challenges our understanding of intelligence, personhood, and the importance of protocols and multi-agent systems in shaping our technological future.

This episode features an interview with NLP researcher Sasha Rush discussing the evolution of natural language processing, current challenges like attention mechanisms, and his work on text generation and efficient algorithms.

This episode introduces the 100th milestone of The Gradient Podcast, highlighting its volunteer-run nature and focus on deep AI discussions with experts like Thomas Dietterich, while encouraging listener support and feedback.

This interview explores Meredith Ringel Morris's research journey from classic HCI to AI, influenced by mentors like Terry Winograd, and how her background shapes her current perspective on generative AI systems.

This is an interview with philosopher Pete Wolfendale discussing his critical review of Will MacAskill's long-termist ideas in 'What We Owe the Future' and exploring broader philosophical topics.

Daniel interviews researcher David Pfau about his work applying machine learning to computational physics and connections between differential geometry and unsupervised learning.

This episode features an interview with Quilter founder Sergiy Nesterenko about automating circuit board design to accelerate electronics innovation.

This episode features an interview with philosopher Seth Lazar about his normative philosophy of computing, focusing on how political philosophy can inform AI development, catastrophic risk assessment, and creating systems for a better society.

This episode features an interview with technologist Azeem Azhar discussing wide-ranging topics in technology and AI analysis through his platform Exponential View.

This episode features an interview with statistician Ryan Tibshirani, exploring his work in statistics, nonparametric regression, and conformal prediction, as well as his reflections on the relationship between statistics and AI.

This episode features an interview with MIT professor Michael Sipser about his work in the theory of computation, including his textbook and the P versus NP problem.

Vivek Natarajan discusses the development of AI systems to expand clinical knowledge access and create practical AI doctors, motivated by healthcare inequalities in underserved regions like India.

This episode features an interview with Nicholas Thompson, CEO of The Atlantic, discussing the impact of AI on journalism and writing, along with insights into his career and perspectives on the human elements of the field.

This episode features an interview with MIT professor Ted Gibson exploring why language has developed its specific features like grammatical structure and ambiguity, and how this relates to AI and language models.

This episode features an interview with David Thorstad discussing bounded rationality and his critical perspective on longtermism, exploring how human cognitive limitations affect economic models and philosophical thinking.

This interview explores the research approaches and collaborative dynamics of theoretical computer scientists Manuel and Lenore Blum, focusing on their prolific careers and mentorship.

This episode features an interview with philosopher Kevin Dorst, who challenges the dominant narrative in psychology that human thinking is inherently irrational and biased, arguing instead for a more nuanced view of rationality and epistemic empathy.

This episode features an interview with roboticist Eric Jang discussing his perspective on developing AGI systems, his recent book 'AI is Good for You', and his work at 1X.

This episode features an interview with MIT professor Jacob Andreas about his evolving perspectives on language as a computational tool, his transition away from being a 'grounding fundamentalist', and how this shapes his current thinking about world models and the relationship between language and reality.

This episode features a discussion with Nathan Benaich about key trends in AI during 2023, including research, industry dynamics, open source movements, chip demand, and regulatory developments.

This episode features an interview with Andrew Lee about how his startup Shortwave is using AI and LLMs to innovate and improve the email experience.

This episode features an interview with Dr.

This episode features an interview with Dan Hart and Michelle Michael about NSW-EDU Chat, an AI-powered chatbot developed by the New South Wales Department of Education to support students and teachers.

This episode features an interview with Joss Fong about her work in science communication through video production, her development of the explainer video format at Vox, and how AI is impacting the craft of video making.

This episode features an interview with cognitive neuroscientist Peter Tse exploring the neuroscience of consciousness, free will, and how these topics intersect with AI research.

This episode features an interview with Ben Wellington, discussing machine learning applications in quantitative finance at Two Sigma and his data science work influencing New York City policy through iQuantNY.

This episode features an interview with technology journalist Clive Thompson, exploring his unique perspective on technology's evolution and consequences, including his early writings on AI challenges like automated grading.

This episode features a discussion with Nathan Benaich about key AI developments in 2024, including the State of AI report and the OpenAI O3 announcement.

An interview with Peter Lee, president of Microsoft Research, discussing his career across academia, government, and industry, and his perspectives on computing theory, AI development, and research responsibility.

This episode features an interview with researchers Cameron Jones and Sean Trott discussing their cognitive science and linguistics-based investigation into whether large language models truly understand language and possess theory of mind.

This episode features an interview with Russ Maschmeyer about his work at Shopify exploring how AI and spatial commerce technologies create immersive shopping experiences.

This episode features an interview with journalist Evan Ratliff about his experiment creating an AI voice clone of himself and his reflections on his career in longform journalism.

This episode features Vera Liao discussing the importance of explainability and transparency in AI systems, emphasizing a human-centered approach to design.

This episode features an interview with Martin Wattenberg, exploring his work on ML visualization and interpretability tools, from his early interactive journalism to current AI research at Harvard and Google.