Episodios

  • Connor is the CEO of Conjecture and one of the most famous names in the AI alignment movement. This is the "behind the scenes footage" and bonus Patreon interviews from the day of the Beff Jezos debate, including an interview with Daniel Clothiaux. It's a great insight into Connor's philosophy. At the end there is an unreleased additional interview with Beff.

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    Topics:

    Externalized cognition and the role of society and culture in human intelligence

    The potential for AI systems to develop agency and autonomy

    The future of AGI as a complex mixture of various components

    The concept of agency and its relationship to power

    The importance of coherence in AI systems

    The balance between coherence and variance in exploring potential upsides

    The role of dynamic, competent, and incorruptible institutions in handling risks and developing technology

    Concerns about AI widening the gap between the haves and have-nots

    The concept of equal access to opportunity and maintaining dynamism in the system

    Leahy's perspective on life as a process that "rides entropy"

    The importance of distinguishing between epistemological, decision-theoretic, and aesthetic aspects of morality (inc ref to Hume's Guillotine)

    The concept of continuous agency and the idea that the first AGI will be a messy admixture of various components

    The potential for AI systems to become more physically embedded in the future

    The challenges of aligning AI systems and the societal impacts of AI technologies like ChatGPT and Bing

    The importance of humility in the face of complexity when considering the future of AI and its societal implications

    Disclaimer: this video is not an endorsement of e/acc or AGI agential existential risk from us - the hosts of MLST consider both of these views to be quite extreme. We seek diverse views on the channel.

    00:00:00 Intro

    00:00:56 Connor's Philosophy

    00:03:53 Office Skit

    00:05:08 Connor on e/acc and Beff

    00:07:28 Intro to Daniel's Philosophy

    00:08:35 Connor on Entropy, Life, and Morality

    00:19:10 Connor on London

    00:20:21 Connor Office Interview

    00:20:46 Friston Patreon Preview

    00:21:48 Why Are We So Dumb?

    00:23:52 The Voice of the People, the Voice of God / Populism

    00:26:35 Mimetics

    00:30:03 Governance

    00:33:19 Agency

    00:40:25 Daniel Interview - Externalised Cognition, Bing GPT, AGI

    00:56:29 Beff + Connor Bonus Patreons Interview

  • Professor Chris Bishop is a Technical Fellow and Director at Microsoft Research AI4Science, in Cambridge. He is also Honorary Professor of Computer Science at the University of Edinburgh, and a Fellow of Darwin College, Cambridge. In 2004, he was elected Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering, in 2007 he was elected Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, and in 2017 he was elected Fellow of the Royal Society. Chris was a founding member of the UK AI Council, and in 2019 he was appointed to the Prime Minister’s Council for Science and Technology.

    At Microsoft Research, Chris oversees a global portfolio of industrial research and development, with a strong focus on machine learning and the natural sciences.

    Chris obtained a BA in Physics from Oxford, and a PhD in Theoretical Physics from the University of Edinburgh, with a thesis on quantum field theory.

    Chris's contributions to the field of machine learning have been truly remarkable. He has authored (what is arguably) the original textbook in the field - 'Pattern Recognition and Machine Learning' (PRML) which has served as an essential reference for countless students and researchers around the world, and that was his second textbook after his highly acclaimed first textbook Neural Networks for Pattern Recognition.

    Recently, Chris has co-authored a new book with his son, Hugh, titled 'Deep Learning: Foundations and Concepts.' This book aims to provide a comprehensive understanding of the key ideas and techniques underpinning the rapidly evolving field of deep learning. It covers both the foundational concepts and the latest advances, making it an invaluable resource for newcomers and experienced practitioners alike.

    Buy Chris' textbook here:

    https://amzn.to/3vvLcCh

    More about Prof. Chris Bishop:

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Bishop

    https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/people/cmbishop/

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    Please support us on Patreon. We are entirely funded from Patreon donations right now. Patreon supports get private discord access, biweekly calls, early-access + exclusive content and lots more.

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    TOC:

    00:00:00 - Intro to Chris

    00:06:54 - Changing Landscape of AI

    00:08:16 - Symbolism

    00:09:32 - PRML

    00:11:02 - Bayesian Approach

    00:14:49 - Are NNs One Model or Many, Special vs General

    00:20:04 - Can Language Models Be Creative

    00:22:35 - Sparks of AGI

    00:25:52 - Creativity Gap in LLMs

    00:35:40 - New Deep Learning Book

    00:39:01 - Favourite Chapters

    00:44:11 - Probability Theory

    00:45:42 - AI4Science

    00:48:31 - Inductive Priors

    00:58:52 - Drug Discovery

    01:05:19 - Foundational Bias Models

    01:07:46 - How Fundamental Is Our Physics Knowledge?

    01:12:05 - Transformers

    01:12:59 - Why Does Deep Learning Work?

    01:16:59 - Inscrutability of NNs

    01:18:01 - Example of Simulator

    01:21:09 - Control

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  • Dr. Philip Ball is a freelance science writer. He just wrote a book called "How Life Works", discussing the how the science of Biology has advanced in the last 20 years. We focus on the concept of Agency in particular.

    He trained as a chemist at the University of Oxford, and as a physicist at the University of Bristol. He worked previously at Nature for over 20 years, first as an editor for physical sciences and then as a consultant editor. His writings on science for the popular press have covered topical issues ranging from cosmology to the future of molecular biology.

