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Artwork for Machine Learning Street Talk

Machine Learning Street Talk (MLST)

Machine Learning Street Talk (MLST)
Artificial Intelligence
Machine Learning
Deep Learning
Large Language Models
Neural Networks
Artificial General Intelligence
Transformers
AI Safety
Cognitive Science
Reinforcement Learning
Language Models
AI Ethics
Consciousness
Free Energy Principle
Cohere
Intelligence
Active Inference
Neuroscience
ARC Challenge
Agency

Welcome! We engage in fascinating discussions with pre-eminent figures in the AI field. Our flagship show covers current affairs in AI, cognitive science, neuroscience and philosophy of mind with in-depth analysis. Our approach is unrivalled in terms of scope and rigour – we believe in intellectual diversity in AI, and we touch on all of the main ideas in the field with the hype surgically removed... more

PublishesWeeklyEpisodes271Founded6 years ago
Number of ListenersCategory
Technology

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Artwork for Machine Learning Street Talk

Latest Episodes

A lot of people in AI treat evolution as a dumb fallback, basically random search for when you can't take a gradient. Akarsh Kumar thinks that is wrong. Selection hangs on to partial solutions, so mutations only need to be useful about 1% of the time... more

Tsung-Hsien (Shawn) Wen, CTO of PolyAI, tells Tim Scarfe why voice agents are harder than text agents. Voice adds time, and a good conversation depends on adapting to the person on the line, not just on reasoning to the best answer. Shawn describes a... more

Leonardo de Moura created Lean and co-created Z3. ---This episode is sponsored by Parallel.Parallel, where agents find answers: web search, extraction and deep research APIs built for AI agents.Start free with the Parallel MCP server and $5 of credit... more

Weco let an AI coding agent rewrite the harness around another agent for eight days: its code, prompts and tools, while the underlying language model stayed fixed. Tim Scarfe asks Weco co-founder Zhengyao Jiang what the reported gains over two years ... more

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Recent Guests

Leo de Moura
Creator of Ling, chief architect and co-founder of the Ling Throw, a non-profit behind Ling and senior principal scientist at AWS
AWS
Episode: Who Checks a Proof No Human Can Read? — Leo de Moura
Zhengyao Jiang
Co-founder and CEO of Weco AI
Weco AI
Episode: When AI Research Starts Moving Faster Than Human Research - Zhengyao Jiang
Frank Hutter
Professor and CEO of Prior Labs, co-author of several AutoML works, and developer of TabPFN
Prior Labs
Episode: How Deep Learning Finally Cracked Messy Tables - Frank Hutter
Alexander Mattick
AI researcher and speaker on diffusion, EBMs, and world models
Independent/Academic
Episode: Why Scaling Prediction Cannot Create Intelligence - Alexander Mattick
Ming-Yu Liu
Researcher/engineer at NVIDIA, leads Cosmos research
NVIDIA
Episode: How Physical AI Learns Across Language, Video and Action — Ming-Yu Liu
Pavan Muddireddy
Research scientist and head of audio research at Mistral AI
Mistral AI
Episode: Speech Recognition Is Not a Solved Problem — Pavan Kumar Reddy
Edward Hughes
CEO/Founder, Inherent; researcher in AI scientist systems
Inherent
Episode: How Replication Could Teach Machines What Good Science Looks Like — Edward Hughes
Daniel Kokotajlo
Co-author of AI 2040, Plan A; runs the AI Futures Project
AI Futures Project
Episode: AI 2040: Plan A report - Daniel Kokotajlo & Thomas Larsen
Thomas Larsen
Lead author on AI 2040, Plan A; co-author on AI 2037
AI Futures Project
Episode: AI 2040: Plan A report - Daniel Kokotajlo & Thomas Larsen

Host

Tim Scarfe
Host of Machine Learning Street Talk (MLST)

Reviews

4.8 out of 5 stars from 749 ratings
  • Great

    This podcast is a gem. It is much more than ml

    Apple Podcasts
    5
    Tosvarsan
    Sweden4 months ago
  • You let this happen?!

    The person who moderated (or failed to) the Wolfram and Yudkowsy conversation wasted both guests and the audience’s time

    Apple Podcasts
    1
    Leopold P Bloom
    United States9 months ago
  • quantum mechanics

    I really enjoy Machine Learning Street Talk, even when I don’t agree with every opinion.

    I’m curious what happens when we add quantum mechanics to the discussion.

    I’d love to hear your thoughts.

