Best Are Machines And Robots A Threat Podcasts (2025)

1
Why Vision Language Models Ignore What They See with Munawar Hayat - #758 57:40

9h ago57:40

57:40

In this episode, we’re joined by Munawar Hayat, researcher at Qualcomm AI Research, to discuss a series of papers presented at NeurIPS 2025 focusing on multimodal and generative AI. We dive into the persistent challenge of object hallucination in Vision-Language Models (VLMs), why models often discard visual information in favor of pre-trained lang…

1
Scaling Agentic Inference Across Heterogeneous Compute with Zain Asgar - #757 48:44

7d ago48:44

48:44

In this episode, Zain Asgar, co-founder and CEO of Gimlet Labs, joins us to discuss the heterogeneous AI inference across diverse hardware. Zain argues that the current industry standard of running all AI workloads on high-end GPUs is unsustainable for agents, which consume significantly more tokens than traditional LLM applications. We explore Gim…

1
Technical advances in document understanding 49:18

8d ago49:18

49:18

Chris and Daniel unpack how AI-driven document processing has rapidly evolved well beyond traditional OCR with many technical advances that fly under the radar. They explore the progression from document structure models to language-vision models, all the way to the newest innovations like Deepseek-OCR. The discussion highlights the pros and cons o…

1
Chris on AI, autonomous swarming, home automation and Rust! 1:37:09

13d ago1:37:09

1:37:09

This episode is a special crossover between the Practical AI podcast and The Changelog podcast. Chris was recently invited by longtime friends Jerod Santo and Adam Stacoviak, cohosts of The Changelog, to join them on the show. They discuss AI, drones, robotics, swarming technology, and the rise of high-performance edge computing with Rust. Chris po…

1
Beyond note-taking with Fireflies 48:59

20d ago48:59

48:59

Fireflies CEO, Krish Ramineni shares how the company is transforming AI-powered note-taking into a deeper layer of knowledge automation. He breaks down the technology behind real-time functionality like Live Assist, the user behavior patterns driving product evolution, and how Fireflies is innovating far beyond meetings. Krish also shares insights …

1
Proactive Agents for the Web with Devi Parikh - #756 56:04

21d ago56:04

56:04

Today, we're joined by Devi Parikh, co-founder and co-CEO of Yutori, to discuss browser use models and a future where we interact with the web through proactive, autonomous agents. We explore the technical challenges of creating reliable web agents, the advantages of visually-grounded models that operate on screenshots rather than the browser’s mor…

1
Autonomous Vehicle Research at Waymo 52:08

27d ago52:08

52:08

Waymo’s VP of Research, Drago Anguelov, joins Practical AI to explore how advances in autonomy, vision models, and large-scale testing are shaping the future of driverless technology. The conversation dives into the dual challenges of building an onboard driver and testing that driver (via large scale simulation). Drago also gives us an update on w…

1
AI Orchestration for Smart Cities and the Enterprise with Robin Braun and Luke Norris - #755 54:46

28d ago54:46

54:46

Today, we're joined by Robin Braun, VP of AI business development for hybrid cloud at HPE, and Luke Norris, co-founder and CEO of Kamiwaza, to discuss how AI systems can be used to automate complex workflows and unlock value from legacy enterprise data. Robin and Luke detail high-impact use cases from HPE and Kamiwaza’s collaboration on an “Agentic…

1
Are we in an AI bubble? 49:41

30d ago49:41

49:41

Dan and Chris unpack whether today’s surge in AI deployment across enterprise workflows, manufacturing, healthcare, and scientific research signals a lasting transformation or an overhyped bubble. Drawing parallels to the dot-com era, they explore how technology integration is reshaping industries, affecting jobs, and even influencing human cogniti…

1
Building an AI Mathematician with Carina Hong - #754 55:52

1M ago55:52

55:52

In this episode, Carina Hong, founder and CEO of Axiom, joins us to discuss her work building an "AI Mathematician." Carina explains why this is a pivotal moment for AI in mathematics, citing a convergence of three key areas: the advanced reasoning capabilities of modern LLMs, the rise of formal proof languages like Lean, and breakthroughs in code …