    YT: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n6nxUiqiz9I

    Transcript link on YT description

    Philip is the author of many popular books on science, including H2O: A Biography of Water, Bright Earth: The Invention of Colour, The Music Instinct and Curiosity: How Science Became Interested in Everything. His book Critical Mass won the 2005 Aventis Prize for Science Books, while Serving the Reich was shortlisted for the Royal Society Winton Science Book Prize in 2014.

    This is one of Tim's personal favourite MLST shows, so we have designated it a special edition. Enjoy!

    Buy Philip's book "How Life Works" here: https://amzn.to/3vSmNqp

    Support MLST:Please support us on Patreon. We are entirely funded from Patreon donations right now. Patreon supports get private discord access, biweekly calls, early-access + exclusive content and lots more. https://patreon.com/mlstDonate: https://www.paypal.com/donate/?hosted...If you would like to sponsor us, so we can tell your story - reach out on mlstreettalk at gmail

  • Dr. Paul Lessard and his collaborators have written a paper on "Categorical Deep Learning and Algebraic Theory of Architectures". They aim to make neural networks more interpretable, composable and amenable to formal reasoning. The key is mathematical abstraction, as exemplified by category theory - using monads to develop a more principled, algebraic approach to structuring neural networks.

    We also discussed the limitations of current neural network architectures in terms of their ability to generalise and reason in a human-like way. In particular, the inability of neural networks to do unbounded computation equivalent to a Turing machine. Paul expressed optimism that this is not a fundamental limitation, but an artefact of current architectures and training procedures.

    The power of abstraction - allowing us to focus on the essential structure while ignoring extraneous details. This can make certain problems more tractable to reason about. Paul sees category theory as providing a powerful "Lego set" for productively thinking about many practical problems.

    Towards the end, Paul gave an accessible introduction to some core concepts in category theory like categories, morphisms, functors, monads etc. We explained how these abstract constructs can capture essential patterns that arise across different domains of mathematics.

    Paul is optimistic about the potential of category theory and related mathematical abstractions to put AI and neural networks on a more robust conceptual foundation to enable interpretability and reasoning. However, significant theoretical and engineering challenges remain in realising this vision.

    Please support us on Patreon. We are entirely funded from Patreon donations right now.

    https://patreon.com/mlst

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    Links:

    Categorical Deep Learning: An Algebraic Theory of Architectures

    Bruno Gavranović, Paul Lessard, Andrew Dudzik,

    Tamara von Glehn, João G. M. Araújo, Petar Veličković

    Paper: https://categoricaldeeplearning.com/

    Symbolica:

    https://twitter.com/symbolica

    https://www.symbolica.ai/

    Dr. Paul Lessard (Principal Scientist - Symbolica)

    https://www.linkedin.com/in/paul-roy-lessard/

    Interviewer: Dr. Tim Scarfe

    TOC:

    00:00:00 - Intro

    00:05:07 - What is the category paper all about

    00:07:19 - Composition

    00:10:42 - Abstract Algebra

    00:23:01 - DSLs for machine learning

    00:24:10 - Inscrutibility

    00:29:04 - Limitations with current NNs

    00:30:41 - Generative code / NNs don't recurse

    00:34:34 - NNs are not Turing machines (special edition)

    00:53:09 - Abstraction

    00:55:11 - Category theory objects

    00:58:06 - Cat theory vs number theory

    00:59:43 - Data and Code are one in the same

    01:08:05 - Syntax and semantics

    01:14:32 - Category DL elevator pitch

    01:17:05 - Abstraction again

    01:20:25 - Lego set for the universe

    01:23:04 - Reasoning

    01:28:05 - Category theory 101

    01:37:42 - Monads

    01:45:59 - Where to learn more cat theory

  • Dr. Minqi Jiang and Dr. Marc Rigter explain an innovative new method to make the intelligence of agents more general-purpose by training them to learn many worlds before their usual goal-directed training, which we call "reinforcement learning". Their new paper is called "Reward-free curricula for training robust world models" https://arxiv.org/pdf/2306.09205.pdfhttps://twitter.com/MinqiJianghttps://twitter.com/MarcRigterInterviewer: Dr. Tim ScarfePlease support us on Patreon, Tim is now doing MLST full-time and taking a massive financial hit. If you love MLST and want this to continue, please show your support! In return you get access to shows very early and private discord and networking. https://patreon.com/mlstWe are also looking for show sponsors, please get in touch if interested mlstreettalk at gmail. MLST Discord: https://discord.gg/machine-learning-street-talk-mlst-937356144060530778

  • Nick Chater is Professor of Behavioural Science at Warwick Business School, who works on rationality and language using a range of theoretical and experimental approaches. We discuss his books The Mind is Flat, and the Language Game.

    Please support me on Patreon (this is now my main job!) - https://patreon.com/mlst - Access the private Discord, networking, and early access to content.

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    https://twitter.com/MLStreetTalk

    Buy The Language Game:

    https://amzn.to/3SRHjPm

    Buy The Mind is Flat:

    https://amzn.to/3P3BUUC

    YT version: https://youtu.be/5cBS6COzLN4

    https://www.wbs.ac.uk/about/person/nick-chater/

    https://twitter.com/nickjchater?lang=en

  • See what Sam Altman advised Kenneth when he left OpenAI! Professor Kenneth Stanley has just launched a brand new type of social network, which he calls a "Serendipity network". The idea is that you follow interests, NOT people. It's a social network without the popularity contest. We discuss the phgilosophy and technology behind the venture in great detail. The main ideas of which came from Kenneth's famous book "Why greatness cannot be planned".

    See what Sam Altman advised Kenneth when he left OpenAI! Professor Kenneth Stanley has just launched a brand new type of social network, which he calls a "Serendipity network".The idea is that you follow interests, NOT people. It's a social network without the popularity contest.

