Latent Space: The AI Engineer Podcast
swyx + Alessio
The podcast by and for AI Engineers! In 2024, over 2 million readers and listeners came to Latent Space to hear about news, papers and interviews in Software 3.0.We cover Foundation Models changing every domain in Code Generation, Multimodality, AI Agents, GPU Infra and more, directly from the founders, builders, and thinkers involved in pushing the cutting edge. Striving to give you both the definitive take on the Current Thing down to the first introduction to the tech you'll be using in the next 3 months! We break news and exclusive interviews from OpenAI, Anthropic, Gemini, Meta (Soumith Chintala), Sierra (Bret Taylor), tiny (George Hotz), Databricks/MosaicML (Jon Frankle), Modular (Chris Lattner), Answer.ai (Jeremy Howard), et al.Full show notes always on https://latent.space
Episodes
Mentioned books
15 snips
Mar 6, 2024 • 1h 20min
Open Source AI is AI we can Trust — with Soumith Chintala of Meta AI
In this conversation, Soumith Chintala, Engineering Lead at Meta AI and creator of PyTorch, discusses his journey from aspiring animator to AI pioneer. He highlights the importance of intrinsic motivation in tech innovation and dives into the exciting developments in open-source AI. The dialogue touches on Meta's impressive GPU resources, the evolution of PyTorch applications in diverse fields, and the challenges of integrating Mojo. Chintala also advocates for fair practices in the LLM inference market and emphasizes the ethical implications of synthetic data in AI.
75 snips
Feb 28, 2024 • 1h 10min
A Brief History of the Open Source AI Hacker - with Ben Firshman of Replicate
Ben Firshman, Co-founder and CEO of Replicate, shares his journey from creating a vacation project called arXiv Vanity to establishing one of the leading AI inference platforms. He discusses the challenges of making machine learning research accessible and reproducible. The conversation touches on the evolution of command line interfaces, the impact of open-source tools in scientific research, and the trials of launching AI startups during the pandemic. Firshman also emphasizes the importance of collaboration in driving innovation within the AI community.
25 snips
Feb 16, 2024 • 1h 2min
Truly Serverless Infra for AI Engineers - with Erik Bernhardsson of Modal
In this episode, Erik Bernhardsson, founder of Modal and former tech leader at Spotify, dives into his journey from building tools like Annoy and Luigi to launching a startup focused on high-performance cloud solutions. He discusses the evolution of AI infrastructure and the unique challenges of developing efficient tools for data teams. Erik also explores the competitive landscape of AI services, the shift towards serverless environments, and the importance of adapting to new developer needs. Insights into navigating cloud startup challenges provide further depth.
13 snips
Feb 8, 2024 • 1h 3min
Cloud Intelligence at the speed of 5000 tok/s - with Ce Zhang and Vipul Ved Prakash of Together AI
In this engaging discussion, Ce Zhang, Co-founder and CTO of Together AI, and Vipul Ved Prakash, Co-founder and CEO, share their insights on the evolution of open and independent AI systems. They highlight the balance between open-source contributions and proprietary innovations, stressing the importance of diverse data sources for training models. From optimization strategies for GPU cloud performance to their innovative AI platform upgrades, they delve into crucial advancements like federated learning and hybrid model architectures, shaping the future of AI.
11 snips
Feb 1, 2024 • 58min
Why StackOverflow usage is down 50% — with David Hsu of Retool
David Hsu, CEO and co-founder of Retool, dives into the intriguing intersection of philosophy and computer science. He shares insights on the decline of StackOverflow usage and how startups can thrive with authenticity over flash. The discussion includes the skepticism surrounding AI's impact on job functions, the challenges of integrating AI in businesses, and the evolution of AI models. Hsu emphasizes a developer-first approach while making fascinating analogies between ant colonies and AI evolution, shedding light on the quest for artificial general intelligence.
116 snips
Jan 25, 2024 • 1h 8min
The Four Wars of the AI Stack (Dec 2023 Audio Recap)
The discussion dives into the four critical battles shaping the AI landscape: data quality, GPU resources, multimodal capabilities, and operational wars. They explore the role of synthetic data and the complexities of talent acquisition in AI. Insights on evolving AI architectures, like Mistral's potential disruption, highlight the shift towards generalization. The podcast also touches on the transformative power of vector databases and the ethics of integrating AI technologies, making it a must-listen for tech enthusiasts.
54 snips
Jan 19, 2024 • 1h 12min
How to train your own Large Multimodal Model — with Hugo Laurençon & Leo Tronchon of HuggingFace M4
Hugo Laurençon and Leo Tronchon from Hugging Face discuss their cutting-edge work on multimodal models like IDEFICS and OBELICS. They dive into the evolution of multimodal training, sharing challenges related to data quality and the intricacies of processing raw HTML. The conversation highlights the importance of image resolution for OCR and the hurdles faced in video data processing. Both researchers express optimism for open-source models, aiming for enhanced performance while tackling issues like hallucinations. Their insights reveal a bright future for multimodal AI innovation.
91 snips
Jan 11, 2024 • 1h 26min
RLHF 201 - with Nathan Lambert of AI2 and Interconnects
Nathan Lambert, a research scientist at the Allen Institute for AI and former leader of the RLHF team at Hugging Face, shares his insights on the evolution of Reinforcement Learning from Human Feedback (RLHF). He discusses its significance in enhancing language models, including preference modeling and innovative methods like Direct Preference Optimization. The conversation touches on the challenges of model training, the financial implications of AI methodologies, and the importance of effective communication in simplifying complex AI concepts for broader audiences.
17 snips
Jan 5, 2024 • 1h 4min
The Accidental AI Canvas - with Steve Ruiz of tldraw
Steve Ruiz, founder of tldraw, discusses his unique journey from fine arts to tech, blending creativity with design. He shares his innovative work on collaborative tools and the 'perfect freehand' feature, enhancing user experiences. The conversation dives into AI's role in UI creation and software development, along with real-time updates in collaborative drawing. Ruiz also explores the balance between passion and strategic planning in entrepreneurship, leaving listeners inspired by his insights into the future of AI and creativity.
66 snips
Dec 30, 2023 • 2h 42min
NeurIPS 2023 Recap — Top Startups
In this dynamic discussion, Jonathan Frankle, Chief Scientist at MosaicML, shares insights on their $1.3 billion acquisition by Databricks. Lin Qiao, CEO of Fireworks AI, talks about optimizing PyTorch for inference. Aman Sanger from Cursor reveals innovative memory strategies for AI coding. Aravind Srinivas discusses the impressive growth of Perplexity AI, hitting 1 million installs, while Jeremy Howard emphasizes the need for accessible AI. Together, they explore the vibrant AI startup landscape showcased at NeurIPS 2023, reflecting on innovation, collaboration, and the future of technology.