1
While loops with tool calls 44:45

1M ago44:45

44:45

Dan and Chris sit down (again) with Jared Zoneraich, co-founder and CEO of PromptLayer, to discuss how prompt engineering has evolved into context engineering (and while loops with tool calls). Jared shares insights on building flexible AI applications, managing tool calls, testing and versioning prompts, and empowering both technical and non-techn…

1
High-Efficiency Diffusion Models for On-Device Image Generation and Editing with Hung Bui - #753 52:23

1M ago52:23

52:23

In this episode, Hung Bui, Technology Vice President at Qualcomm, joins us to explore the latest high-efficiency techniques for running generative AI, particularly diffusion models, on-device. We dive deep into the technical challenges of deploying these models, which are powerful but computationally expensive due to their iterative sampling proces…

1
Tiny Recursive Networks 48:23

2M ago48:23

48:23

In this fully connected episode, Daniel and Chris explore the emerging concept of tiny recursive networks introduced by Samsung AI, contrasting them with large transformer based models. They explore how these small models tackle reasoning tasks with fewer parameters, less data, and iterative refinement, matching the giants on specific problems. The…

1
Vibe Coding's Uncanny Valley with Alexandre Pesant - #752 1:12:36

2M ago1:12:36

1:12:36

Today, we're joined by Alexandre Pesant, AI lead at Lovable, who joins us to discuss the evolution and practice of vibe coding. Alex shares his take on how AI is enabling a shift in software development from typing characters to expressing intent, creating a new layer of abstraction similar to how high-level code compiles to machine code. We explor…

1
Dealing with increasingly complicated agents 54:56

2M ago54:56

54:56

As AI systems move from simple chatbots to complex agentic workflows, new security risks emerge. In this episode, Donato Capitella unpacks how increasingly complicated architectures are making agents fragile and vulnerable. These agents can be exploited through prompt injection, data exfiltration, and tool misuse. Donato shares stories from real-wo…

1
Dataflow Computing for AI Inference with Kunle Olukotun - #751 57:37

2M ago57:37

57:37

In this episode, we're joined by Kunle Olukotun, professor of electrical engineering and computer science at Stanford University and co-founder and chief technologist at Sambanova Systems, to discuss reconfigurable dataflow architectures for AI inference. Kunle explains the core idea of building computers that are dynamically configured to match th…

1
The impact of AI on the workforce: A state-level case study 44:04

2M ago44:04

44:04

Daniel sits down with Chelsea Linder, VP of Innovation and Entrepreneurship at TechPoint, to explore the what AI innovation and impact look like on the ground. They discuss Chelsea's journey from the VC world into economic development/ innovation, the growth of an AI innovation network in Indiana (funded by the SBA), lessons learned from fostering …

1
Recurrence and Attention for Long-Context Transformers with Jacob Buckman - #750 57:23

2M ago57:23

57:23

Today, we're joined by Jacob Buckman, co-founder and CEO of Manifest AI to discuss achieving long context in transformers. We discuss the bottlenecks of scaling context length and recent techniques to overcome them, including windowed attention, grouped query attention, and latent space attention. We explore the idea of weight-state balance and the…

1
The Decentralized Future of Private AI with Illia Polosukhin - #749 1:05:03

2M ago1:05:03

1:05:03

In this episode, Illia Polosukhin, a co-author of the seminal "Attention Is All You Need" paper and co-founder of Near AI, joins us to discuss his vision for building private, decentralized, and user-owned AI. Illia shares his unique journey from developing the Transformer architecture at Google to building the NEAR Protocol blockchain to solve glo…

1
We've all done RAG, now what? 43:35

2M ago43:35

43:35

Longtime friend of the show Rajiv Shah returns to unpack lessons from a year of building retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) pipelines and reasoning models integrations. We dive into why so many AI pilots stumble, why evaluation and error analysis remain essential data science skills, and why not every enterprise challenge calls for a large langua…