    YT version: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pWIrXN-yy8g

    Chapters should be baked into the MP3 file now

    MLST public Discord: https://discord.gg/machine-learning-street-talk-mlst-937356144060530778Please support our work on Patreon - get access to interviews months early, private Patreon, networking, exclusive content and regular calls with Tim and Keith. https://patreon.com/mlstGet Maven here:https://www.heymaven.com/Kenneth: https://twitter.com/kenneth0stanleyhttps://www.kenstanley.net/homeHost - Tim Scarfe:https://www.linkedin.com/in/ecsquizor/https://www.mlst.ai/Original MLST show with Kenneth:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lhYGXYeMq_E

    Tim explains the book more here:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wNhaz81OOqw

  • Brandon Rohrer who obtained his Ph.D from MIT is driven by understanding algorithms ALL the way down to their nuts and bolts, so he can make them accessible to everyone by first explaining them in the way HE himself would have wanted to learn!

    Please support us on Patreon for loads of exclusive content and private Discord:

    https://patreon.com/mlst (public discord)

    https://discord.gg/aNPkGUQtc5

    https://twitter.com/MLStreetTalk

    Brandon Rohrer is a seasoned data science leader and educator with a rich background in creating robust, efficient machine learning algorithms and tools. With a Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering from MIT, his expertise encompasses a broad spectrum of AI applications — from computer vision and natural language processing to reinforcement learning and robotics. Brandon's career has seen him in Principle-level roles at Microsoft and Facebook. An educator at heart, he also shares his knowledge through detailed tutorials, courses, and his forthcoming book, "How to Train Your Robot."

    YT version: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Ps7ahonRCY

    Brandon's links:

    https://github.com/brohrer

    https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCsBKTrp45lTfHa_p49I2AEQ

    https://www.linkedin.com/in/brohrer/

    How transformers work:

    https://e2eml.school/transformers

    Brandon's End-to-End Machine Learning school courses, posts, and tutorials

    https://e2eml.school

    Free course:

    https://end-to-end-machine-learning.teachable.com/p/complete-course-library-full-end-to-end-machine-learning-catalog

    Blog: https://e2eml.school/blog.html

    Ziptie: Learning Useful Features [Brandon Rohrer]

    https://www.brandonrohrer.com/ziptie

    TOC should be baked into the MP3 file now

    00:00:00 - Intro to Brandon

    00:00:36 - RLHF

    00:01:09 - Limitations of transformers

    00:07:23 - Agency - we are all GPTs

    00:09:07 - BPE / representation bias

    00:12:00 - LLM true believers

    00:16:42 - Brandon's style of teaching

    00:19:50 - ML vs real world = Robotics

    00:29:59 - Reward shaping

    00:37:08 - No true Scotsman - when do we accept capabilities as real

    00:38:50 - Externalism

    00:43:03 - Building flexible robots

    00:45:37 - Is reward enough

    00:54:30 - Optimization curse

    00:58:15 - Collective intelligence

    01:01:51 - Intelligence + creativity

    01:13:35 - ChatGPT + Creativity

    01:25:19 - Transformers Tutorial

  • The world's second-most famous AI doomer Connor Leahy sits down with Beff Jezos, the founder of the e/acc movement debating technology, AI policy, and human values. As the two discuss technology, AI safety, civilization advancement, and the future of institutions, they clash on their opposing perspectives on how we steer humanity towards a more optimal path.

    Watch behind the scenes, get early access and join the private Discord by supporting us on Patreon. We have some amazing content going up there with Max Bennett and Kenneth Stanley this week! https://patreon.com/mlst (public discord)https://discord.gg/aNPkGUQtc5https://twitter.com/MLStreetTalk

    Post-interview with Beff and Connor: https://www.patreon.com/posts/97905213

    Pre-interview with Connor and his colleague Dan Clothiaux: https://www.patreon.com/posts/connor-leahy-and-97631416

    Leahy, known for his critical perspectives on AI and technology, challenges Jezos on a variety of assertions related to the accelerationist movement, market dynamics, and the need for regulation in the face of rapid technological advancements. Jezos, on the other hand, provides insights into the e/acc movement's core philosophies, emphasizing growth, adaptability, and the dangers of over-legislation and centralized control in current institutions.

    Throughout the discussion, both speakers explore the concept of entropy, the role of competition in fostering innovation, and the balance needed to mediate order and chaos to ensure the prosperity and survival of civilization. They weigh up the risks and rewards of AI, the importance of maintaining a power equilibrium in society, and the significance of cultural and institutional dynamism.

    Beff Jezos (Guillaume Verdon): https://twitter.com/BasedBeffJezoshttps://twitter.com/GillVerdConnor Leahy:https://twitter.com/npcollapse

    YT: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0zxi0xSBOaQ

    TOC:

    00:00:00 - Intro

    00:03:05 - Society library reference

    00:03:35 - Debate starts

    00:05:08 - Should any tech be banned?

    00:20:39 - Leaded Gasoline

    00:28:57 - False vacuum collapse method?

    00:34:56 - What if there are dangerous aliens?

    00:36:56 - Risk tolerances

    00:39:26 - Optimizing for growth vs value

    00:52:38 - Is vs ought

    01:02:29 - AI discussion

    01:07:38 - War / global competition

    01:11:02 - Open source F16 designs

    01:20:37 - Offense vs defense

    01:28:49 - Morality / value

    01:43:34 - What would Conor do

    01:50:36 - Institutions/regulation

    02:26:41 - Competition vs. Regulation Dilemma

    02:32:50 - Existential Risks and Future Planning

    02:41:46 - Conclusion and Reflection

    Note from Tim: I baked the chapter metadata into the mp3 file this time, does that help the chapters show up in your app? Let me know. Also I accidentally exported a few minutes of dead audio at the end of the file - sorry about that just skip on when the episode finishes.

