Gradient Dissent: Conversations on AI

From teaching at Stanford to co-founding Coursera, insitro, and Engageli, Daphne Koller reflects on the importance of education, giving back, and cross-functional research. Daphne Koller is the founder and CEO of insitro, a company using machine learning to rethink drug discovery and development. She is a MacArthur Fellowship recipient, member of the National Academy of Engineering, member of the American Academy of Arts and Science, and has been a Professor in the Department of Computer Science at Stanford University. In 2012, Daphne co-founded Coursera, one of the world's largest online education platforms. She is also a co-founder of Engageli, a digital platform designed to optimize student success. https://www.insitro.com/ https://www.insitro.com/jobs https://www.engageli.com/ https://www.coursera.org/ Follow Daphne on Twitter: https://twitter.com/DaphneKoller https://www.linkedin.com/in/daphne-koller-4053a820/ Topics covered: 0:00​ Giving back and intro 2:10​ insitro's mission statement and Eroom's Law 3:21​ The drug discovery process and how ML helps 10:05​ Protein folding 15:48​ From 2004 to now, what's changed? 22:09​ On the availability of biology and vision datasets 26:17​ Cross-functional collaboration at insitro 28:18​ On teaching and founding Coursera 31:56​ The origins of Engageli 36:38​ Probabilistic graphic models 39:33​ Most underrated topic in ML 43:43​ Biggest day-to-day challenges Get our podcast on these other platforms: Apple Podcasts: http://wandb.me/apple-podcasts Spotify: http://wandb.me/spotify Google: http://wandb.me/google-podcasts YouTube: http://wandb.me/youtube Soundcloud: http://wandb.me/soundcloud Tune in to our bi-weekly virtual salon and listen to industry leaders and researchers in machine learning share their research: http://wandb.me/salon Join our community of ML practitioners where we host AMA's, share interesting projects and meet other people working in Deep Learning: http://wandb.me/slack Our gallery features curated machine learning reports by researchers exploring deep learning techniques, Kagglers showcasing winning models, and industry leaders sharing best practices: https://wandb.ai/gallery

18 Feb 202146min

Piero shares the story of how Ludwig was created, as well as the ins and outs of how Ludwig works and the future of machine learning with no code. Piero is a Staff Research Scientist in the Hazy Research group at Stanford University. He is a former founding member of Uber AI, where he created Ludwig, worked on applied projects (COTA, Graph Learning for Uber Eats, Uber’s Dialogue System), and published research on NLP, Dialogue, Visualization, Graph Learning, Reinforcement Learning, and Computer Vision. Topics covered: 0:00 Sneak peek and intro 1:24 What is Ludwig, at a high level? 4:42 What is Ludwig doing under the hood? 7:11 No-code machine learning and data types 14:15 How Ludwig started 17:33 Model performance and underlying architecture 21:52 On Python in ML 24:44 Defaults and W&B integration 28:26 Perspective on NLP after 10 years in the field 31:49 Most underrated aspect of ML 33:30 Hardest part of deploying ML models in the real world Learn more about Ludwig: https://ludwig-ai.github.io/ludwig-docs/ Piero's Twitter: https://twitter.com/w4nderlus7 Follow Piero on Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/pieromolino/?locale=en_US Get our podcast on these other platforms: Apple Podcasts: http://wandb.me/apple-podcasts Spotify: http://wandb.me/spotify Google: http://wandb.me/google-podcasts YouTube: http://wandb.me/youtube Soundcloud: http://wandb.me/soundcloud Tune in to our bi-weekly virtual salon and listen to industry leaders and researchers in machine learning share their research: http://wandb.me/salon Join our community of ML practitioners where we host AMA's, share interesting projects and meet other people working in Deep Learning: http://wandb.me/slack Our gallery features curated machine learning reports by researchers exploring deep learning techniques, Kagglers showcasing winning models, and industry leaders sharing best practices: https://wandb.ai/gallery

