This podcast episode discusses various aspects of AI research, including the evolution of models such as Raker Core, the career journey of the speaker, the challenges faced by compute providers, the importance of marketing and PR in research, the qualities of a good AI programmer, architectural decisions in transformer models, the trend towards early fusion in multimodal models, the importance of long-context and fine-tuning in decision-making, the promise of MOE models, the difficulties of comparing mixed models, productivity strategies for researchers, the challenges of different cultural and research environments, and the cultural hegemony of US values in AI. Overall, the episode provides valuable insights into the state of AI research, the challenges and opportunities faced by researchers, and the importance of technical expertise and collaboration in driving progress in the field.