  • Watch behind the scenes, get early access and join the private Discord by supporting us on Patreon:

    https://patreon.com/mlst (public discord)

    https://discord.gg/aNPkGUQtc5

    https://twitter.com/MLStreetTalk

    YT version: https://youtu.be/n8G50ynU0Vg

    In this interview on MLST, Dr. Tim Scarfe interviews Mahault Albarracin, who is the director of product for R&D at VERSES and also a PhD student in cognitive computing at the University of Quebec in Montreal. They discuss a range of topics related to consciousness, cognition, and machine learning.

    Throughout the conversation, they touch upon various philosophical and computational concepts such as panpsychism, computationalism, and materiality. They consider the "hard problem" of consciousness, which is the question of how and why we have subjective experiences.

    Albarracin shares her views on the controversial Integrated Information Theory and the open letter of opposition it received from the scientific community. She reflects on the nature of scientific critique and rivalry, advising caution in declaring entire fields of study as pseudoscientific.

    A substantial part of the discussion is dedicated to the topic of science itself, where Albarracin talks about thresholds between legitimate science and pseudoscience, the role of evidence, and the importance of validating scientific methods and claims.

    They touch upon language models, discussing whether they can be considered as having a "theory of mind" and the implications of assigning such properties to AI systems. Albarracin challenges the idea that there is a pure form of intelligence independent of material constraints and emphasizes the role of sociality in the development of our cognitive abilities.

    Albarracin offers her thoughts on scientific endeavors, the predictability of systems, the nature of intelligence, and the processes of learning and adaptation. She gives insights into the concept of using degeneracy as a way to increase resilience within systems and the role of maintaining a degree of redundancy or extra capacity as a buffer against unforeseen events.

    The conversation concludes with her discussing the potential benefits of collective intelligence, likening the adaptability and resilience of interconnected agent systems to those found in natural ecosystems.

    https://www.linkedin.com/in/mahault-albarracin-1742bb153/

    00:00:00 - Intro / IIT scandal

    00:05:54 - Gaydar paper / What makes good science

    00:10:51 - Language

    00:18:16 - Intelligence

    00:29:06 - X-risk

    00:40:49 - Self modelling

    00:43:56 - Anthropomorphisation

    00:46:41 - Mediation and subjectivity

    00:51:03 - Understanding

    00:56:33 - Resiliency

    Technical topics:

    1. Integrated Information Theory (IIT) - Giulio Tononi

    2. The "hard problem" of consciousness - David Chalmers

    3. Panpsychism and Computationalism in philosophy of mind

    4. Active Inference Framework - Karl Friston

    5. Theory of Mind and its computation in AI systems

    6. Noam Chomsky's views on language models and linguistics

    7. Daniel Dennett's Intentional Stance theory

    8. Collective intelligence and system resilience

    9. Redundancy and degeneracy in complex systems

    10. Michael Levin's research on bioelectricity and pattern formation

    11. The role of phenomenology in cognitive science

  • Chai AI is the leading platform for conversational chat artificial intelligence.

    Note: this is a sponsored episode of MLST.

    William Beauchamp is the founder of two $100M+ companies - Chai Research, an AI startup, and Seamless Capital, a hedge fund based in Cambridge, UK.Chaiverse is the Chai AI developer platform, where developers can train, submit and evaluate on millions of real users to win their share of $1,000,000.https://www.chai-research.comhttps://www.chaiverse.comhttps://twitter.com/chai_researchhttps://facebook.com/chairesearch/https://www.instagram.com/chairesearch/Download the app on iOS and Android (https://onelink.to/kqzhy9 )#chai #chai_ai #chai_research #chaiverse #generative_ai #LLMs

  • Watch behind the scenes, get early access and join the private Discord by supporting us on Patreon:

    https://patreon.com/mlst (public discord)

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    https://twitter.com/MLStreetTalk

    DOES AI HAVE AGENCY? With Professor. Karl Friston and Riddhi J. Pitliya

    Agency in the context of cognitive science, particularly when considering the free energy principle, extends beyond just human decision-making and autonomy. It encompasses a broader understanding of how all living systems, including non-human entities, interact with their environment to maintain their existence by minimising sensory surprise.

    According to the free energy principle, living organisms strive to minimize the difference between their predicted states and the actual sensory inputs they receive. This principle suggests that agency arises as a natural consequence of this process, particularly when organisms appear to plan ahead many steps in the future.

