Gradient Dissent: Conversations on AI

Ion Stoica is co-creator of the distributed computing frameworks Spark and Ray, and co-founder and Executive Chairman of Databricks and Anyscale. He is also a Professor of computer science at UC Berkeley and Principal Investigator of RISELab, a five-year research lab that develops technology for low-latency, intelligent decisions.Ion and Lukas chat about the challenges of making a simple (but good!) distributed framework, the similarities and differences between developing Spark and Ray, and how Spark and Ray led to the formation of Databricks and Anyscale. Ion also reflects on the early startup days, from deciding to commercialize to picking co-founders, and shares advice on building a successful company.The complete show notes (transcript and links) can be found here: http://wandb.me/gd-ion-stoica---Timestamps: 0:00 Intro0:56 Ray, Anyscale, and making a distributed framework11:39 How Spark informed the development of Ray18:53 The story behind Spark and Databricks33:00 Why TensorFlow and PyTorch haven't monetized35:35 Picking co-founders and other startup advice46:04 The early signs of sky computing49:24 Breaking problems down and prioritizing53:17 Outro---Subscribe and listen to our podcast today!👉 Apple Podcasts: http://wandb.me/apple-podcasts​​👉 Google Podcasts: http://wandb.me/google-podcasts​👉 Spotify: http://wandb.me/spotify​

20 Jan 202253min

Stephan Fabel is Senior Director of Infrastructure Systems & Software at NVIDIA, where he works on Base Command, a software platform to coordinate access to NVIDIA's DGX SuperPOD infrastructure.Lukas and Stephan talk about why having a supercomputer is one thing but using it effectively is another, why a deeper understanding of hardware on the practitioner level is becoming more advantageous, and which areas of the ML tech stack NVIDIA is looking to expand into.The complete show notes (transcript and links) can be found here: http://wandb.me/gd-stephan-fabel---Timestamps: 0:00 Intro1:09 NVIDIA Base Command and DGX SuperPOD10:33 The challenges of multi-node processing at scale18:35 Why it's hard to use a supercomputer effectively25:14 The advantages of de-abstracting hardware29:09 Understanding Base Command's product-market fit36:59 Data center infrastructure as a value center42:13 Base Command's role in tech stacks47:16 Why crowdsourcing is underrated49:24 The challenges of scaling beyond a POC51:39 Outro---Subscribe and listen to our podcast today!👉 Apple Podcasts: http://wandb.me/apple-podcasts​​👉 Google Podcasts: http://wandb.me/google-podcasts​👉 Spotify: http://wandb.me/spotify​

6 Jan 202252min

Chris Padwick is Director of Computer Vision Machine Learning at Blue River Technology, a subsidiary of John Deere. Their core product, See & Spray, is a weeding robot that identifies crops and weeds in order to spray only the weeds with herbicide.Chris and Lukas dive into the challenges of bringing See & Spray to life, from the hard computer vision problem of classifying weeds from crops, to the engineering feat of building and updating embedded systems that can survive on a farming machine in the field. Chris also explains why user feedback is crucial, and shares some of the surprising product insights he's gained from working with farmers.The complete show notes (transcript and links) can be found here: http://wandb.me/gd-chris-padwick---Connect with Chris:📍 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chris-padwick-75b5761/📍 Blue River on Twitter: https://twitter.com/BlueRiverTech---Timestamps: 0:00 Intro1:09 How does See & Spray reduce herbicide usage?9:15 Classifying weeds and crops in real time17:45 Insights from deployment and user feedback29:08 Why weed and crop classification is surprisingly hard37:33 Improving and updating models in the field40:55 Blue River's ML stack44:55 Autonomous tractors and upcoming directions48:05 Why data pipelines are underrated52:10 The challenges of scaling software & hardware54:44 Outro55:55 Bonus: Transporters and the singularity---Subscribe and listen to our podcast today!👉 Apple Podcasts: http://wandb.me/apple-podcasts​​👉 Google Podcasts: http://wandb.me/google-podcasts​👉 Spotify: http://wandb.me/spotify​

23 Des 20211h

Kathryn Hume is Vice President Digital Investments Technology at the Royal Bank of Canada (RBC). At the time of recording, she was Interim Head of Borealis AI, RBC's research institute for machine learning.Kathryn and Lukas talk about ML applications in finance, from building a personal finance forecasting model to applying reinforcement learning to trade execution, and take a philosophical detour into the 17th century as they speculate on what Newton and Descartes would have thought about machine learning.The complete show notes (transcript and links) can be found here: http://wandb.me/gd-kathryn-hume---Connect with Kathryn:📍 Twitter: https://twitter.com/humekathryn📍 Website: https://quamproxime.com/---Timestamps: 0:00 Intro0:54 Building a personal finance forecasting model10:54 Applying RL to trade execution18:55 Transparent financial models and fairness26:20 Semantic parsing and building a text-to-SQL interface29:20 From comparative literature and math to product37:33 What would Newton and Descartes think about ML?44:15 On sentient AI and transporters47:33 Why casual inference is under-appreciated49:25 The challenges of integrating models into the business51:45 Outro---Subscribe and listen to our podcast today!👉 Apple Podcasts: http://wandb.me/apple-podcasts​​👉 Google Podcasts: http://wandb.me/google-podcasts​👉 Spotify: http://wandb.me/spotify​

