Practical AI

By Daniel Whitenack and Chris BensonTechnology

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Typical duration
48 min
per episode

Based on Podcast App listening data

Practical AI episodes

June 11, 2019GANs, RL, and transfer learning oh my!
Daniel and Chris explore three potentially confusing topics - generative adversarial networks (GANs), deep reinforcement learning (DRL), and transfer learning. Are these types of neural network architectures? Are they something different? How are they used? Well, If you have ever wondered how AI can be creative, wished you understood how robots get their smarts, or were impressed at how some AI practitioners conquer big challenges quickly, then this is your episode!

Sponsors:
DigitalOcean – Check out DigitalOcean’s dedicated vCPU Droplets with dedicated vCPU threads. Get started for free with a $50 credit. Learn more at do.co/changelog.
Discover.bot – A digital space for bot developers and enthusiasts of all skill levels to learn from one another, share stories, and move the bot conversation forward. Want to learn more about building bots? Get started with their Guide to Bot Building Frameworks.
GitPrime – Download GitPrime’s 20 Patterns book, a field guide to help engineering managers recognize achievement, spot bottlenecks, and debug development processes with data.
Fastly – Our bandwidth partner. Fastly powers fast, secure, and scalable digital experiences. Move beyond your content delivery network to their powerful edge cloud platform. Learn more at fastly.com.
Featuring:
Chris Benson – Website, GitHub, LinkedIn, X
Daniel Whitenack – Website, GitHub, X
Show Notes:
SUBSCRIBE ~> Brain Science — For the curious! We’re exploring the inner-workings of the human brain to understand behavior change, habit formation, mental health, and being human.
RL (Reinforcement learning)
Good overview article
Human-level performance in Quake III–Capture the Flag
Practical AI episode about Deep Reinforcement Learning
Practical AI episode about OpenAI, reinforcement learning, robots, and safety
PyTorch RL tutorial
GANs (Generative Adversarial Networks)
Good overview article
This is not a person website
Christie’s AI art auction
OpenAI Generative models
TensorFlow GAN tutorial
Transfer learning
Good overview article
Forbes article on Google AutoML
Practical AI episode on BERT
Practical AI episode on GPT-2
How to build a State-of-the-Art Conversational AI with Transfer Learning
-NAACL workshop on transfer learning for NLP
Upcoming Events:
Register for upcoming webinars here!
52 min
June 04, 2019Visualizing and understanding RNNs
Andreas Madsen, a freelance ML/AI engineer and Distill.pub author, joins us to discuss his work visualizing neural networks and recurrent neural units. Andreas discusses various neural unites, RNNs in general, and the “why” of neural network visualization. He also gives us his perspective on ML/AI freelancing and moving from web development to AI research.

Sponsors:
DigitalOcean – Check out DigitalOcean’s dedicated vCPU Droplets with dedicated vCPU threads. Get started for free with a $50 credit. Learn more at do.co/changelog.
Discover.bot – A digital space for bot developers and enthusiasts of all skill levels to learn from one another, share stories, and move the bot conversation forward. Want to learn more about building bots? Get started with their Guide to Bot Building Frameworks.
strongDM – Manage access to any database, server, and environment. strongDM makes it easy for DevOps to enforce the controls InfoSec teams require.
Fastly – Our bandwidth partner. Fastly powers fast, secure, and scalable digital experiences. Move beyond your content delivery network to their powerful edge cloud platform. Learn more at fastly.com.
Featuring:
Andreas Madsen – GitHub, X
Chris Benson – Website, GitHub, LinkedIn, X
Daniel Whitenack – Website, GitHub, X
Show Notes:
Distill.pub by Andreas
Taylor approximation and other mathematics related to neural networks
Books
“Programming Collective Intelligence” by Toby Segaran
Upcoming Events:
Register for upcoming webinars here!
47 min
May 28, 2019How to get plugged into the AI community
Chris and Daniel take you on a tour of local and global AI events, and discuss how to get the most out of your experiences. From access to experts to developing new industry relationships, learn how to get your foot in the door and make connections that help you grow as an AI practitioner.
Then drawing from their own wealth of experience as speakers, they dive into what it takes to give a memorable world-class talk that your audience will love. They break down how to select the topic, write the abstract, put the presentation together, and deliver the narrative with impact!

