The Deep View: Conversations

We sat down with Vijay Balasubramaniyan, the co-founder and CEO of cybersecurity firm Pindrop. And today, we’re breaking down audio deepfakes and deepfake detection; what levers are in place to indicate whether a piece of audio is real or synthetic, and how those levers technically work. 

Episode Links: 

• Pindrop – https://www.pindrop.com/
• The rise of deepfake fraud – https://www.forbes.com/sites/chriswestfall/2024/11/29/ai-deepfakes-of-elon-musk-on-the-rise-causing-billions-in-fraud-losses/
• Biden robocall – https://www.thestreet.com/technology/how-the-company-that-traced-fake-biden-robocall-identifies-a-synthetic-voice
• The deepfake threat – https://www.thestreet.com/technology/ai-cybersecurity-nonprofit-civai-deepfake-fraud-identity-theft-hijacking
• How LLMs work – https://arstechnica.com/science/2023/07/a-jargon-free-explanation-of-how-ai-large-language-models-work/
• Closed vs. open AI – https://www.americanactionforum.org/insight/open-source-ai-the-debate-that-could-redefine-ai-innovation/
• Deepfake voice cloning – https://consumer.ftc.gov/consumer-alerts/2024/04/fighting-back-against-harmful-voice-cloning

Outline: 
0:00 – Intro 
4:27 – The origins of audio deepfakes
8:25 – The origins of Pindrop
12:45 – The cybersecurity risk of a remote-first world
28:33 – Open vs closed source
31:20 – How Pindrop’s audio deepfake detection works
37:18 – Staying ahead of the threat curve
40:59 – Scaling improvements 
43:24 – Building responsibility into the architecture
47:18 – The importance of AI regulation
52:22 – What can people do to protect themselves in this age of AI deepfakes? 

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Artificial intelligence is a complicated topic, bound by a number of complex threads — technical science, ethics, safety, regulation, neuroscience, psychology, philosophy, investment and — above all — humanity. On The Deep View: Conversations, Ian Krietzberg, host and Editor-in-Chief at The Deep View, breaks it all down, cutting through the hype to make clear what's important and why you should care.

We sat down with Dr. Missy Cummings, who served as one of the U.S. Navy’s first female fighter pilots and now works as the director of George Mason University’s Autonomy and Robotics Center. Cummings, an engineer, has been studying autonomous systems for years – today, we break down the autonomy challenge in self-driving cars: how they work, their enormous limitations and a path to a feasible self-driving future. 

Episode Links: 

• Lidar breaks down in the rain: https://www.mdpi.com/1424-8220/24/10/2997?utm_source=www.thedeepview.co&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=openai-launches-o1-unveils-200-subscription-tier
• George Mason’s Autonomy and Robotics Center: https://marc.gmu.edu/
• Waymo’s self-driving statistics: https://www.thedeepview.co/p/the-complicated-statistics-behind-safe-self-driving-cars
• Waymo’s steady expansion: https://waymo.com/blog/2024/12/next-stop-miami/
• All the investigations into Tesla’s systems: https://www.cnbc.com/2024/12/09/tesla-accused-of-fraudulent-misrepresentation-of-autopilot-in-crash-.html
• A breakdown of why AI confabulates: https://mitsloanedtech.mit.edu/ai/basics/addressing-ai-hallucinations-and-bias/

Outline: 
1:39 – From airplanes to AVs
3:57 – What makes self-driving cars tick
9:00 – The risk of edge cases
12:49 – The hallucination problem
18:36 – How do we verify if a self-driving car is safe, in a safe way? 
24:02 – Waymo and the scaling of safety data
29:40 – The hardware behind self-driving
31:33 – Limitations of Lidar
37:57 – The misconceptions of self-driving cars
40:16 – A self-driving future

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Artificial intelligence is a complicated topic, bound by a number of complex threads — technical science, ethics, safety, regulation, neuroscience, psychology, philosophy, investment and — above all — humanity. On The Deep View: Conversations, Ian Krietzberg, host and Editor-in-Chief at The Deep View, breaks it all down, cutting through the hype to make clear what's important and why you should care.

