2023 in AI, with Nathan Benaich

In episode 104 of The Gradient Podcast, Daniel Bashir speaks to Nathan Benaich.Nathan is Founder and General Partner at Air Street Capital, a VC firm focused on investing in AI-first technology and life sciences companies. Nathan runs a number of communities focused on AI including the Research and Applied AI Summit and leads Spinout.fyi to improve the creation of university spinouts. Nathan co-authors the State of AI Report.Have suggestions for future podcast guests (or other feedback)? Let us know here or reach us at [email protected] to The Gradient Podcast:  Apple Podcasts  | Spotify | Pocket Casts | RSSFollow The Gradient on TwitterOutline:* (00:00) Intro* (02:00) Updates in Nathan World — Air Street’s second fund, spinouts, * (07:30) Events: Research and Applied AI Summit, State of AI Report launches* (09:50) The State of AI: main messages, the increasing role of subject matter experts* Research* (14:13) Open and closed-source* (17:55) Benchmarking and evaluation, small/large models and industry verticals* (21:10) “Vibes” in LLM evaluation* (24:00) Codegen models, personalized AI, curriculum learning* (26:20) The exhaustion of human-generated data, lukewarm content, synthetic data* (29:50) Opportunities for AI applications in the natural sciences* (35:15) Reinforcement Learning from Human Feedback and alternatives* (38:30) Industry* (39:00) ChatGPT and productivity* (42:37) General app wars, ChatGPT competitors* (45:50) Compute—demand, supply, competition* (50:55) Export controls and geopolitics* (54:45) Startup funding and compute spend* (59:15) Politics* (59:40) Calls for regulation, regulatory divergence* (1:04:40) AI safety* (1:07:30) Nathan’s perspective on regulatory approaches* (1:12:30) The UK’s early access to frontier models, standards setting, regulation difficulties* (1:17:20) Jailbreaking, constitutional AI, robustness* (1:20:50) Predictions!* (1:25:00) Generative AI misuse in elections and politics (and, this prediction coming true in Bangladesh)* (1:26:50) Progress on AI governance* (1:30:30) European dynamism* (1:35:08) OutroLinks:* Nathan’s homepage and Twitter* The 2023 State of AI Report* Bringing Dynamism to European Defense* A prediction coming true: How AI is disrupting Bangladesh’s election* Air Street Capital is hiring a full-time Community Lead! Get full access to The Gradient at thegradientpub.substack.com/subscribe