
*Bonus Episode* A Quantum Machine Learning Algorithm Takedown with Ewin Tang - TWiML Talk #246
In this special bonus episode of the podcast, I’m joined by Ewin Tang, a PhD student in the Theoretical Computer Science group at the University of Washington. In our conversation, Ewin and I dig into her paper “A quantum-inspired classical algorithm for recommendation systems,” which took the quantum computing community by storm last summer. We haven’t called out a Nerd-Alert interview in a long time, but this interview inspired us to dust off that designation, so get your notepad ready!
1 Huhti 201940min

Supporting TensorFlow at Airbnb with Alfredo Luque - TWiML Talk #244
Today we're joined by Alfredo Luque, a software engineer on the machine infrastructure team at Airbnb. If you’re interested in AI Platforms and ML infrastructure, you probably remember my interview with Airbnb’s Atul Kale, in which we discussed their Bighead platform. In my conversation with Alfredo, we dig a bit deeper into Bighead’s support for TensorFlow, discuss a recent image categorization challenge they solved with the framework, and explore what the new 2.0 release means for their users.
28 Maalis 201940min

Mining the Vatican Secret Archives with TensorFlow w/ Elena Nieddu - TWiML Talk #243
Today we’re joined by Elena Nieddu, Phd Student at Roma Tre University, who presented on her project “In Codice Ratio” at the TF Dev Summit. In our conversation, Elena provides an overview of the project, which aims to annotate and transcribe Vatican secret archive documents via machine learning. We discuss the many challenges associated with transcribing this vast archive of handwritten documents, including overcoming the high cost of data annotation.
27 Maalis 201943min

Exploring TensorFlow 2.0 with Paige Bailey - TWiML Talk #242
Today we're joined by Paige Bailey, TensorFlow developer advocate at Google, to discuss the TensorFlow 2.0 alpha release. Paige and I talk through the latest TensorFlow updates, including the evolution of the TensorFlow APIs and the role of eager mode, tf.keras and tf.function, the evolution of TensorFlow for Swift and its inclusion in the new fast.ai course, new updates to TFX (or TensorFlow Extended), Google’s end-to-end ML platform, the emphasis on community collaboration with TF 2.0, and more.
25 Maalis 201939min

Privacy-Preserving Decentralized Data Science with Andrew Trask - TWiML Talk #241
Today we’re joined by Andrew Trask, PhD student at the University of Oxford and Leader of the OpenMined Project, an open-source community focused on researching, developing, and promoting tools for secure, privacy-preserving, value-aligned artificial intelligence. We dig into why OpenMined is important, exploring some of the basic research and technologies supporting Private, Decentralized Data Science, including ideas such as Differential Privacy,and Secure Multi-Party Computation.
21 Maalis 201933min

The Unreasonable Effectiveness of the Forget Gate with Jos Van Der Westhuizen - TWiML Talk #240
Today we’re joined by Jos Van Der Westhuizen, PhD student in Engineering at Cambridge University. Jos’ research focuses on applying LSTMs, or Long Short-Term Memory neural networks, to biological data for various tasks. In our conversation, we discuss his paper "The unreasonable effectiveness of the forget gate," in which he explores the various “gates” that make up an LSTM module and the general impact of getting rid of gates on the computational intensity of training the networks.
18 Maalis 201932min

Building a Recommendation Agent for The North Face with Andrew Guldman - TWiML Talk #239
Today we’re joined by Andrew Guldman, VP of Product Engineering and R&D at Fluid to discuss Fluid XPS, a user experience built to help the casual shopper decide on the best product choices during online retail interactions. We specifically discuss its origins as a product to assist outerwear retailer The North Face. In our conversation, we discuss their use of heat-sink algorithms and graph databases, challenges associated with staying on top of a constantly changing landscape, and more!
14 Maalis 201947min

Active Learning for Materials Design with Kevin Tran - TWiML Talk #238
Today we’re joined by Kevin Tran, PhD student at Carnegie Mellon University. In our conversation, we explore the challenges surrounding the creation of renewable energy fuel cells, which is discussed in his recent Nature paper “Active learning across intermetallics to guide discovery of electrocatalysts for CO2 reduction and H2 evolution.” The AI Conference is returning to New York in April and we have one FREE conference pass for a lucky listener! Visit twimlai.com/ainygiveaway to enter!
11 Maalis 201933min