Machine Learning Street Talk (MLST)
Episodes 271 total
Intelligence is collective, not artificial — Prof. Michael I. Jordan (UC Berkeley / Inria)
Michael I. Jordan, described by Science magazine as the most influential computer scientist alive, has never thought of himself as an AI researcher. In this con…
The AI Models Smart Enough to Know They're Cheating — Beth Barnes & David Rein [METR]
Beth Barnes and David Rein on the one graph that ate the AI timelines discourse, and why the two people who built it are the most careful about how you read it…
When AI Discovers The Next Transformer - Robert Lange (Sakana)
Robert Lange, founding researcher at Sakana AI, joins Tim to discuss *Shinka Evolve* — a framework that combines LLMs with evolutionary algorithms to do open-en…
"Vibe Coding is a Slot Machine" - Jeremy Howard
Dive into the realities of AI-assisted coding, the origins of modern fine-tuning, and the cognitive science behind machine learning with fast.ai founder Jeremy…
Evolution "Doesn't Need" Mutation - Blaise Agüera y Arcas
What if life itself is just a really sophisticated computer program that wrote itself into existence?Blaise Agüera y Arcas presenting at ALife 2025 — the most t…
VAEs Are Energy-Based Models? [Dr. Jeff Beck]
What makes something truly *intelligent?* Is a rock an agent? Could a perfect simulation of your brain actually *be* you? In this fascinating conversation, Dr…
Abstraction & Idealization: AI's Plato Problem [Mazviita Chirimuuta]
Professor Mazviita Chirimuuta joins us for a fascinating deep dive into the philosophy of neuroscience and what it really means to understand the mind.*What can…
Why Every Brain Metaphor in History Has Been Wrong [SPECIAL EDITION]
What if everything we think we know about the brain is just a really good metaphor that we forgot was a metaphor?This episode takes you on a journey through the…
Bayesian Brain, Scientific Method, and Models [Dr. Jeff Beck]
Dr. Jeff Beck, mathematician turned computational neuroscientist, joins us for a fascinating deep dive into why the future of AI might look less like ChatGPT an…
Your Brain is Running a Simulation Right Now [Max Bennett]
Tim sits down with Max Bennett to explore how our brains evolved over 600 million years—and what that means for understanding both human intelligence and AI.Max…
The 3 Laws of Knowledge [César Hidalgo]
César Hidalgo has spent years trying to answer a deceptively simple question: What is knowledge, and why is it so hard to move around?We all have this intuition…
"I Desperately Want To Live In The Matrix" - Dr. Mike Israetel
This is a lively, no-holds-barred debate about whether AI can truly be intelligent, conscious, or understand anything at all — and what happens when (or if) mac…
Making deep learning perform real algorithms with Category Theory (Andrew Dudzik, Petar Velichkovich, Taco Cohen, Bruno Gavranović, Paul Lessard)
We often think of Large Language Models (LLMs) as all-knowing, but as the team reveals, they still struggle with the logic of a second-grader. Why can’t ChatGPT…
Are AI Benchmarks Telling The Full Story? [SPONSORED] (Andrew Gordon and Nora Petrova - Prolific)
Is a car that wins a Formula 1 race the best choice for your morning commute? Probably not. In this sponsored deep dive with Prolific, we explore why the same l…
The Mathematical Foundations of Intelligence [Professor Yi Ma]
What if everything we think we know about AI understanding is wrong? Is compression the key to intelligence? Or is there something more—a leap from memorization…
Pedro Domingos: Tensor Logic Unifies AI Paradigms
Pedro Domingos, author of the bestselling book "The Master Algorithm," introduces his latest work: Tensor Logic - a new programming language he believ…
He Co-Invented the Transformer. Now: Continuous Thought Machines - Llion Jones and Luke Darlow [Sakana AI]
The Transformer architecture (which powers ChatGPT and nearly all modern AI) might be trapping the industry in a localized rut, preventing us from finding true…
Why Humans Are Still Powering AI [Sponsored]
Ever wonder where AI models actually get their "intelligence"? We reveal the dirty secret of Silicon Valley: behind every impressive AI system are tho…
The Universal Hierarchy of Life - Prof. Chris Kempes [SFI]
"What is life?" - asks Chris Kempes, a professor at the Santa Fe Institute.Chris explains that scientists are moving beyond a purely Earth-based, biol…
Google Researcher Shows Life "Emerges From Code" - Blaise Agüera y Arcas
Blaise Agüera y Arcas explores some mind-bending ideas about what intelligence and life really are—and why they might be more similar than we think (filmed at A…