Jeremy Howard, one of the creators of Fast.ai, discusses the challenges faced in the early days of AI, the concept of transfer learning, and Fast AI's focus on vision, tables of data, recommendation systems, and text analysis. They also explore the challenges of academic publishing, the benefits of private discussion channels on Discord, and the potential of fine-tuning and pre-training in AI models. The chapter ends with a discussion on the significance of understanding the learning processes of language models and the battle between control and empowerment for a better future.

Jeremy Howard, co-founder of Answer.ai, delves into how a lean team can innovate in AI without traditional management structures. He discusses the evolution of machine learning training strategies, emphasizing multi-phase pre-training. The conversation highlights the development of 'fast HTML' for streamlined web app creation and a Python framework that enhances web fundamentals. Howard also introduces dialogue engineering, aimed at boosting productivity via user-friendly tools, while advocating for corporate governance that aligns AI research with societal values.

Jeremy Howard is a co-founder of fast.ai, the non-profit research group behind the popular massive open online course "Practical Deep Learning for Coders", and the open source deep learning library "fastai".Jeremy is also a co-founder of #Masks4All, a global volunteer organization founded in March 2020 that advocated for the public adoption of homemade face masks in order to help slow the spread of COVID-19. His Washington Post article "Simple DIY masks could help flatten the curve." went viral in late March/early April 2020, and is associated with the U.S CDC's change in guidance a few days later to recommend wearing masks in public.In this episode, Jeremy explains how diffusion works and how individuals with limited compute budgets can engage meaningfully with large, state-of-the-art models. Then, as our first-ever repeat guest on Gradient Dissent, Jeremy revisits a previous conversation with Lukas on Python vs. Julia for machine learning.Finally, Jeremy shares his perspective on the early days of COVID-19, and what his experience as one of the earliest and most high-profile advocates for widespread mask-wearing was like.Show notes (transcript and links): http://wandb.me/gd-jeremy-howard-2---⏳ Timestamps:0:00 Intro1:06 Diffusion and generative models14:40 Engaging with large models meaningfully20:30 Jeremy's thoughts on Stable Diffusion and OpenAI26:38 Prompt engineering and large language models32:00 Revisiting Julia vs. Python40:22 Jeremy's science advocacy during early COVID days1:01:03 Researching how to improve children's education1:07:43 The importance of executive buy-in1:11:34 Outro1:12:02 Bonus: Weights & Biases---📝 Links📍 Jeremy's previous Gradient Dissent episode (8/25/2022): http://wandb.me/gd-jeremy-howard📍 "Simple DIY masks could help flatten the curve. We should all wear them in public.", Jeremy's viral Washington Post article: https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2020/03/28/masks-all-coronavirus/📍 "An evidence review of face masks against COVID-19" (Howard et al., 2021), one of the first peer-reviewed papers on the effectiveness of wearing masks: https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2014564118📍 Jeremy's Twitter thread summary of "An evidence review of face masks against COVID-19": https://twitter.com/jeremyphoward/status/1348771993949151232📍 Read more about Jeremy's mask-wearing advocacy: https://www.smh.com.au/world/north-america/australian-expat-s-push-for-universal-mask-wearing-catches-fire-in-the-us-20200401-p54fu2.html---Connect with Jeremy and fast.ai:📍 Jeremy on Twitter: https://twitter.com/jeremyphoward📍 fast.ai on Twitter: https://twitter.com/FastDotAI📍 Jeremy on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/howardjeremy/---💬 Host: Lukas Biewald📹 Producers: Riley Fields, Angelica Pan

Jeremy Howard is the founder of fast.ai, a research institute dedicated to make deep learning more accessible. He is also a Distinguished Research Scientist at the University of San Francisco, a former president of Kaggle as well a top-ranking competitor there, and in general, he’s a successful entrepreneur, educator, research, and an inspiring personality in the AI community. This conversation is part of the Artificial Intelligence podcast. If you would like to get more information about this podcast go to https://lexfridman.com/ai or connect with @lexfridman on Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, Medium, or YouTube where you can watch the video versions of these conversations. If you enjoy the podcast, please rate it 5 stars on iTunes or support it on Patreon.

Eric Ries and Jeremy Howard discuss AI innovation, agile growth strategies, starting Answer.ai, AI regulations, and promising AI startups. They highlight the importance of customer focus, rapid adaptation in the AI landscape, funding challenges, innovation in technology, and societal impact of language computing applications.