11 Feb 202136min

How Rosanne is working to democratize AI research and improve diversity and fairness in the field through starting a non-profit after being a founding member of Uber AI Labs, doing lots of amazing research, and publishing papers at top conferences. Rosanne is a machine learning researcher, and co-founder of ML Collective, a nonprofit organization for open collaboration and mentorship. Before that, she was a founding member of Uber AI. She has published research at NeurIPS, ICLR, ICML, Science, and other top venues. While at school she used neural networks to help discover novel materials and to optimize fuel efficiency in hybrid vehicles. ML Collective: http://mlcollective.org/ Controlling Text Generation with Plug and Play Language Models: https://eng.uber.com/pplm/ LCA: Loss Change Allocation for Neural Network Training: https://eng.uber.com/research/lca-loss-change-allocation-for-neural-network-training/ Topics covered 0:00 Sneak peek, Intro 1:53 The origin of ML Collective 5:31 Why a non-profit and who is MLC for? 14:30 LCA, Loss Change Allocation 18:20 Running an org, research vs admin work 20:10 Advice for people trying to get published 24:15 on reading papers and Intrinsic Dimension paper 36:25 NeurIPS - Open Collaboration 40:20 What is your reward function? 44:44 Underrated aspect of ML 47:22 How to get involved with MLC Get our podcast on these other platforms: Apple Podcasts: http://wandb.me/apple-podcasts Spotify: http://wandb.me/spotify Google: http://wandb.me/google-podcasts YouTube: http://wandb.me/youtube Tune in to our bi-weekly virtual salon and listen to industry leaders and researchers in machine learning share their research: http://wandb.me/salon Join our community of ML practitioners where we host AMA's, share interesting projects and meet other people working in Deep Learning: http://wandb.me/slack Our gallery features curated machine learning reports by researchers exploring deep learning techniques, Kagglers showcasing winning models, and industry leaders sharing best practices: https://wandb.ai/gallery

5 Feb 202149min

In this episode of Gradient Dissent, Primer CEO Sean Gourley and Lukas Biewald sit down to talk about NLP, working with vast amounts of information, and how crucially it relates to national defense. They also chat about their experience of being second-time founders coming from a data science background and how it affects the way they run their companies. We hope you enjoy this episode! Sean Gourley is the founder and CEO Primer, a natural language processing startup in San Francisco. Previously, he was CTO of Quid an augmented intelligence company that he cofounded back in 2009. And prior to that, he worked on self-repairing nano circuits at NASA Ames. Sean has a PhD in physics from Oxford, where his research as a road scholar focused on graph theory, complex systems, and the mathematical patterns underlying modern war. Follow Sean on Twitter: https://primer.ai/ https://twitter.com/sgourley Topics Covered: 0:00 Sneak peek, intro 1:42 Primer's mission and purpose 4:29 The Diamond Age – How do we train machines to observe the world and help us understand it 7:44 a self-writing Wikipedia 9:30 second-time founder 11:26 being a founder as a data scientist 15:44 commercializing algorithms 17:54 Is GPT-3 worth the hype? The mind-blowing scale of transformers 23:00 AI Safety, military/defense 29:20 disinformation, does ML play a role? 34:55 Establishing ground truth and informational provenance 39:10 COVID misinformation, Masks, division 44:07 most underrated aspect of ML 45:09 biggest bottlenecks in ML? Visit our podcasts homepage for transcripts and more episodes! www.wandb.com/podcast Get our podcast on these other platforms: YouTube: http://wandb.me/youtube Soundcloud: http://wandb.me/soundcloud Apple Podcasts: http://wandb.me/apple-podcasts Spotify: http://wandb.me/spotify Google: http://wandb.me/google-podcasts Join our bi-weekly virtual salon and listen to industry leaders and researchers in machine learning share their work: http://wandb.me/salon Join our community of ML practitioners where we host AMA's, share interesting projects and meet other people working in Deep Learning: http://wandb.me/slack Our gallery features curated machine learning reports by researchers exploring deep learning techniques, Kagglers showcasing winning models, and industry leaders sharing best practices. https://wandb.ai/gallery