16 Des 202152min

Sean McClain is the founder and CEO, and Gregory Hannum is the VP of AI Research at Absci, a biotech company that's using deep learning to expedite drug discovery and development.Lukas, Sean, and Greg talk about why Absci started investing so heavily in ML research (it all comes back to the data), what it'll take to build the GPT-3 of DNA, and where the future of pharma is headed. Sean and Greg also share some of the challenges of building cross-functional teams and combining two highly specialized fields like biology and ML.The complete show notes (transcript and links) can be found here: http://wandb.me/gd-sean-and-greg---Connect with Sean and Greg:📍 Sean's Twitter: https://twitter.com/seanrmcclain📍 Greg's Twitter: https://twitter.com/gregory_hannum📍 Absci's Twitter: https://twitter.com/abscibio---Timestamps: 0:00 Intro0:53 How Absci merges biology and AI11:24 Why Absci started investing in ML19:00 Creating the GPT-3 of DNA25:34 Investing in data collection and in ML teams33:14 Clinical trials and Absci's revenue structure38:17 Combining knowledge from different domains45:22 The potential of multitask learning50:43 Why biological data is tricky to work with55:00 Outro---Subscribe and listen to our podcast today!👉 Apple Podcasts: http://wandb.me/apple-podcasts​​👉 Google Podcasts: http://wandb.me/google-podcasts​👉 Spotify: http://wandb.me/spotify​

2 Des 202155min

You might know him as the host of Gradient Dissent, but Lukas is also the CEO of Weights & Biases, a developer-first ML tools platform!In this special episode, the three W&B co-founders — Chris (CVP), Shawn (CTO), and Lukas (CEO) — sit down to tell the company's origin stories, reflect on the highs and lows, and give advice to engineers looking to start their own business.Chris reveals the W&B server architecture (tl;dr - React + GraphQL), Shawn shares his favorite product feature (it's a hidden frontend layer), and Lukas explains why it's so important to work with customers that inspire you.The complete show notes (transcript and links) can be found here: http://wandb.me/gd-wandb-cofounders---Connect with us:📍 Chris' Twitter: https://twitter.com/vanpelt📍 Shawn's Twitter: https://twitter.com/shawnup📍 Lukas' Twitter: https://twitter.com/l2k📍 W&B's Twitter: https://twitter.com/weights_biases---Timestamps: 0:00 Intro1:29 The stories behind Weights & Biases7:45 The W&B tech stack9:28 Looking back at the beginning11:42 Hallmark moments14:49 Favorite product features16:49 Rewriting the W&B backend18:21 The importance of customer feedback21:18 How Chris and Shawn have changed22:35 How the ML space has changed28:24 Staying positive when things look bleak32:19 Lukas' advice to new entrepreneurs35:29 Hopes for the next five years38:09 Making a paintbot & model understanding41:30 Biggest bottlenecks in deployment44:08 Outro44:38 Bonus: Under- vs overrated technologies---Subscribe and listen to our podcast today!👉 Apple Podcasts: http://wandb.me/apple-podcasts​​👉 Google Podcasts: http://wandb.me/google-podcasts​👉 Spotify: http://wandb.me/spotify​

5 Nov 202149min

Pete is the Technical Lead of the TensorFlow Micro team, which works on deep learning for mobile and embedded devices.Lukas and Pete talk about hacking a Raspberry Pi to run AlexNet, the power and size constraints of embedded devices, and techniques to reduce model size. Pete also explains real world applications of TensorFlow Lite Micro and shares what it's been like to work on TensorFlow from the beginning.The complete show notes (transcript and links) can be found here: http://wandb.me/gd-pete-warden---Connect with Pete:📍 Twitter: https://twitter.com/petewarden📍 Website: https://petewarden.com/---Timestamps: 0:00 Intro1:23 Hacking a Raspberry Pi to run neural nets13:50 Model and hardware architectures18:56 Training a magic wand21:47 Raspberry Pi vs Arduino27:51 Reducing model size33:29 Training on the edge39:47 What it's like to work on TensorFlow47:45 Improving datasets and model deployment53:05 Outro---Subscribe and listen to our podcast today!👉 Apple Podcasts: http://wandb.me/apple-podcasts​​👉 Google Podcasts: http://wandb.me/google-podcasts​👉 Spotify: http://wandb.me/spotify​

21 Okt 202153min

Pieter is the Chief Scientist and Co-founder at Covariant, where his team is building universal AI for robotic manipulation. Pieter also hosts The Robot Brains Podcast, in which he explores how far humanity has come in its mission to create conscious computers, mindful machines, and rational robots.Lukas and Pieter explore the state of affairs of robotics in 2021, the challenges of achieving consistency and reliability, and what it'll take to make robotics more ubiquitous. Pieter also shares some perspective on entrepreneurship, from how he knew it was time to commercialize Gradescope to what he looks for in co-founders to why he started Covariant.Show notes: http://wandb.me/gd-pieter-abbeel---Connect with Pieter:📍 Twitter: https://twitter.com/pabbeel📍 Website: https://people.eecs.berkeley.edu/~pabbeel/📍 The Robot Brains Podcast: https://www.therobotbrains.ai/---Timestamps: 0:00 Intro1:15 The challenges of robotics8:10 Progress in robotics13:34 Imitation learning and reinforcement learning21:37 Simulated data, real data, and reliability27:53 The increasing capabilities of robotics36:23 Entrepreneurship and co-founding Gradescope44:35 The story behind Covariant47:50 Pieter's communication tips52:13 What Pieter's currently excited about55:08 Focusing on good UI and high reliability57:01 Outro

7 Okt 202157min