Vanishing Gradients

Episode 42: Learning, Teaching, and Building in the Age of AI

January 4th, 2025  |  Season 1  |  1 hr 20 mins

ai, data science, genai, llms, machine learning

The tables turn as Hugo sits down with Alex Andorra, host of Learning Bayesian Statistics. Hugo shares his journey from mathematics to AI, reflecting on how Bayesian inference shapes his approach to data science, teaching, and building AI-powered applications.

Episode 40: What Every LLM Developer Needs to Know About GPUs

December 24th, 2024  |  Season 1  |  1 hr 43 mins

ai, data science, llms, machine learning

Hugo speaks with Charles Frye, Developer Advocate at Modal and someone who really knows GPUs inside and out. If you’re a data scientist, machine learning engineer, AI researcher, or just someone trying to make sense of hardware for LLMs and AI workflows, this episode is for you.

Charles and Hugo dive into the practical side of GPUs—from running inference on large models, to fine-tuning and even training from scratch.

Episode 39: From Models to Products: Bridging Research and Practice in Generative AI at Google Labs

November 26th, 2024  |  Season 1  |  1 hr 43 mins

ai, data science, llms, machine learning

From building rockets at SpaceX to advancing generative AI at Google Labs, Ravin Kumar has carved a unique path through the world of technology. In this episode, we explore how to build scalable, reliable AI systems, the skills needed to work across the AI/ML pipeline, and the real-world impact of tools like open-weight models such as Gemma. Ravin also shares insights into designing AI tools like Notebook LM with the user journey at the forefront.

Episode 18: Research Data Science in Biotech

May 25th, 2023  |  Season 1  |  1 hr 12 mins

ai, biotech, data science, machine learning, open source, python

Machine learning, deep learning, Bayesian inference for drug discovery, OSS, and accelerating discovery science to the speed of thought!

Episode 7: The Evolution of Python for Data Science

May 2nd, 2022  |  Season 1  |  1 hr 2 mins

ai, data science, machine learning, python

Hugo speaks with Peter Wang, CEO of Anaconda, about how Python became so big in data science, machine learning, and AI. They jump into many of the technical and sociological beginnings of Python being used for data science, a history of PyData, the conda distribution, and NUMFOCUS.

Episode 5: Executive Data Science

March 23rd, 2022  |  Season 1  |  1 hr 48 mins

ai, data science, machine learning

Hugo speaks with Jim Savage, the Director of Data Science at Schmidt Futures, about the need for data science in executive training and decision, what data scientists can learn from economists, the perils of "data for good", and why you should always be integrating your loss function over your posterior.