28 Jan 202147min

Peter Wang talks about his journey of being the CEO of and co-founding Anaconda, his perspective on the Python programming language, and its use for scientific computing. Peter Wang has been developing commercial scientific computing and visualization software for over 15 years. He has extensive experience in software design and development across a broad range of areas, including 3D graphics, geophysics, large data simulation and visualization, financial risk modeling, and medical imaging. Peter’s interests in the fundamentals of vector computing and interactive visualization led him to co-found Anaconda (formerly Continuum Analytics). Peter leads the open source and community innovation group. As a creator of the PyData community and conferences, he devotes time and energy to growing the Python data science community and advocating and teaching Python at conferences around the world. Peter holds a BA in Physics from Cornell University. Follow peter on Twitter: https://twitter.com/pwang​ https://www.anaconda.com/​ Intake: https://www.anaconda.com/blog/intake-...​ https://pydata.org/​ Scientific Data Management in the Coming Decade paper: https://arxiv.org/pdf/cs/0502008.pdf Topics covered: 0:00​ (intro) Technology is not value neutral; Don't punt on ethics 1:30​ What is Conda? 2:57​ Peter's Story and Anaconda's beginning 6:45​ Do you ever regret choosing Python? 9:39​ On other programming languages 17:13​ Scientific Data Management in the Coming Decade 21:48​ Who are your customers? 26:24​ The ML hierarchy of needs 30:02​ The cybernetic era and Conway's Law 34:31​ R vs python 42:19​ Most underrated: Ethics - Don't Punt 46:50​ biggest bottlenecks: open-source, python Visit our podcasts homepage for transcripts and more episodes! www.wandb.com/podcast Get our podcast on these other platforms: YouTube: http://wandb.me/youtube Soundcloud: http://wandb.me/soundcloud Apple Podcasts: http://wandb.me/apple-podcasts Spotify: http://wandb.me/spotify Google: http://wandb.me/google-podcasts Join our bi-weekly virtual salon and listen to industry leaders and researchers in machine learning share their work: http://wandb.me/salon Join our community of ML practitioners where we host AMA's, share interesting projects and meet other people working in Deep Learning: http://wandb.me/slack Our gallery features curated machine learning reports by researchers exploring deep learning techniques, Kagglers showcasing winning models, and industry leaders sharing best practices. https://wandb.ai/gallery

21 Jan 202150min

Chris shares his journey starting from playing in R.E.M, becoming interested in physics to leading WIRED Magazine for 11 years. His robot fascination lead to starting a company that manufactures drones, and creating a community democratizing self-driving cars. Chris Anderson is the CEO of 3D Robotics, founder of the Linux Foundation Dronecode Project and founder of the DIY Drones and DIY Robocars communities. From 2001 through 2012 he was the Editor in Chief of Wired Magazine. He's also the author of the New York Times bestsellers `The Long Tail` and `Free` and `Makers: The New Industrial Revolution`. In 2007 he was named to "Time 100," most influential men and women in the world. Links discussed in this episode: DIY Robocars: diyrobocars.com Getting Started with Robocars: https://diyrobocars.com/2020/10/31/getting-started-with-robocars/ DIY Robotics Meet Up: https://www.meetup.com/DIYRobocars Other Works 3DRobotics: https://www.3dr.com/ The Long Tail by Chris Anderson: https://www.amazon.com/Long-Tail-Future-Business-Selling/dp/1401309666/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=The+Long+Tail&qid=1610580178&s=books&sr=1-1 Interesting links Chris shared OpenMV: https://openmv.io/ Intel Tracking Camera: https://www.intelrealsense.com/tracking-camera-t265/ Zumi Self-Driving Car Kit: https://www.robolink.com/zumi/ Possible Minds: Twenty-Five Ways of Looking at AI: https://www.amazon.com/Possible-Minds-Twenty-Five-Ways-Looking/dp/0525557997 Topics discussed: 0:00 sneak peek and intro 1:03 Battle of the REM's 3:35 A brief stint with Physics 5:09 Becoming a journalist and the woes of being a modern physicis 9:25 WIRED in the aughts 12:13 perspectives on "The Long Tail" 20:47 getting into drones 25:08 "Take a smartphone, add wings" 28:07 How did you get to autonomous racing cars? 33:30 COVID and virtual environments 38:40 Chris's hope for Robocars 40:54 Robocar hardware, software, sensors 53:49 path to Singularity/ regulations on drones 58:50 "the golden age of simulation" 1:00:22 biggest challenge in deploying ML models Visit our podcasts homepage for transcripts and more episodes! www.wandb.com/podcast Get our podcast on these other platforms: YouTube: http://wandb.me/youtube Apple Podcasts: http://wandb.me/apple-podcasts Spotify: http://wandb.me/spotify Google: http://wandb.me/google-podcasts Join our bi-weekly virtual salon and listen to industry leaders and researchers in machine learning share their work: http://wandb.me/salon Join our community of ML practitioners where we host AMA's, share interesting projects and meet other people working in Deep Learning: http://wandb.me/slack Our gallery features curated machine learning reports by researchers exploring deep learning techniques, Kagglers showcasing winning models, and industry leaders sharing best practices. https://wandb.ai/gallery

