108. Last Week In AI — 2021: The (full) year in review

2021 has been a wild ride in many ways, but its wildest features might actually be AI-related. We’ve seen major advances in everything from language modeling to multi-modal learning, open-ended learning and even AI alignment.

So, we thought, what better way to take stock of the big AI-related milestones we’ve reached in 2021 than a cross-over episode with our friends over at the Last Week In AI podcast.

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Intro music:

Artist: Ron Gelinas

Track Title: Daybreak Chill Blend (original mix)

Link to Track: https://youtu.be/d8Y2sKIgFWc

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Chapters:

• 0:00 Intro
• 2:15 Rise of multi-modal models
• 7:40 Growth of hardware and compute
• 13:20 Reinforcement learning
• 20:45 Open-ended learning
• 26:15 Power seeking paper
• 32:30 Safety and assumptions
• 35:20 Intrinsic vs. extrinsic motivation
• 42:00 Mapping natural language
• 46:20 Timnit Gebru’s research institute
• 49:20 Wrap-up