    Riddhi J. Pitliya is based in the computational psychopathology lab doing her Ph.D at the University of Oxford and works with Professor Karl Friston at VERSES.

    https://twitter.com/RiddhiJP

    References:

    THE FREE ENERGY PRINCIPLE—A PRECIS [Ramstead]

    https://www.dialecticalsystems.eu/contributions/the-free-energy-principle-a-precis/

    Active Inference: The Free Energy Principle in Mind, Brain, and Behavior [Thomas Parr, Giovanni Pezzulo, Karl J. Friston]

    https://direct.mit.edu/books/oa-monograph/5299/Active-InferenceThe-Free-Energy-Principle-in-Mind

    The beauty of collective intelligence, explained by a developmental biologist | Michael Levin

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U93x9AWeuOA

    Growing Neural Cellular Automata

    https://distill.pub/2020/growing-ca

    Carcinisation

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carcinisation

    Prof. KENNETH STANLEY - Why Greatness Cannot Be Planned

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lhYGXYeMq_E

    On Defining Artificial Intelligence [Pei Wang]

    https://sciendo.com/article/10.2478/jagi-2019-0002

    Why? The Purpose of the Universe [Goff]

    https://amzn.to/4aEqpfm

    Umwelt

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Umwelt

    An Immense World: How Animal Senses Reveal the Hidden Realms [Yong]

    https://amzn.to/3tzzTb7

    What's it like to be a bat [Nagal]

    https://www.sas.upenn.edu/~cavitch/pdf-library/Nagel_Bat.pdf

    COUNTERFEIT PEOPLE. DANIEL DENNETT. (SPECIAL EDITION)

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=axJtywd9Tbo

    We live in the infosphere [FLORIDI]

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YLNGvvgq3eg

    Mark Zuckerberg: First Interview in the Metaverse | Lex Fridman Podcast #398

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MVYrJJNdrEg

    Black Mirror: Rachel, Jack and Ashley Too | Official Trailer | Netflix

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-qIlCo9yqpY

  • Watch behind the scenes, get early access and join private Discord by supporting us on Patreon: https://patreon.com/mlst

    https://discord.gg/aNPkGUQtc5

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    In this comprehensive exploration of the field of deep learning with Professor Simon Prince who has just authored an entire text book on Deep Learning, we investigate the technical underpinnings that contribute to the field's unexpected success and confront the enduring conundrums that still perplex AI researchers.

    Key points discussed include the surprising efficiency of deep learning models, where high-dimensional loss functions are optimized in ways which defy traditional statistical expectations. Professor Prince provides an exposition on the choice of activation functions, architecture design considerations, and overparameterization. We scrutinize the generalization capabilities of neural networks, addressing the seeming paradox of well-performing overparameterized models. Professor Prince challenges popular misconceptions, shedding light on the manifold hypothesis and the role of data geometry in informing the training process. Professor Prince speaks about how layers within neural networks collaborate, recursively reconfiguring instance representations that contribute to both the stability of learning and the emergence of hierarchical feature representations. In addition to the primary discussion on technical elements and learning dynamics, the conversation briefly diverts to audit the implications of AI advancements with ethical concerns.

    Follow Prof. Prince:

    https://twitter.com/SimonPrinceAI

    https://www.linkedin.com/in/simon-prince-615bb9165/

    Get the book now!

    https://mitpress.mit.edu/9780262048644/understanding-deep-learning/

    https://udlbook.github.io/udlbook/

    Panel: Dr. Tim Scarfe -

    https://www.linkedin.com/in/ecsquizor/

    https://twitter.com/ecsquendor

    TOC:

    [00:00:00] Introduction

    [00:11:03] General Book Discussion

    [00:15:30] The Neural Metaphor

    [00:17:56] Back to Book Discussion

    [00:18:33] Emergence and the Mind

    [00:29:10] Computation in Transformers

    [00:31:12] Studio Interview with Prof. Simon Prince

    [00:31:46] Why Deep Neural Networks Work: Spline Theory

    [00:40:29] Overparameterization in Deep Learning

    [00:43:42] Inductive Priors and the Manifold Hypothesis

    [00:49:31] Universal Function Approximation and Deep Networks

    [00:59:25] Training vs Inference: Model Bias

    [01:03:43] Model Generalization Challenges

    [01:11:47] Purple Segment: Unknown Topic

    [01:12:45] Visualizations in Deep Learning

    [01:18:03] Deep Learning Theories Overview

    [01:24:29] Tricks in Neural Networks

    [01:30:37] Critiques of ChatGPT

    [01:42:45] Ethical Considerations in AI

    References on YT version VD: https://youtu.be/sJXn4Cl4oww

  • Watch behind the scenes with Bert on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/posts/bert-de-vries-93230722https://discord.gg/aNPkGUQtc5https://twitter.com/MLStreetTalk

    Note, there is some mild background music on chapter 1 (Least Action), 3 (Friston) and 5 (Variational Methods) - please skip ahead if annoying. It's a tiny fraction of the overall podcast.

