Shaping AI Benchmarks with Together AI Co-Founder Percy Liang

Shaping AI Benchmarks with Together AI Co-Founder Percy Liang

Author: Lukas Biewald May 9, 2024 Duration: 53:20

In this episode of Gradient Dissent, Together AI co-founder and Stanford Associate Professor Percy Liang joins host, Lukas Biewald, to discuss advancements in AI benchmarking and the pivotal role that open-source plays in AI development.

He shares his development of HELM—a robust framework for evaluating language models. The discussion highlights how this framework improves transparency and effectiveness in AI benchmarks. Additionally, Percy shares insights on the pivotal role of open-source models in democratizing AI development and addresses the challenges of English language bias in global AI applications. This episode offers in-depth insights into how benchmarks are shaping the future of AI, highlighting both technological advancements and the push for more equitable and inclusive technologies.

Subscribe to Weights & Biases http://wandb.me/yt_subscribe

Connect with Percy Liang:


Anticipatory Music Composer:


Blog Post:


Follow Weights & Biases:



Lukas Biewald hosts Gradient Dissent: Conversations on AI, a series that moves beyond theoretical discussions to examine how artificial intelligence is actually built and deployed. Each episode features a direct, unscripted talk with a leading practitioner-you’ll hear from engineers and researchers at places like NVIDIA, Meta, Google, Lyft, and OpenAI. The focus is on the tangible challenges and breakthroughs they encounter, from initial research to the complex reality of putting models into production. This isn't about abstract futures; it's a grounded look at the decisions shaping the field right now. Biewald, bringing his perspective from Weights & Biases, steers conversations toward the practical trade-offs and collaborative efforts that define modern AI work. For anyone in technology or business who wants to understand the mechanics behind the headlines, this podcast offers a rare, candid window into the process. You’ll come away with a clearer sense of how ideas become functional systems and what it really takes to operate at the cutting edge.
Author: Language: English Episodes: 100

Gradient Dissent: Conversations on AI
Podcast Episodes
Matthew Davis — Bringing Genetic Insights to Everyone [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 43:02
Matthew explains how combining machine learning and computational biology can provide mainstream medicine with better diagnostics and insights. --- Matthew Davis is Head of AI at Invitae, the largest and fastest growing…
Clément Delangue — The Power of the Open Source Community [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 46:35
Clem explains the virtuous cycles behind the creation and success of Hugging Face, and shares his thoughts on where NLP is heading. --- Clément Delangue is co-founder and CEO of Hugging Face, the AI community building th…
Wojciech Zaremba — What Could Make AI Conscious? [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 44:27
Wojciech joins us to talk the principles behind OpenAI, the Fermi Paradox, and the future stages of developments in AGI. --- Wojciech Zaremba is a co-founder of OpenAI, a research company dedicated to discovering and ena…
Phil Brown — How IPUs are Advancing Machine Intelligence [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 57:10
Phil shares some of the approaches, like sparsity and low precision, behind the breakthrough performance of Graphcore's Intelligence Processing Units (IPUs). --- Phil Brown leads the Applications team at Graphcore, where…
Alyssa Simpson Rochwerger — Responsible ML in the Real World [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 45:29
From working on COVID-19 vaccine rollout to writing a book on responsible ML, Alyssa shares her thoughts on meaningful projects and the importance of teamwork. --- Alyssa Simpson Rochwerger is as a Director of Product at…
Sean Taylor — Business Decision Problems [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 45:41
Sean joins us to chat about ML models and tools at Lyft Rideshare Labs, Python vs R, time series forecasting with Prophet, and election forecasting. --- Sean Taylor is a Data Scientist at (and former Head of) Lyft Ridesh…
Polly Fordyce — Microfluidic Platforms and Machine Learning [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 45:55
Polly explains how microfluidics allow bioengineering researchers to create high throughput data, and shares her experiences with biology and machine learning. --- Polly Fordyce is an Assistant Professor of Genetics and…
Adrien Gaidon — Advancing ML Research in Autonomous Vehicles [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 48:02
Adrien Gaidon shares his approach to building teams and taking state-of-the-art research from conception to production at Toyota Research Institute. --- Adrien Gaidon is the Head of Machine Learning Research at the Toyot…
Nimrod Shabtay — Deployment and Monitoring at Nanit [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 33:59
A look at how Nimrod and the team at Nanit are building smart baby monitor systems, from data collection to model deployment and production monitoring. --- Nimrod Shabtay is a Senior Computer Vision Algorithm Developer a…

«1...678910