The TWIML AI Podcast (formerly This Week in Machine Learning & Artificial Intelligence)

Jeff Gehlhaar, VP of Technology at Qualcomm, dives into the world of AI compilers and their importance in managing parallelism. He highlights Qualcomm's latest innovations, including AI Engine Direct, which bridges capabilities across devices. The conversation covers how research on compression and quantization is translated into real products and the competitive landscape of ML compilers like Glow and TVM. Additionally, Jeff discusses advancements in benchmarking and the integration of AI frameworks that enhance smartphone performance.

Dan Bohus is a senior principal researcher at Microsoft, specializing in human-computer interaction, while Siddhartha Sen focuses on the collaboration between AI and human design. They discuss how projects like Maia Chess and Situated Interaction are redefining human-AI interaction. The conversation covers the challenges of AI understanding human behavior, the integration of natural language processing in chess, and the importance of embodying social cues in machines. Both guests share their excitement for future innovations and the potential for enhanced collaboration between humans and AI.

Julieta Martinez, a senior research scientist at Waabi, dives into the fascinating world of AI and self-driving technology. She highlights how insights from large-scale visual search can bolster neural network compression techniques. The conversation also covers the intricacies of using product quantization to enhance performance while managing vast datasets. Additionally, Julieta discusses her research on deep multitask learning, demonstrating how integrating localization, perception, and prediction can revolutionize autonomous systems and improve real-world applications.

Claire Monteleoni, an associate professor at the University of Colorado Boulder, shares her inspiring journey from environmental activism to a leading role in climate informatics. The discussion covers innovative machine learning techniques for analyzing climate data, particularly unsupervised methods for downscaling. Claire also highlights the evolution of climate informatics conferences and their focus on collaboration. Additionally, she emphasizes the need for integrating social justice in climate action, advocating for resilience in vulnerable communities.

In this engaging discussion, Amir Habibian, a Senior Staff Engineer Manager at Qualcomm Technologies, delves into groundbreaking advancements in video processing. He explores the innovative concept of skip convolutions, which enhance efficiency in visual neural networks. Amir also introduces his FrameExit framework, a conditional early exiting mechanism for video recognition, optimizing how frames are processed. The conversation highlights the future of AI in video technology and the importance of tailoring methods to maximize performance.

Today we’re joined by Noam Slonim, the principal investigator of Project Debater at IBM Research. In our conversation with Noam, we explore the history of Project Debater, the first AI system that can “debate” humans on complex topics. We also dig into the evolution of the project, which is the culmination of 7 years and over 50 research papers, and eventually becoming a Nature cover paper, “An Autonomous Debating System,” which details the system in its entirety. Finally, Noam details many of the underlying capabilities of Debater, including the relationship between systems preparation and training, evidence detection, detecting the quality of arguments, narrative generation, the use of conventional NLP methods like entity linking, and much more.The complete show notes for this episode can be found at twimlai.com/go/495.

Madhur Behl, an Assistant Professor at the University of Virginia, dives into the thrilling world of autonomous racing and AI. He shares insights on how training AI for high-speed environments differs from traditional driving tasks. The conversation covers the unique challenges of perception and planning in racing, as well as the innovative techniques of sensor fusion versus vision-only approaches. Behl also hints at their upcoming race at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, where his team aims for a million-dollar prize with their fully autonomous vehicle.

Eric Horvitz, Chief Scientific Officer at Microsoft, delves into the future of AI and its ethical implications. He shares insights from his time as AAAI president and discusses the transformation of AI since 2009. The conversation highlights the critical role of responsible AI development, particularly through the Aether committee. Horvitz also addresses the National Security Commission on AI's comprehensive report covering AI R&D, trustworthy systems, and the ethical ramifications of technology like facial recognition in law enforcement.

Parvez Ahammad, Head of Data Science Applied Research at LinkedIn, shares his insights on organizing data science teams for success. He discusses the balance of long-term project investments while navigating the challenges of experimentation. Parvez also delves into the impact of differential privacy on member data and the ambitious launch of the GreyKite forecasting library. The conversation highlights the dynamic relationship between applied research and engineering in AI, emphasizing the need for strategic alignment and effective team dynamics in driving innovation.

Join Katherine J. Kuchenbecker, director at the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems, as she dives into the fascinating world of haptic intelligence. Discover how she merges haptics with machine learning to enhance human-robot interactions, including a robotic finger that feels and sees! Hear about her quirky HuggyBot, designed for personalized hugs. Katherine also shares her passion for mentoring and the crucial need for diversity in robotics, revealing inspiring insights from her journey in this evolving field.