Sponsors:
DigitalOcean – Check out DigitalOcean’s dedicated vCPU Droplets with dedicated vCPU threads. Get started for free with a $50 credit. Learn more at do.co/changelog.
strongDM – Manage access to any database, server, and environment. strongDM makes it easy for DevOps to enforce the controls InfoSec teams require.
Discover.bot – A digital space for bot developers and enthusiasts of all skill levels to learn from one another, share stories, and move the bot conversation forward. Want to learn more about building bots? Get started with their Guide to Bot Building Frameworks.
GitPrime – Download GitPrime’s 20 Patterns book, a field guide to help engineering managers recognize achievement, spot bottlenecks, and debug development processes with data.
Featuring:
Chris Benson – Website, GitHub, LinkedIn, X
Daniel Whitenack – Website, GitHub, X
Show Notes:
Local Meetups - Great for first steps, local help and relationship building, job connections, involvement in local projects, etc. Mostly free!
PyData
TensorFlow
PyTorch
Deep Learning
etc.
Large industry conferences - Great to see what some of the larger companies and innovative startups are doing with AI, application and infra focused, etc. Expensive.
O’Reilly AI, Strata Data, TensorFlow World
QCon AI, QCon
Spark Summit
MLConf
Applied Machine Learning Days
PyCon
LiveWorx
etc.
Smaller, topical events or events focused on particular tools - Great if you are heavily invested in particular tech or a topic like NLP. In general you have to look around quite a bit to find these.
TensorFlow dev summit
Spacy IRL
PyTorch developers conference
AllenNLP Summit
Applied Artificial Intelligence Conference
DataSciConhttps://datascicon.tech/
Etc.
Research conferences - Meant to be an outlet for original research. Great to see how research orgs/institutions are pushing the boundaries and doing groundbreaking things. Hard to get into and very academic.
NeurIPS
EMNLP
ICLR
CVPR
etc.
Some conference talks from the Practical AI hosts:
Chris Benson’s upcoming talk at LiveWorx 2019 in Boston on Wednesday, June 12, 2019: Artificial Intelligence Strategy: Digital Transformation Through Deep Learning
Examples of previous AI talks by Chris Benson
Building GPU-Accelerated Workflows with TensorFlow and Kubernetes
Fully Reproducible ML Deployment with Spark, Pachyderm, and MLeap
Upcoming Events:
Register for upcoming webinars here!
1 hr 3 min
May 21, 2019AI adoption in the enterprise
At the recent O’Reilly AI Conference in New York City, Chris met up with O’Reilly Chief Data Scientist Ben Lorica, the Program Chair for Strata Data, the AI Conference, and TensorFlow World.
O’Reilly’s ‘AI Adoption in the Enterprise’ report had just been released, so naturally Ben and Chris wanted to do a deep dive into enterprise AI adoption to discuss strategy, execution, and implications.

Sponsors:
DigitalOcean – Check out DigitalOcean’s dedicated vCPU Droplets with dedicated vCPU threads. Get started for free with a $50 credit. Learn more at do.co/changelog.
strongDM – Manage access to any database, server, and environment. strongDM makes it easy for DevOps to enforce the controls InfoSec teams require.
Discover.bot – A digital space for bot developers and enthusiasts of all skill levels to learn from one another, share stories, and move the bot conversation forward. Want to learn more about building bots? Get started with their Guide to Bot Building Frameworks.
GitPrime – Download GitPrime’s 20 Patterns book, a field guide to help engineering managers recognize achievement, spot bottlenecks, and debug development processes with data.
Featuring:
Ben Lorica – Website, LinkedIn, X
Chris Benson – Website, GitHub, LinkedIn, X
Show Notes:
O’Reilly’s AI Adoption in the Enterprise: How Companies Are Planning and Prioritizing AI Projects in Practice
O’Reilly AI Conference 2019 | NYC
Upcoming Events:
Register for upcoming webinars here!
58 min
May 14, 2019When AI meets quantum mechanics
Can AI help quantum physicists? Can quantum physicists help the AI community? The answers are yes and yes! Dr. Shohini Ghose from Wilfrid Laurier University and Marcus Edwards from the University of Waterloo join us to discuss ML/AI’s impact on physics and quantum computing potential for ML/AI.