    YT version: https://youtu.be/2wnJ6E6rQsU

    Bert de Vries is Professor in the Signal Processing Systems group at Eindhoven University. His research focuses on the development of intelligent autonomous agents that learn from in-situ interactions with their environment. His research draws inspiration from diverse fields including computational neuroscience, Bayesian machine learning, Active Inference and signal processing. Bert believes that development of signal processing systems will in the future be largely automated by autonomously operating agents that learn purposeful from situated environmental interactions.Bert received nis M.Sc. (1986) and Ph.D. (1991) degrees in Electrical Engineering from Eindhoven University of Technology (TU/e) and the University of Florida, respectively. From 1992 to 1999, he worked as a research scientist at Sarnoff Research Center in Princeton (NJ, USA). Since 1999, he has been employed in the hearing aids industry, both in engineering and managerial positions. De Vries was appointed part-time professor in the Signal Processing Systems Group at TU/e in 2012.Contact:https://twitter.com/bertdv0https://www.tue.nl/en/research/researchers/bert-de-vrieshttps://www.verses.ai/about-usPanel: Dr. Tim Scarfe / Dr. Keith DuggarTOC:[00:00:00] Principle of Least Action[00:05:10] Patreon Teaser[00:05:46] On Friston[00:07:34] Capm Peterson (VERSES)[00:08:20] Variational Methods[00:16:13] Dan Mapes (VERSES)[00:17:12] Engineering with Active Inference[00:20:23] Jason Fox (VERSES)[00:20:51] Riddhi Jain Pitliya[00:21:49] Hearing Aids as Adaptive Agents[00:33:38] Steven Swanson (VERSES)[00:35:46] Main Interview Kick Off, Engineering and Active Inference[00:43:35] Actor / Streaming / Message Passing[00:56:21] Do Agents Lose Flexibility with Maturity?[01:00:50] Language Compression[01:04:37] Marginalisation to Abstraction[01:12:45] Online Structural Learning[01:18:40] Efficiency in Active Inference[01:26:25] SEs become Neuroscientists[01:35:11] Building an Automated Engineer[01:38:58] Robustness and Design vs Grow[01:42:38] RXInfer[01:51:12] Resistance to Active Inference?[01:57:39] Diffusion of Responsibility in a System[02:10:33] Chauvinism in "Understanding"[02:20:08] On Becoming a BayesianRefs:RXInferhttps://biaslab.github.io/rxinfer-website/Prof. Ariel Catichahttps://www.albany.edu/physics/faculty/ariel-catichaPattern recognition and machine learning (Bishop)https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/uploads/prod/2006/01/Bishop-Pattern-Recognition-and-Machine-Learning-2006.pdfData Analysis: A Bayesian Tutorial (Sivia)https://www.amazon.co.uk/Data-Analysis-Bayesian-Devinderjit-Sivia/dp/0198568320Probability Theory: The Logic of Science (E. T. Jaynes)https://www.amazon.co.uk/Probability-Theory-Principles-Elementary-Applications/dp/0521592712/#activeinference #artificialintelligence

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    Lance Da Costa aims to advance our understanding of intelligent systems by modelling cognitive systems and improving artificial systems.

    He's a PhD candidate with Greg Pavliotis and Karl Friston jointly at Imperial College London and UCL, and a student in the Mathematics of Random Systems CDT run by Imperial College London and the University of Oxford. He completed an MRes in Brain Sciences at UCL with Karl Friston and Biswa Sengupta, an MASt in Pure Mathematics at the University of Cambridge with Oscar Randal-Williams, and a BSc in Mathematics at EPFL and the University of Toronto.

    Summary:

    Lance did pure math originally but became interested in the brain and AI. He started working with Karl Friston on the free energy principle, which claims all intelligent agents minimize free energy for perception, action, and decision-making. Lance has worked to provide mathematical foundations and proofs for why the free energy principle is true, starting from basic assumptions about agents interacting with their environment. This aims to justify the principle from first physics principles. Dr. Scarfe and Da Costa discuss different approaches to AI - the free energy/active inference approach focused on mimicking human intelligence vs approaches focused on maximizing capability like deep reinforcement learning. Lance argues active inference provides advantages for explainability and safety compared to black box AI systems. It provides a simple, sparse description of intelligence based on a generative model and free energy minimization. They discuss the need for structured learning and acquiring core knowledge to achieve more human-like intelligence. Lance highlights work from Josh Tenenbaum's lab that shows similar learning trajectories to humans in a simple Atari-like environment.

    Incorporating core knowledge constraints the space of possible generative models the agent can use to represent the world, making learning more sample efficient. Lance argues active inference agents with core knowledge can match human learning capabilities.

    They discuss how to make generative models interpretable, such as through factor graphs. The goal is to be able to understand the representations and message passing in the model that leads to decisions.

    In summary, Lance argues active inference provides a principled approach to AI with advantages for explainability, safety, and human-like learning. Combining it with core knowledge and structural learning aims to achieve more human-like artificial intelligence.

    https://www.lancelotdacosta.com/

    https://twitter.com/lancelotdacosta

    Interviewer: Dr. Tim Scarfe

    TOC

    00:00:00 - Start

    00:09:27 - Intelligence

    00:12:37 - Priors / structure learning

    00:17:21 - Core knowledge

    00:29:05 - Intelligence is specialised

    00:33:21 - The magic of agents

    00:39:30 - Intelligibility of structure learning

    #artificialintelligence #activeinference

  • Please support us! https://www.patreon.com/mlst https://discord.gg/aNPkGUQtc5https://twitter.com/MLStreetTalk

    YT version (with intro not found here) https://youtu.be/6iaT-0DvhncThis is the epic special edition show you have been waiting for! With two of the most brilliant scientists alive today. Atoms, things, agents, ... observers. What even defines an "observer" and what properties must all observers share? How do objects persist in our universe given that their material composition changes over time? What does it mean for a thing to be a thing? And do things supervene on our lower-level physical reality? What does it mean for a thing to have agency? What's the difference between a complex dynamical system with and without agency? Could a rock or an AI catflap have agency? Can the universe be factorised into distinct agents, or is agency diffused? Have you ever pondered about these deep questions about reality?Prof. Friston and Dr. Wolfram have spent their entire careers, some 40+ years each thinking long and hard about these very questions and have developed significant frameworks of reference on their respective journeys (the Wolfram Physics project and the Free Energy principle).

    Panel: MIT Ph.D Keith DuggarProduction: Dr. Tim ScarfeRefs:TED Talk with Stephen:https://www.ted.com/talks/stephen_wolfram_how_to_think_computationally_about_ai_the_universe_and_everythinghttps://writings.stephenwolfram.com/2023/10/how-to-think-computationally-about-ai-the-universe-and-everything/TOC00:00:00 - Show kickoff

    00:02:38 - Wolfram gets to grips with FEP

    00:27:08 - How much control does an agent/observer have

    00:34:52 - Observer persistence, what universe seems like to us

    00:40:31 - Black holes

    00:45:07 - Inside vs outside

    00:52:20 - Moving away from the predictable path

    00:55:26 - What can observers do

    01:06:50 - Self modelling gives agency

    01:11:26 - How do you know a thing has agency?

