François Chollet: Keras, Deep Learning, and the Progress of AI | Lex Fridman Podcast #38

I really enjoyed this conversation with François. Here's the outline: 0:00 - Introduction 1:14 - Self-improving AGI 7:51 - What is intelligence? 15:23 - Science progress 26:57 - Fear of existential threats of AI 28:11 - Surprised by deep learning 30:38 - Keras and TensorFlow 2.0 42:28 - Software engineering on a large team 46:23 - Future of TensorFlow and Keras 47:53 - Current limits of deep learning 58:05 - Program synthesis 1:00:36 - Data and hand-crafting of architectures 1:08:37 - Concerns about short-term threats in AI 1:24:21 - Concerns about long-term existential threats from AI 1:29:11 - Feeling about creating AGI 1:33:49 - Does human-level intelligence need a body? 1:34:19 - Good test for intelligence 1:50:30 - AI winter

This guy is the most grounded researcher I've seen.

Chollet makes an important point when he says that human intelligence is not applied to substantial tasks by single individuals but rather by groups of humans collaborating. This becomes clear when you consider how error-prone the work of a single individual may be. Everything has to be checked. The situation of "knowing" something is a group process too, because individuals have to agree on what we know before it becomes fact. Even for solitary work, such as that of an artist or a mathematician, the product of the work must be confirmed by others as good or correct before it becomes useful or respected.

This is like Francois tweeting for 2 hours

My favorite podcast right now, I can’t get enough info on this topic.

This is the best speaker on that channel so far. I really liked how articulate François is in explaining his point of view. I could not agree more with almost everything he was talking about.

The quality of your interviews are outstanding! The calabre of your guests are amazing. Keep up the great work!

Hi Lex, I appreciate how you challenge those you interview. This is real journalism that you are doing. Thank you.

Amazing interview! I especially liked how François exposed the idea of ​​an exponential increase in technological progress.

Thank you Lex for all these awesome videos

Gotta admit your channel is a goldmine. Love your podcasts.

THANK YOU, Lex and Francois. Amazing discussion. I'm walking away a little different after this.

Incredible work interviewing Lex ... you seem to ask just the right questions at the right moments to keep the guest going , and pull out the highest value information and the most improtant points out of the guest .... really appreciate these interviews and the quality and care you put into the interviews and into every single question and all the follow up questions .... awesome rhythm with the guest, and highly enjoyable podcast for neophytes in these fields to advanced people in this field ... keep up the awesome work man thanks so much !! -Rafif

Wow, another great guest! I'm not sure if I would have continued studying Deep Learning if it wasn't for the Keras interface making it easier to get started! The Deep Learning with Keras book is also such a great resource to get a sense of many different applications of DL!

Your channel's fantastic man, these interviews are amazing. Keep it going.

biology, evolution, physics, politics, history, language, business, astronomy, mathematics, sociology, philosophy and even a bit of computer science. What an incredible, expansive and informative conversation between two brilliant humans. Thanks for increasing my confidence in humanity.

The word for this interview series is "exceptional". Thanks again Lex

This was an enlightening interview, very interesting. Thank you!

Lex! Look. You have to slow down the upload pace of these exceptionally insightful interviews. I am still recovering from the mind expanding interviews that you uploaded from a few months back. François Chollet's ideas and concerns have added so much to the tools that I pull from while exploring A.I. topics. Brilliant interview. I'm picturing a whole busload of YouTube content creators actively conspiring to tackle you as you are constantly setting the integrity bar higher and higher. 🌻

Really interesting discussion, full of new ideas and unexpected perspectives. I did not expect that Francois thinks so deep about AI. Enjoyed this interview a lot...