Sponsors:
DigitalOcean – Check out DigitalOcean’s dedicated vCPU Droplets with dedicated vCPU threads. Get started for free with a $100 credit. Learn more at do.co/changelog.
Discover.bot – A digital space for bot developers and enthusiasts of all skill levels to learn from one another, share stories, and move the bot conversation forward. Want to learn more about building bots? Get started with their Guide to Bot Building Frameworks.
strongDM – Manage access to any database, server, and environment. strongDM makes it easy for DevOps to enforce the controls InfoSec teams require.
Fastly – Our bandwidth partner. Fastly powers fast, secure, and scalable digital experiences. Move beyond your content delivery network to their powerful edge cloud platform. Learn more at fastly.com.
Featuring:
Shohini Ghose – Website
Marcus Edwards – Website, GitHub, LinkedIn, X
Chris Benson – Website, GitHub, LinkedIn, X
Daniel Whitenack – Website, GitHub, X
Show Notes:
Quantum Emulation project (email [email protected]/)
Efforts to use Quantum Computing to accelerate ML/AI:
from Google
from IBM
Xanadu: a dedicated ML platform for quantum computers
OpenQASM
Rigetti
Quantum open source foundation
TED talk from Dr. Ghose
Upcoming Events:
Register for upcoming webinars here!
1 hr 3 min
May 07, 2019TensorFlow Dev Summit 2019
This week Daniel and Chris discuss the announcements made recently at TensorFlow Dev Summit 2019. They kick it off with the alpha release of TensorFlow 2.0, which features eager execution and an improved user experience through Keras, which has been integrated into TensorFlow itself. They round out the list with TensorFlow Datasets, TensorFlow Addons, TensorFlow Extended (TFX), and the upcoming inaugural O’Reilly TensorFlow World conference.

Sponsors:
DigitalOcean – Check out DigitalOcean’s dedicated vCPU Droplets with dedicated vCPU threads. Get started for free with a $100 credit. Learn more at do.co/changelog.
Discover.bot – A digital space for bot developers and enthusiasts of all skill levels to learn from one another, share stories, and move the bot conversation forward. Want to learn more about building bots? Get started with their Guide to Bot Building Frameworks.
GitPrime – Download GitPrime’s 20 Patterns book, a field guide to help engineering managers recognize achievement, spot bottlenecks, and debug development processes with data.
Fastly – Our bandwidth partner. Fastly powers fast, secure, and scalable digital experiences. Move beyond your content delivery network to their powerful edge cloud platform. Learn more at fastly.com.
Featuring:
Chris Benson – Website, GitHub, LinkedIn, X
Daniel Whitenack – Website, GitHub, X
Show Notes:
TensorFlow Dev Summit 2019
TensorFlow 2.0 alpha release
TensorFlow Datasets
TensorFlow Extended (TFX)
TensorFlow Addons
O’Reilly TensorFlow World conference
Upcoming Events:
Register for upcoming webinars here!
1 hr
April 30, 2019CTRL-labs lets you control machines with your mind
No, this isn’t science fiction! CTRL-labs is using neural signals and AI to build neural interfaces. Adam Berenzweig, from CTRL-labs R&D, joins us to explain how this works and how they have made it practical.

Sponsors:
DigitalOcean – Check out DigitalOcean’s dedicated vCPU Droplets with dedicated vCPU threads. Get started for free with a $100 credit. Learn more at do.co/changelog.
O'Reilly Open Source Software Conference – OSCON has been ground zero for the open source community for 20 years. This year they’ve expanded to become a “software development conference” — because in 2019, software development IS open source. The program covers everything from open source, AI, infrastructure, blockchain, edge computing, architecture, and emerging languages. Use the code CHANGELOG20 to get 20% off Bronze, Silver, and Gold passes.
Fastly – Our bandwidth partner. Fastly powers fast, secure, and scalable digital experiences. Move beyond your content delivery network to their powerful edge cloud platform. Learn more at fastly.com.
GitPrime – Download GitPrime’s 20 Patterns book, a field guide to help engineering managers recognize achievement, spot bottlenecks, and debug development processes with data.
Featuring:
Adam Berenzweig – Website, LinkedIn, X
Chris Benson – Website, GitHub, LinkedIn, X
Daniel Whitenack – Website, GitHub, X
Show Notes:
O’Reilly AI keynote from CTRL-labs
CTRL-labs website
CTRL-kit
TED talk “The real reason for brains”
IBM healthcare Practical AI episode
Upcoming Events:
Register for upcoming webinars here!
1 hr 4 min
April 23, 2019Deep Reinforcement Learning
While attending the NVIDIA GPU Technology Conference in Silicon Valley, Chris met up with Adam Stooke, a speaker and PhD student at UC Berkeley who is doing groundbreaking work in large-scale deep reinforcement learning and robotics. Adam took Chris on a tour of deep reinforcement learning - explaining what it is, how it works, and why it’s one of the hottest technologies in artificial intelligence!