    01:22:48 - Deep link between dynamics, ruliad and AI

    01:25:52 - Does agency entail free will? Defining Agency

    01:32:57 - Where do I probe for agency?

    01:39:13 - Why is the universe the way we see it?

    01:42:50 - Alien intelligence

    01:43:40 - The hard problem of Observers

    01:46:20 - Summary thoughts from Wolfram

    01:49:35 - Factorisability of FEP

    01:57:05 - Patreon interview teaser

  • Support us! https://www.patreon.com/mlst

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    YT version: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c4praCiy9qU

    Dr. Jeff Beck is a computational neuroscientist studying probabilistic reasoning (decision making under uncertainty) in humans and animals with emphasis on neural representations of uncertainty and cortical implementations of probabilistic inference and learning. His line of research incorporates information theoretic and hierarchical statistical analysis of neural and behavioural data as well as reinforcement learning and active inference.

    https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeff-beck...

    https://scholar.google.com/citations?...

    Interviewer: Dr. Tim Scarfe

    TOC

    00:00:00 Intro

    00:00:51 Bayesian / Knowledge

    00:14:57 Active inference

    00:18:58 Mediation

    00:23:44 Philosophy of mind / science

    00:29:25 Optimisation

    00:42:54 Emergence

    00:56:38 Steering emergent systems

    01:04:31 Work plan

    01:06:06 Representations/Core knowledge

    #activeinference

  • Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/mlstDiscord: https://discord.gg/ESrGqhf5CBProf. Melanie Mitchell argues that the concept of "understanding" in AI is ill-defined and multidimensional - we can't simply say an AI system does or doesn't understand. She advocates for rigorously testing AI systems' capabilities using proper experimental methods from cognitive science. Popular benchmarks for intelligence often rely on the assumption that if a human can perform a task, an AI that performs the task must have human-like general intelligence. But benchmarks should evolve as capabilities improve.Large language models show surprising skill on many human tasks but lack common sense and fail at simple things young children can do. Their knowledge comes from statistical relationships in text, not grounded concepts about the world. We don't know if their internal representations actually align with human-like concepts. More granular testing focused on generalization is needed.There are open questions around whether large models' abilities constitute a fundamentally different non-human form of intelligence based on vast statistical correlations across text. Mitchell argues intelligence is situated, domain-specific and grounded in physical experience and evolution. The brain computes but in a specialized way honed by evolution for controlling the body. Extracting "pure" intelligence may not work.Other key points:- Need more focus on proper experimental method in AI research. Developmental psychology offers examples for rigorous testing of cognition.- Reporting instance-level failures rather than just aggregate accuracy can provide insights.- Scaling laws and complex systems science are an interesting area of complexity theory, with applications to understanding cities.- Concepts like "understanding" and "intelligence" in AI force refinement of fuzzy definitions.- Human intelligence may be more collective and social than we realize. AI forces us to rethink concepts we apply anthropomorphically.The overall emphasis is on rigorously building the science of machine cognition through proper experimentation and benchmarking as we assess emerging capabilities.TOC:[00:00:00] Introduction and Munk AI Risk Debate Highlights[05:00:00] Douglas Hofstadter on AI Risk[00:06:56] The Complexity of Defining Intelligence[00:11:20] Examining Understanding in AI Models[00:16:48] Melanie's Insights on AI Understanding Debate[00:22:23] Unveiling the Concept Arc[00:27:57] AI Goals: A Human vs Machine Perspective[00:31:10] Addressing the Extrapolation Challenge in AI[00:36:05] Brain Computation: The Human-AI Parallel[00:38:20] The Arc Challenge: Implications and Insights[00:43:20] The Need for Detailed AI Performance Reporting[00:44:31] Exploring Scaling in Complexity TheoryEratta: Note Tim said around 39 mins that a recent Stanford/DM paper modelling ARC “on GPT-4 got around 60%”. This is not correct and he misremembered. It was actually davinci3, and around 10%, which is still extremely good for a blank slate approach with an LLM and no ARC specific knowledge. Folks on our forum couldn’t reproduce the result. See paper linked below. Books (MUST READ):Artificial Intelligence: A Guide for Thinking Humans (Melanie Mitchell)https://www.amazon.co.uk/Artificial-Intelligence-Guide-Thinking-Humans/dp/B07YBHNM1C/?&_encoding=UTF8&tag=mlst00-21&linkCode=ur2&linkId=44ccac78973f47e59d745e94967c0f30&camp=1634&creative=6738Complexity: A Guided Tour (Melanie Mitchell)https://www.amazon.co.uk/Audible-Complexity-A-Guided-Tour?&_encoding=UTF8&tag=mlst00-21&linkCode=ur2&linkId=3f8bd505d86865c50c02dd7f10b27c05&camp=1634&creative=6738

    Show notes (transcript, full references etc)

    https://atlantic-papyrus-d68.notion.site/Melanie-Mitchell-2-0-15e212560e8e445d8b0131712bad3000?pvs=25

    YT version: https://youtu.be/29gkDpR2orc

  • We explore connections between FEP and enactivism, including tensions raised in a paper critiquing FEP from an enactivist perspective.

    Dr. Maxwell Ramstead provides background on enactivism emerging from autopoiesis, with a focus on embodied cognition and rejecting information processing/computational views of mind.