    Boaz Kaizman, artist, Cologne

    Apple Podcasts
    5
    Bzeev
    Germany9 months ago
  • 😎😎

    норм подкастик. много свежих инсайтов

    Apple Podcasts
    5
    Вода Природная
    Russia10 months ago
  • Once-excellent podcast

    It used to be one of my favourite ML podcasts, with genuinely in-depth discussions and fascinating guests. Over time, though, it became increasingly clear that its primary goal had shifted to revenue generation, and the quality of the interviews declined accordingly. At its worst, entire episodes felt like thinly veiled sponsored ads for overhyped startups. It’s genuinely disappointing to watch such a once-excellent podcast lose its way.

    Apple Podcasts
    2
    DePrincipatibus
    Germanya year ago

Listeners Say

Key themes from listener reviews, highlighting what works and what could be improved about the show.

Occasional promo-heavy episodes have drawn criticism
Loved for rigorous discourse and wide range of topics
Consistently insightful takes on AI and governance
High technical depth and thoughtful guests

Chart Rankings

How this podcast ranks in the Apple Podcasts, Spotify and YouTube charts.

Apple Podcasts
#114
United States/Technology
Spotify
#41
United Kingdom/Technology
Apple Podcasts
#84
United Kingdom/Technology
Apple Podcasts
#144
Canada/Technology
Apple Podcasts
#96
France/Technology
Apple Podcasts
#103
Italy/Technology

Talking Points

Recent interactions between the hosts and their guests.

How a Voice Agent Learns the Rhythm of Conversation — Shawn Wen
Q: What do enterprises actually want from a voice agent?
Enterprises seek branded identity, high power comparable to humans, but also strong controllability and governance, including auditable processes, guardrails, and reliable integration with existing enterprise backends and data privacy rules.
Speech Recognition Is Not a Solved Problem — Pavan Kumar Reddy
Q: How do you approach speaker diarization in streaming versus offline modes, and what are the main failure modes?
Speaker diarization in their approach is integrated as an autoregressive task with speaker IDs predicted alongside timestamps. Streaming models struggle more with identifying speaker changes due to limited context, sometimes adding extra speakers or misaligning changes, whereas offline models benefit from more context and can be more accurate in multi-speaker scenarios.
Speech Recognition Is Not a Solved Problem — Pavan Kumar Reddy
Q: Could you explain the difference between streaming and batch models, and what the trade-offs are for both architectures?
Streaming models process audio and text in real-time, delivering transcripts with a controllable delay, which is advantageous for live applications like subtitles, but they face higher challenges in maintaining accuracy due to reduced context. Batch models can wait until more audio is available, achieving higher accuracy but with larger latency, and they can leverage full context to reduce errors.
How Replication Could Teach Machines What Good Science Looks Like — Edward Hughes
Q: How do you envision AI scientists balancing replication with genuine innovation?
Replication provides a disciplined, testable base to learn experimental rigor; innovation emerges by perturbing existing papers, imagining new variants, and using replication as a springboard to explore uncharted directions.
When AI Discovers The Next Transformer - Robert Lange (Sakana)
Q: What are your thoughts on ARC and how ARC challenges push open-ended systems?
They discuss ARC as a benchmarking context that emphasizes abstract building blocks and low data contamination, highlighting the need for systems to generalize from fundamental concepts rather than memorized solutions, thus driving adaptive, scalable AI research.

Audience Metrics

Listeners, social reach, demographics and more for this podcast.

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Frequently Asked Questions About Machine Learning Street Talk

What is Machine Learning Street Talk about and what kind of topics does it cover?

A rigorous tech and ideas podcast featuring deep dives into AI, cognitive science, neuroscience, and philosophy of mind. Episodes commonly explore safety, governance, abstraction, and the implications of frontier AI, often with industry researchers, philosophers, and seasoned practitioners as guests. The show is known for technical depth, broad intellectual curiosity, and a critical stance toward hype, with occasional critiques about sponsorship and production that shape listener perceptions. Potential listeners who want thoughtful, theory-to-practice discussions on AI and its broader human implications will likely find it compelling, while those seeking lighter or more promotional formats may feel differently.</summary

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Which podcasts are similar to Machine Learning Street Talk?

These podcasts share a similar audience with Machine Learning Street Talk:

1. The TWIML AI Podcast (formerly This Week in Machine Learning & Artificial Intelligence)
2. Dwarkesh Podcast
3. Training Data
4. No Priors: Artificial Intelligence | Technology | Startups
5. Practical AI

How many episodes of Machine Learning Street Talk are there?

Machine Learning Street Talk launched 6 years ago and published 271 episodes to date. You can find more information about this podcast including rankings, audience demographics and engagement in our podcast database.

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What guests have appeared on Machine Learning Street Talk?

Recent guests on Machine Learning Street Talk include:

1. Leo de Moura
2. Zhengyao Jiang
3. Frank Hutter
4. Alexander Mattick
5. Ming-Yu Liu
6. Pavan Muddireddy
7. Edward Hughes
8. Daniel Kokotajlo

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