1
Inside Nano Banana 🍌 and the Future of Vision-Language Models with Oliver Wang - #748 1:03:39

3M ago1:03:39

1:03:39

Today, we’re joined by Oliver Wang, principal scientist at Google DeepMind and tech lead for Gemini 2.5 Flash Image—better known by its code name, “Nano Banana.” We dive into the development and capabilities of this newly released frontier vision-language model, beginning with the broader shift from specialized image generators to general-purpose m…

1
Creating a private AI assistant in Thunderbird 53:08

3M ago53:08

53:08

In this episode, Daniel and Chris are joined by Chris Aquino, software engineer at Thunderbird to hear the story of how they developed a privacy-preserving AI executive assistant. They discuss various design decisions including remote (but confidential) inference, local encryption, and model selection. Chris A. does an amazing job describing the jo…

1
Is It Time to Rethink LLM Pre-Training? with Aditi Raghunathan - #747 58:26

3M ago58:26

58:26

Today, we're joined by Aditi Raghunathan, assistant professor at Carnegie Mellon University, to discuss the limitations of LLMs and how we can build more adaptable and creative models. We dig into her ICML 2025 Outstanding Paper Award winner, “Roll the dice & look before you leap: Going beyond the creative limits of next-token prediction,” which ex…

1
Cracking the code of failed AI pilots 46:44

3M ago46:44

46:44

In this Fully Connected episode, we dig into the recent MIT report revealing that 95% of AI pilots fail before reaching production and explore what it actually takes to succeed with AI solutions. We dive into the importance of AI model integration, asking the right questions when adopting new technologies, and why simply accessing a powerful model …

1
Building an Immune System for AI Generated Software with Animesh Koratana - #746 1:05:11

3M ago1:05:11

1:05:11

Today, we're joined by Animesh Koratana, founder and CEO of PlayerZero to discuss his team’s approach to making agentic and AI-assisted coding tools production-ready at scale. Animesh explains how rapid advances in AI-assisted coding have created an “asymmetry” where the speed of code output outpaces the maturity of processes for maintenance and su…

1
Autoformalization and Verifiable Superintelligence with Christian Szegedy - #745 1:11:48

3M ago1:11:48

1:11:48

In this episode, Christian Szegedy, Chief Scientist at Morph Labs, joins us to discuss how the application of formal mathematics and reasoning enables the creation of more robust and safer AI systems. A pioneer behind concepts like the Inception architecture and adversarial examples, Christian now focuses on autoformalization—the AI-driven process …

1
GenAI risks and global adoption 43:20

3M ago43:20

43:20

Daniel and Chris sit with Citadel AI’s Rick Kobayashi and Kenny Song and unpack AI safety and security challenges in the generative AI era. They compare Japan’s approach to AI adoption with the US’s, and explore the implications of real-world failures in AI systems, along with strategies for AI monitoring and evaluation. Featuring: Rick Kobayashi –…

1
Multimodal AI Models on Apple Silicon with MLX with Prince Canuma - #744 1:10:20

4M ago1:10:20

1:10:20

Today, we're joined by Prince Canuma, an ML engineer and open-source developer focused on optimizing AI inference on Apple Silicon devices. Prince shares his journey to becoming one of the most prolific contributors to Apple’s MLX ecosystem, having published over 1,000 models and libraries that make open, multimodal AI accessible and performant on …

1
Genie 3: A New Frontier for World Models with Jack Parker-Holder and Shlomi Fruchter - #743 1:01:01

4M ago1:01:01

1:01:01

Today, we're joined by Jack Parker-Holder and Shlomi Fruchter, researchers at Google DeepMind, to discuss the recent release of Genie 3, a model capable of generating “playable” virtual worlds. We dig into the evolution of the Genie project and review the current model’s scaled-up capabilities, including creating real-time, interactive, and high-re…

1
Inside America’s AI Action Plan 43:52

4M ago43:52

43:52

Dan and Chris break down Winning the Race: America's AI Action Plan, issued by the White House in July 2025. Structured as three "pillars" — Accelerate AI Innovation, Build American AI Infrastructure, and Lead in International AI Diplomacy and Security — our dynamic duo unpack the plan's policy goals and its associated suggestions — while also expl…