Sponsors:
DigitalOcean – Check out DigitalOcean’s dedicated vCPU Droplets with dedicated vCPU threads. Get started for free with a $100 credit. Learn more at do.co/changelog.
O'Reilly Open Source Software Conference – OSCON has been ground zero for the open source community for 20 years. This year they’ve expanded to become a “software development conference” — because in 2019, software development IS open source. The program covers everything from open source, AI, infrastructure, blockchain, edge computing, architecture, and emerging languages. Use the code CHANGELOG20 to get 20% off Bronze, Silver, and Gold passes.
Fastly – Our bandwidth partner. Fastly powers fast, secure, and scalable digital experiences. Move beyond your content delivery network to their powerful edge cloud platform. Learn more at fastly.com.
GitPrime – Download GitPrime’s 20 Patterns book, a field guide to help engineering managers recognize achievement, spot bottlenecks, and debug development processes with data.
Featuring:
Adam Stooke – GitHub, LinkedIn, X
Chris Benson – Website, GitHub, LinkedIn, X
Show Notes:
NVIDIA GTC: Doing More with More: Recent Achievements in Large-Scale Deep Reinforcement Learning
Accelerated Methods for Deep Reinforcement Learning
Accelerated Methods for Deep Reinforcement Learning - code
OpenAI Five - Dota 2
AlphaStar: Mastering the Real-Time Strategy Game StarCraft II
NVIDIA Graduate Fellowship
Crunchbase
The Hertz Foundation
Upcoming Events:
Register for upcoming webinars here!
46 min
April 15, 2019Making the world a better place at the AI for Good Foundation
Longtime listeners know that we’re always advocating for ‘AI for good’, but this week we have taken it to a whole new level. We had the privilege of chatting with James Hodson, Director of the AI for Good Foundation, about ways they have used artificial intelligence to positively-impact the world - from food production to climate change. James inspired us to find our own ways to use AI for good, and we challenge our listeners to get out there and do some good!

Sponsors:
DigitalOcean – Check out DigitalOcean’s dedicated vCPU Droplets with dedicated vCPU threads. Get started for free with a $100 credit. Learn more at do.co/changelog.
O'Reilly Open Source Software Conference – OSCON has been ground zero for the open source community for 20 years. This year they’ve expanded to become a “software development conference” — because in 2019, software development IS open source. The program covers everything from open source, AI, infrastructure, blockchain, edge computing, architecture, and emerging languages. Use the code CHANGELOG20 to get 20% off Bronze, Silver, and Gold passes.
Fastly – Our bandwidth partner. Fastly powers fast, secure, and scalable digital experiences. Move beyond your content delivery network to their powerful edge cloud platform. Learn more at fastly.com.
Rollbar – We move fast and fix things because of Rollbar. Resolve errors in minutes. Deploy with confidence. Learn more at rollbar.com/changelog.
Featuring:
James Hodson – Website, X
Chris Benson – Website, GitHub, LinkedIn, X
Daniel Whitenack – Website, GitHub, X
Show Notes:
AI For Good Foundation
AI For Good Foundation Video Lectures
KDD Earth Day
“Fragile Earth” Workshop
Discounted Membership for Practical AI Podcast Listeners!
AI Experts: Moving forward with AI likely a series of small steps, not giant leaps
Upcoming Events:
Register for upcoming webinars here!
52 min
April 08, 2019GIPHY's celebrity detector
GIPHY’s head of R&D, Nick Hasty, joins us to discuss their recently released celebrity detector project. He gives us all of the details about that project, but he also tells us about GIPHY’s origins, AI in general at GIPHY, and more!

Sponsors:
DigitalOcean – Check out DigitalOcean’s dedicated vCPU Droplets with dedicated vCPU threads. Get started for free with a $100 credit. Learn more at do.co/changelog.
Discover.bot – A digital space for bot developers and enthusiasts of all skill levels to learn from one another, share stories, and move the bot conversation forward. Want to learn more about building bots? Get started with their Guide to Bot Building Frameworks.
Fastly – Our bandwidth partner. Fastly powers fast, secure, and scalable digital experiences. Move beyond your content delivery network to their powerful edge cloud platform. Learn more at fastly.com.
GitPrime – Download GitPrime’s 20 Patterns book, a field guide to help engineering managers recognize achievement, spot bottlenecks, and debug development processes with data.
Featuring:
Nick Hasty – Website, LinkedIn, X
Chris Benson – Website, GitHub, LinkedIn, X
Daniel Whitenack – Website, GitHub, X
Show Notes:
Blog post about the celeb detector project
GIPHY Enters the Open Source Community with Celebrity Detector (readwrite article)
MTCNN method used in the celebrity detector project
GitHub repo
Demo page
3D projection of celeb face embeddings
Complete list of all celebs in the model
Upcoming Events:
Register for upcoming webinars here!
50 min

About Practical AI

From the publisher's feed

Making artificial intelligence practical, productive & accessible to everyone. Practical AI is a show in which technology professionals, business people, students, enthusiasts, and expert guests engage in lively discussions about Artificial Intelligence and related topics (Machine Learning, Deep Learning, Neural Networks, GANs, MLOps, AIOps, LLMs & more).