    Chris shares his journey from robotics into FEP, starting as a skeptic but becoming convinced it's the right framework. He notes there are both "high road" and "low road" versions, ranging from embodied to more radically anti-representational stances. He doesn't see a definitive fork between dynamical systems and information theory as the source of conflict. Rather, the notion of operational closure in enactivism seems to be the main sticking point.

    The group explores definitional issues around structure/organization, boundaries, and operational closure. Maxwell argues the generative model in FEP captures organizational dependencies akin to operational closure. The Markov blanket formalism models structural interfaces.

    We discuss the concept of goals in cognitive systems - Chris advocates an intentional stance perspective - using notions of goals/intentions if they help explain system dynamics. Goals emerge from beliefs about dynamical trajectories. Prof Friston provides an elegant explanation of how goal-directed behavior naturally falls out of the FEP mathematics in a particular "goldilocks" regime of system scale/dynamics. The conversation explores the idea that many systems simply act "as if" they have goals or models, without necessarily possessing explicit representations. This helps resolve tensions between enactivist and computational perspectives.

    Throughout the dialogue, Maxwell presses philosophical points about the FEP abolishing what he perceives as false dichotomies in cognitive science such as internalism/externalism. He is critical of enactivists' commitment to bright line divides between subject areas.

    Prof. Karl Friston - Inventor of the free energy principle https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=q_4u0aoAAAAJ

    Prof. Chris Buckley - Professor of Neural Computation at Sussex University https://scholar.google.co.uk/citations?user=nWuZ0XcAAAAJ&hl=en

    Dr. Maxwell Ramstead - Director of Research at VERSES https://scholar.google.ca/citations?user=ILpGOMkAAAAJ&hl=fr

    We address critique in this paper:

    Laying down a forking path: Tensions between enaction and the free energy principle (Ezequiel A. Di Paolo, Evan Thompson, Randall D. Beere)

    https://philosophymindscience.org/index.php/phimisci/article/download/9187/8975

    Other refs:

    Multiscale integration: beyond internalism and externalism (Maxwell J D Ramstead)

    https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33627890/

    MLST panel: Dr. Tim Scarfe and Dr. Keith Duggar

    TOC (auto generated):0:00 - Introduction0:41 - Defining enactivism and its variants6:58 - The source of the conflict between dynamical systems and information theory8:56 - Operational closure in enactivism10:03 - Goals and intentions12:35 - The link between dynamical systems and information theory15:02 - Path integrals and non-equilibrium dynamics18:38 - Operational closure defined21:52 - Structure vs. organization in enactivism24:24 - Markov blankets as interfaces28:48 - Operational closure in FEP30:28 - Structure and organization again31:08 - Dynamics vs. information theory33:55 - Goals and intentions emerge in the FEP mathematics36:58 - The Good Regulator Theorem49:30 - enactivism and its relation to ecological psychology52:00 - Goals, intentions and beliefs55:21 - Boundaries and meaning58:55 - Enactivism's rejection of information theory1:02:08 - Beliefs vs goals1:05:06 - Ecological psychology and FEP1:08:41 - The Good Regulator Theorem1:18:38 - How goal-directed behavior emerges1:23:13 - Ontological vs metaphysical boundaries1:25:20 - Boundaries as maps1:31:08 - Connections to the maximum entropy principle1:33:45 - Relations to quantum and relational physics

  • Please check out Numerai - our sponsor @http://numer.ai/mlstPatreon: https://www.patreon.com/mlstDiscord: https://discord.gg/ESrGqhf5CBThe Second Law: Resolving the Mystery of the Second Law of ThermodynamicsBuy Stephen's book here - https://tinyurl.com/2jj2t9waThe Language Game: How Improvisation Created Language and Changed the World by Morten H. Christiansen and Nick ChaterBuy here: https://tinyurl.com/35bvs8be Stephen Wolfram starts by discussing the second law of thermodynamics - the idea that entropy, or disorder, tends to increase over time. He talks about how this law seems intuitively true, but has been difficult to prove. Wolfram outlines his decades-long quest to fully understand the second law, including failed early attempts to simulate particles mixing as a 12-year-old. He explains how irreversibility arises from the computational irreducibility of underlying physical processes coupled with our limited ability as observers to do the computations needed to "decrypt" the microscopic details.The conversation then shifts to discussing language and how concepts allow us to communicate shared ideas between minds positioned in different parts of "rule space." Wolfram talks about the successes and limitations of using large language models to generate Wolfram Language code from natural language prompts. He sees it as a useful tool for getting started programming, but one still needs human refinement.The final part of the conversation focuses on AI safety and governance. Wolfram notes uncontrolled actuation is where things can go wrong with AI systems. He discusses whether AI agents could have intrinsic experiences and goals, how we might build trust networks between AIs, and that managing a system of many AIs may be easier than a single AI. Wolfram emphasizes the need for more philosophical depth in thinking about AI aims, and draws connections between potential solutions and his work on computational irreducibility and physics.Show notes: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1hXNHtvv8KDR7PxCfMh9xOiDFhU3SVDW8ijyxeTq9LHo/edit?usp=sharingPod version: TBAhttps://twitter.com/stephen_wolframTOC:00:00:00 - Introduction00:02:34 - Second law book00:14:01 - Reversibility / entropy / observers / equivalence00:34:22 - Concepts/language in the ruliad00:49:04 - Comparison to free energy principle00:53:58 - ChatGPT / Wolfram / Language01:00:17 - AI riskPanel: Dr. Tim Scarfe @ecsquendor / Dr. Keith Duggar @DoctorDuggar