14 Jan 20211h 3min

Adrien shares his journey from making games that advance science (Eterna, Foldit) to creating a Streamlit, an open-source app framework enabling ML/Data practitioners to easily build powerful and interactive apps in a few hours. Adrien is co-founder and CEO of Streamlit, an open-source app framework that helps create beautiful data apps in hours in pure Python. Dr. Treuille has been a Zoox VP, Google X project lead, and Computer Science faculty at Carnegie Mellon. He has won numerous scientific awards, including the MIT TR35. Adrien has been featured in the documentaries What Will the Future Be Like by PBS/NOVA, and Lo and Behold by Werner Herzog. https://twitter.com/myelbows https://www.linkedin.com/in/adrien-treuille-52215718/ https://www.streamlit.io/ https://eternagame.org/ https://fold.it/ Topics covered: 0:00 sneak peek/Streamlit 0:47 intro 1:21 from aspiring guitar player to machine learning 4:16 Foldit - games that train humans 10:08 Eterna - another game and its relation to ML 16:15 Research areas as a professor at Carnegie Mellon 18:07 the origin of Streamlit 23:53 evolution of Streamlit: data science-ing a pivot 30:20 on programming languages 32:20 what’s next for Streamlit 37:34 On meditation and work/life 41:40 Underrated aspect of Machine Learning 443:07 Biggest challenge in deploying ML in the real world Visit our podcasts homepage for transcripts and more episodes! www.wandb.com/podcast Get our podcast on YouTube, Apple, Spotify, and Google! YouTube: http://wandb.me/youtube Apple Podcasts: http://wandb.me/apple-podcasts Spotify: http://wandb.me/spotify Google: http://wandb.me/google-podcasts Join our bi-weekly virtual salon and listen to industry leaders and researchers in machine learning share their work: http://wandb.me/salon Join our community of ML practitioners where we host AMA's, share interesting projects and meet other people working in Deep Learning: http://wandb.me/slack Our gallery features curated machine learning reports by researchers exploring deep learning techniques, Kagglers showcasing winning models, and industry leaders sharing best practices.

4 Des 202045min

We're thrilled to have Peter Norvig join us to talk about the evolution of deep learning, his industry-defining book, his work at Google, and what he thinks the future holds for machine learning research. Peter Norvig is a Director of Research at Google Inc; previously he directed Google's core search algorithms group. He is co-author of Artificial Intelligence: A Modern Approach, the leading textbook in the field, and co-teacher of an Artificial Intelligence class that signed up 160,000. Prior to his work at Google, Norvig was NASA's chief computer scientist. Peter's website: https://norvig.com/ Topics covered: 0:00 singularity is in the eye of the beholder 0:32 introduction 1:09 project Euler 2:42 advent of code/pytudes 4:55 new sections in the new version of his book 10:32 unreasonable effectiveness of data Paper 15 years later 14:44 what advice would you give to a young researcher? 16:03 computing power in the evolution of deep learning 19:19 what's been surprising in the development of AI? 24:21 from alpha go to human-like intelligence 28:46 What in AI has been surprisingly hard or easy? 32:11 synthetic data and language 35:16 singularity is in the eye of the beholder 38:43 the future of python in ML and why he used it in his book 43:00 underrated topic in ML and bottlenecks in production Visit our podcasts homepage for transcripts and more episodes! https://www.wandb.com/podcast Get our podcast on Apple, Spotify, and Google! Apple Podcasts: https://bit.ly/2WdrUvI Spotify: https://bit.ly/2SqtadF Google: https://tiny.cc/GD_Google We started Weights and Biases to build tools for Machine Learning practitioners because we care a lot about the impact that Machine Learning can have in the world and we love working in the trenches with the people building these models. One of the most fun things about these building tools has been the conversations with these ML practitioners and learning about the interesting things they’re working on. This process has been so fun that we wanted to open it up to the world in the form of our new podcast called Gradient Dissent. We hope you have as much fun listening to it as we had making it! Join our bi-weekly virtual salon and listen to industry leaders and researchers in machine learning share their research: https://tiny.cc/wb-salon Join our community of ML practitioners where we host AMA's, share interesting projects and meet other people working in Deep Learning: https://bit.ly/wb-slack Our gallery features curated machine learning reports by researchers exploring deep learning techniques, Kagglers showcasing winning models, and industry leaders sharing best practices. https://wandb.ai/gallery

20 Nov 202047min