New Jersey's department of labor, in collaboration with USDR and Google.org, has assembled a set of training materials designed to turn off-the-shelf language models into bilingual unemployment insurance experts. We sat down with two of the people behind the launch to break it down.

For Episode 2 of The Deep View: Conversations, we flew to Abu Dhabi to sit down with President Eric Xing of the Mohamed bin Zayed University of Artificial Intelligence, the world’s first AI-only university. We talk about everything from his unconventional journey to MBZUAI, misconceptions about the technology, the reality of progress in the field and the idea that, like the printing press, AI might usher in a new age for humanity, the age of empowerment.

 
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EPISODE LINKS:
MBZUAI appoints Eric Xing: https://mbzuai.ac.ae/study/faculty/professor-eric-xing/
Eric Xing addresses the class of 2024: https://mbzuai.ac.ae/news/presidents-address-to-the-class-of-2024/
The printing press and the age of enlightenment: https://www.history.com/news/printing-press-renaissance

OUTLINE:
00:47 Introduction to MBZUAI
02:49 The Unexpected Offer
05:19 Making the Decision
10:01 A New Cultural Moment
13:28 Starting at MBZUAI
14:35 The Age of AI Empowerment
21:44 AI’s Potential and Risks
29:19 Regulating AI
35:40 The Promise of AI
43:39 AI as the Modern Microscope
45:19 Limitations and Misconceptions of AI
47:57 The Role of Language in AI
50:26 AI Literacy and Public Perception
01:01:00 Open Source vs. Closed Source Debate
01:15:01 The Future of AI Education
01:22:31 Conclusion and Final Thoughts

 
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Artificial intelligence is a complicated topic, bound by a number of complex threads — technical science, ethics, safety, regulation, neuroscience, psychology, philosophy, investment and — above all — humanity. On The Deep View: Conversations, Ian Krietzberg, host and Editor-in-Chief at The Deep View, breaks it all down, cutting through the hype to make clear what's important and why you should care.

 
SPONSOR:
Google Cloud: For all your cloud needs.
Go to https://cloud.google.com/startups

EPISODE LINKS:
Taming Silicon Valley: https://mitpress.mit.edu/9780262551069/taming-silicon-valley/
Gary Marcus’ Testimony Before the Senate Judiciary Committee: https://www.judiciary.senate.gov/committee-activity/hearings/oversight-of-ai-rules-for-artificial-intelligence
Google DeepMind’s AlphaFold 3: https://alphafold.com/
Generative AI’s Copyright Problem: https://garymarcus.substack.com/p/the-potential-genai-copyright-infringement
Eric Schmidt, Let the Lawyers Clean it Up: https://www.theverge.com/2024/8/16/24221353/eric-schmidt-says-the-quiet-part-out-loud
Deep Learning is Hitting a Wall: https://garymarcus.substack.com/p/26-months-of-ridicule-and-failure?utm_source=publication-search
Marcus Bets Elon Musk $10 Million: https://garymarcus.substack.com/p/superhuman-agi-is-not-nigh

OUTLINE:
1:30 – The inspiration behind 'Taming Silicon Valley'
4:30 – Regulation won't stifle innovation; it'll do the opposite.
7:10 – The potential upsides of AI (if it's done right).
10:00 – Money, power and the original mission of AI
12:11 – Generative AI's copyright problem
13:35 – The culture and ethos of Silicon Valley
14:45 – Here's how we can achieve ethical AI
19:11 - Common AI misconceptions
22:01 – Deep learning and exponential progress
25:06 – The bursting of the AI bubble
31:31 – New AI paradigms: Neurosymbolic AI
33:45 – No AGI by 2027
38:00 – Is AGI possible?
39:45 – The role of regulation
42:15 – We shouldn't stop AI
45:30 – Chatbots aren't the "droids we're looking for"
49:30 – Is solving AI a good thing?
51:10 – Silicon Valley is its own worst enemy
53:20 – What should people do about AI?

 
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