1
Closing the Loop Between AI Training and Inference with Lin Qiao - #742 1:01:11

4M ago1:01:11

1:01:11

In this episode, we're joined by Lin Qiao, CEO and co-founder of Fireworks AI. Drawing on key lessons from her time building PyTorch, Lin shares her perspective on the modern generative AI development lifecycle. She explains why aligning training and inference systems is essential for creating a seamless, fast-moving production pipeline, preventing…

1
Confident, strategic AI leadership 47:40

4M ago47:40

47:40

Allegra Guinan of Lumiera helps leaders turn uncertainty about AI into confident, strategic leadership. In this conversation, she brings some actionable insights for navigating the hype and complexity of AI. The discussion covers challenges with implementing responsible AI practices, the growing importance of user experience and product thinking, a…

1
Educating a data-literate generation 44:41

4M ago44:41

44:41

Dan sits down with guests Mark Daniel Ward and Katie Sanders from The Data Mine at Purdue University to explore how higher education is evolving to meet the demands of the AI-driven workforce. They share how their program blends interdisciplinary learning, corporate partnerships, and real-world data science projects to better prepare students acros…

1
Workforce dynamics in an AI-assisted world 44:06

4M ago44:06

44:06

We unpack how AI is reshaping hiring decisions, shifting job roles, and creating new expectations for professionals — from engineers to marketers. They explore the rise of AI-assisted teams, the growing compensation bubble, why continuous learning is now table stakes, and how some service providers are quietly riding the AI wave. Featuring: Chris B…

1
Context Engineering for Productive AI Agents with Filip Kozera - #741 46:01

4M ago46:01

46:01

In this episode, Filip Kozera, founder and CEO of Wordware, explains his approach to building agentic workflows where natural language serves as the new programming interface. Filip breaks down the architecture of these "background agents," explaining how they use a reflection loop and tool-calling to execute complex tasks. He discusses the current…

1
Reimagining actuarial science with AI 40:59

5M ago40:59

40:59

In this episode, Chris sits down with Igor Nikitin, CEO and co-founder of Nice Technologies, to explore how AI and modern engineering practices are transforming the actuarial field and setting the stage for the future of actuarial modeling. We discuss the introduction of programming into insurance pricing workflows, and how their Python-based calc …

1
Infrastructure Scaling and Compound AI Systems with Jared Quincy Davis - #740 1:13:02

5M ago1:13:02

1:13:02

In this episode, Jared Quincy Davis, founder and CEO at Foundry, introduces the concept of "compound AI systems," which allows users to create powerful, efficient applications by composing multiple, often diverse, AI models and services. We discuss how these "networks of networks" can push the Pareto frontier, delivering results that are simultaneo…

1
Building Voice AI Agents That Don’t Suck with Kwindla Kramer - #739 1:13:02

5M ago1:13:02

1:13:02

In this episode, Kwindla Kramer, co-founder and CEO of Daily and creator of the open source Pipecat framework, joins us to discuss the architecture and challenges of building real-time, production-ready conversational voice AI. Kwin breaks down the full stack for voice agents—from the models and APIs to the critical orchestration layer that manages…

1
Agentic AI for Drone & Robotic Swarming 46:27

5M ago46:27

46:27

In this episode of Practical AI, Chris and Daniel explore the fascinating world of agentic AI for drone and robotic swarms, which is Chris's passion and professional focus. They unpack how autonomous vehicles (UxV), drones (UaV), and other autonomous multi-agent systems can collaborate without centralized control while exhibiting complex emergent b…

1
Distilling Transformers and Diffusion Models for Robust Edge Use Cases with Fatih Porikli - #738 1:00:29

5M ago1:00:29

1:00:29

Today, we're joined by Fatih Porikli, senior director of technology at Qualcomm AI Research for an in-depth look at several of Qualcomm's accepted papers and demos featured at this year’s CVPR conference. We start with “DiMA: Distilling Multi-modal Large Language Models for Autonomous Driving,” an end-to-end autonomous driving system that incorpora…

