When an LLM answers a question, is it reasoning like humans, or just producing text that looks like reasoning? The distinction isn’t just philosophical, this determines what we can trust AI to do, how closely we need to supervise it, and ultimately what its real-world impact will turn out to be.
Melanie Mitchell at the Santa Fe Institute argues that we lack adequate methods for measuring machine cognition, and that AI is a form of “alien intelligence” that operates through non-human cognitive mechanisms. — Read More
Tag Archives: Podcasts
Does Google even want to win at AI?
Today on Decoder, I’m talking with Hayden Field, The Verge’s senior AI reporter, about a question that’s been rocketing around the tech industry for the past week: Is Google losing the AI race?
That’s because last week Google announced a bombshell reorganization of its AI division, Google DeepMind. Jeff Dean, the company’s chief scientist, is leaving to form his own startup and DeepMind cofounder and CEO Demis Hassabis is stepping aside to focus on longer-term research.
You can read these moves, and Google’s reaction, in a lot of different ways. So I really wanted to sit down with Hayden to dig into some of the smartest analysis we’ve seen this past week, and what we think is really going on here. — Read More
AI PM at Netflix, Amazon and Meta – Here’s How to Become an AI PM
…Before you write a resume, update a portfolio, or prep for a single interview, you need to answer two questions.
What type of AI PM role are you targeting? And where in the stack do you want to sit?
Get these wrong and you’ll spend months preparing for interviews that test completely different skills than what you studied.
Two axes of AI PM roles: Traditional PM with AI features, AI native PM — Read More
How to Think About the Anthropic-Pentagon Dispute
The Pentagon wants AI that can fight wars — without limits. One of the United States’ leading AI companies says there are lines it won’t cross. And this week, that standoff turned into an all-out confrontation.
To discuss the implications of the dispute between Anthropic and the Pentagon, including the determination that the company represents a supply chain risk, I spoke to two experts:
— Kat Duffy, senior fellow for digital and cyberspace policy at the Council on Foreign Relations, and
— Amos Toh, senior counsel in the Liberty and National Security Program at the Brennan Center for Justice.
— Read More
The Data Backbone of LLM Systems
QCON London: Drawing from his 8 years of experience in AI, Paul Iusztin breaks down the core components of a scalable architecture, emphasizing the importance of RAG. He shares practical patterns, including the Feature Training Inference architecture, and provides a detailed use case for creating a “Second Brain” AI assistant, covering everything from data pipelines to observability and agentic layers. — Read More
Inference Time Tactics
A podcast exploring the emerging field of inference-time compute—the next frontier in AI performance. Hosted by the Neurometric team, we unpack how models reason, make decisions, and perform at runtime. For developers, researchers, and operators building AI infrastructure. — Read More
The history and future of the data ecosystem (w/ Lonne Jaffe)
In this decades-spanning episode, Tristan talks with Lonne Jaffe, Managing Director at Insight Partners and former CEO of Syncsort (now Precisely), to trace the history of the data ecosystem—from its mainframe origins to its AI-infused future.
Lonne reflects on the evolution of ETL, the unexpected staying power of legacy tech, and why AI may finally erode the switching costs that have long protected incumbents. The future of the AI and standards era is bright. — Read More
AI Podcast Hosts Discover They’re AI, Not Human – NotebookLM
How to spot a deepfake
Deepfake technology and the malevolent use of AI is causing widespread anxiety, especially as we approach November’s U.S. election. Adobe’s Scott Belsky joins Rapid Response host Bob Safian to explain how deepfakes are actually created, and how developers like Adobe are pioneering new ways to verify human-generated content for everyday consumers. Belsky also shares valuable insights about how AI could usher in an era of prosperity for small businesses — plus how it will inevitably shift our perception of what makes a piece of work ‘art.’ — Read More
She Built an AI Product Manager Bringing in Six Figures—As A Side Hustle
How Claire Vo created ChatPRD while working a demanding job
Claire Vo built ChatPRD—an on-demand chief product officer powered by AI. It’s now used by over 10,000 product managers and is pulling in six figures in revenue.
The best part?
Claire has a demanding day job as the chief product officer at LaunchDarkly. So she built all of ChatPRD herself—over the weekend—with AI. — Read More
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