108. Last Week In AI — 2021: The (full) year in review

108. Last Week In AI — 2021: The (full) year in review

Author: The TDS team January 5, 2022 Duration: 50:21

2021 has been a wild ride in many ways, but its wildest features might actually be AI-related. We’ve seen major advances in everything from language modeling to multi-modal learning, open-ended learning and even AI alignment.

So, we thought, what better way to take stock of the big AI-related milestones we’ve reached in 2021 than a cross-over episode with our friends over at the Last Week In AI podcast.

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Intro music:

- Artist: Ron Gelinas

- Track Title: Daybreak Chill Blend (original mix)

- Link to Track: https://youtu.be/d8Y2sKIgFWc

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Chapters:

  • 0:00 Intro
  • 2:15 Rise of multi-modal models
  • 7:40 Growth of hardware and compute
  • 13:20 Reinforcement learning
  • 20:45 Open-ended learning
  • 26:15 Power seeking paper
  • 32:30 Safety and assumptions
  • 35:20 Intrinsic vs. extrinsic motivation
  • 42:00 Mapping natural language
  • 46:20 Timnit Gebru’s research institute
  • 49:20 Wrap-up

While the active production of Towards Data Science has concluded, its archive remains a vital resource. Created by The TDS team, this collection captures a specific moment in the rapid evolution of data science and artificial intelligence. Each conversation pulls you directly into the room with leading researchers and practitioners who were shaping the tools and theories of their time. The discussions are not abstract lectures; they are grounded explorations of real-world problems, ethical dilemmas, and technical challenges that defined the field's trajectory. You'll hear experts dissect the implications of their work, from algorithmic fairness to the practicalities of deploying models at scale. This podcast served as a forum for nuanced debate, where complex ideas were unpacked with clarity and depth. Listening now offers a unique historical perspective, a chance to understand the foundational conversations that continue to influence where technology is headed next. The archive of Towards Data Science stands as a substantive record of insight, preserving the voices and questions from the forefront of a digital revolution.
Author: Language: en-us Episodes: 50

Towards Data Science
Podcast Episodes
127. Matthew Stewart - The emerging world of ML sensors [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

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122. Sadie St. Lawrence - Trends in data science [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

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121. Alexei Baevski - data2vec and the future of multimodal learning [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 49:31
If the name data2vec sounds familiar, that’s probably because it made quite a splash on social and even traditional media when it came out, about two months ago. It’s an important entry in what is now a growing list of s…