1
AI in the shadows: From hallucinations to blackmail 44:50

5M ago44:50

44:50

In the first episode of an "AI in the shadows" theme, Chris and Daniel explore the increasing concerning world of agentic misalignment. Starting out with a reminder about hallucinations and reasoning models, they break down how today’s models only mimic reasoning, which can lead to serious ethical considerations. They unpack a fascinating (and slig…

1
Finding Nemotron 46:23

5M ago46:23

46:23

In this episode, we sit down with Joey Conway to explore NVIDIA's open source AI, from the reasoning-focused Nemotron models built on top of Llama, to the blazing-fast Parakeet speech model. We chat about what makes open foundation models so valuable, how enterprises can think about deploying multi-model strategies, and why reasoning is becoming th…

1
AI hot takes and debates: Autonomy 45:36

6M ago45:36

45:36

Can AI-driven autonomy reduce harm, or does it risk dehumanizing decision-making? In this “AI Hot Takes & Debates” series episode, Daniel and Chris dive deep into the ethical crossroads of AI, autonomy, and military applications. They trade perspectives on ethics, precision, responsibility, and whether machines should ever be trusted with life-or-d…

1
Building the Internet of Agents with Vijoy Pandey - #737 56:13

6M ago56:13

56:13

Today, we're joined by Vijoy Pandey, SVP and general manager at Outshift by Cisco to discuss a foundational challenge for the enterprise: how do we make specialized agents from different vendors collaborate effectively? As companies like Salesforce, Workday, and Microsoft all develop their own agentic systems, integrating them creates a complex, pr…

1
Behind-the-Scenes: VC Funding for AI Startups 41:48

6M ago41:48

41:48

It seems like we are bombarded by news about millions of dollars pouring into AI startups, which have crazy valuations. In this episode, Chris and Dan dive deep into the highs, lows, and hard choices behind funding an AI startup. They explore early bootstrapping, the transition to venture capital, and what it’s like to trade in code commits for inv…

1
LLMs for Equities Feature Forecasting at Two Sigma with Ben Wellington - #736 59:31

6M ago59:31

59:31

Today, we're joined by Ben Wellington, deputy head of feature forecasting at Two Sigma. We dig into the team’s end-to-end approach to leveraging AI in equities feature forecasting, covering how they identify and create features, collect and quantify historical data, and build predictive models to forecast market behavior and asset prices for tradin…

1
AI-Automated Film Making 43:02

6M ago43:02

43:02

An recent article in Variety was titled: "Sylvester Stallone-Backed Largo.ai Teams With Brilliant Pictures for ‘World’s First Fully AI-Automated Film Company’". Obviously this caught our attention! We sit down with Sami Arpa, CEO of Largo.ai, to unpack how films are developed, funded, and brought to life using AI. We discover how tools like script …

1
Zero-Shot Auto-Labeling: The End of Annotation for Computer Vision with Jason Corso - #735 56:45

6M ago56:45

56:45

Today, we're joined by Jason Corso, co-founder of Voxel51 and professor at the University of Michigan, to explore automated labeling in computer vision. Jason introduces FiftyOne, an open-source platform for visualizing datasets, analyzing models, and improving data quality. We focus on Voxel51’s recent research report, “Zero-shot auto-labeling riv…

1
Grokking, Generalization Collapse, and the Dynamics of Training Deep Neural Networks with Charles Martin - #734 1:25:21

6M ago1:25:21

1:25:21

Today, we're joined by Charles Martin, founder of Calculation Consulting, to discuss Weight Watcher, an open-source tool for analyzing and improving Deep Neural Networks (DNNs) based on principles from theoretical physics. We explore the foundations of the Heavy-Tailed Self-Regularization (HTSR) theory that underpins it, which combines random matri…

1
Federated learning in production (part 2) 45:25

6M ago45:25

45:25

Chong Shen from Flower Labs joins us to discuss what it really takes to build production-ready federated learning systems that work across data silos. We talk about the Flower framework and it's architecture (supernodes, superlinks, etc.), and what makes it both "friendly" and ready for real enterprise environments. We also explore how the generati…

Podcasts Worth a Listen

Are Machines And Robots A Threat Podcasts

Podcasts Worth a Listen

Quick Reference Guide