Machine Learning Street Talk (MLST)

Machine Learning Street Talk (MLST)

Machine Learning Street Talk (MLST)

Episodes 252
Avg. Duration 1h 28m
Activity Highly Active
Apple Rating 4.6 (97)
Since Apr 2020
Latest Episode May 2026

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Publishing Details

Schedule
Weekly
Format
Episodic
Consistency
17%
Hosting
anchor.fm

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About This Podcast

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. MLST is run by Tim Scarfe, Ph.D (https://www.linkedin.com/in/ecsquizor/) and features regular appearances from MIT Doctor of Philosophy Keith Duggar (https://www.linkedin.com/in/dr-keith-duggar/).

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Recent Episodes

When AI Decides You're a Threat — Brad Carson

May 31, 2026 1h 20m

Brad Carson was the Army's General Counsel, served two terms in Congress and was Acting Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness. He now heads Americans for Responsible Innovation, the…

Intelligence is collective, not artificial — Prof. Michael I. Jordan (UC Berkeley / Inria)

May 21, 2026 1h 17m

Michael I. Jordan, described by Science magazine as the most influential computer scientist alive, has never thought of himself as an AI researcher. In this conversation he explains why that…

The AI Models Smart Enough to Know They're Cheating — Beth Barnes & David Rein [METR]

May 04, 2026 1h 53m

Beth Barnes and David Rein on the one graph that ate the AI timelines discourse, and why the two people who built it are the most careful about how you read it.**SPONSOR**Prolific - Quality data.…

When AI Discovers The Next Transformer - Robert Lange (Sakana)

Mar 13, 2026 1h 18m

Robert Lange, founding researcher at Sakana AI, joins Tim to discuss *Shinka Evolve* — a framework that combines LLMs with evolutionary algorithms to do open-ended program search. The core claim:…

"Vibe Coding is a Slot Machine" - Jeremy Howard

Mar 03, 2026 1h 26m

Dive into the realities of AI-assisted coding, the origins of modern fine-tuning, and the cognitive science behind machine learning with fast.ai founder Jeremy Howard. In this episode, we unpack why…

Evolution "Doesn't Need" Mutation - Blaise Agüera y Arcas

Feb 16, 2026 55m

What if life itself is just a really sophisticated computer program that wrote itself into existence?Blaise Agüera y Arcas presenting at ALife 2025 — the most technically detailed public walkthrough…

VAEs Are Energy-Based Models? [Dr. Jeff Beck]

Jan 25, 2026 46m

What makes something truly *intelligent?* Is a rock an agent? Could a perfect simulation of your brain actually *be* you? In this fascinating conversation, Dr. Jeff Beck takes us on a journey through…

Abstraction & Idealization: AI's Plato Problem [Mazviita Chirimuuta]

Jan 23, 2026 53m

Professor Mazviita Chirimuuta joins us for a fascinating deep dive into the philosophy of neuroscience and what it really means to understand the mind.*What can neuroscience actually tell us about…

Why Every Brain Metaphor in History Has Been Wrong [SPECIAL EDITION]

Jan 23, 2026 42m

What if everything we think we know about the brain is just a really good metaphor that we forgot was a metaphor?This episode takes you on a journey through the history of scientific simplification,…

Bayesian Brain, Scientific Method, and Models [Dr. Jeff Beck]

Dec 31, 2025 1h 16m

Dr. Jeff Beck, mathematician turned computational neuroscientist, joins us for a fascinating deep dive into why the future of AI might look less like ChatGPT and more like your own brain.**SPONSOR…

Your Brain is Running a Simulation Right Now [Max Bennett]

Dec 30, 2025 3h 17m

Tim sits down with Max Bennett to explore how our brains evolved over 600 million years—and what that means for understanding both human intelligence and AI.Max isn't a neuroscientist by training.…

The 3 Laws of Knowledge [César Hidalgo]

Dec 27, 2025 1h 37m

César Hidalgo has spent years trying to answer a deceptively simple question: What is knowledge, and why is it so hard to move around?We all have this intuition that knowledge is just... information.…

"I Desperately Want To Live In The Matrix" - Dr. Mike Israetel

Dec 24, 2025 2h 55m

This is a lively, no-holds-barred debate about whether AI can truly be intelligent, conscious, or understand anything at all — and what happens when (or if) machines become smarter than us.Dr. Mike…

Making deep learning perform real algorithms with Category Theory (Andrew Dudzik, Petar Velichkovich, Taco Cohen, Bruno Gavranović, Paul Lessard)

Dec 22, 2025 43m

We often think of Large Language Models (LLMs) as all-knowing, but as the team reveals, they still struggle with the logic of a second-grader. Why can’t ChatGPT reliably add large numbers? Why does…

Are AI Benchmarks Telling The Full Story? [SPONSORED] (Andrew Gordon and Nora Petrova - Prolific)

Dec 20, 2025 16m

Is a car that wins a Formula 1 race the best choice for your morning commute? Probably not. In this sponsored deep dive with Prolific, we explore why the same logic applies to Artificial…

The Mathematical Foundations of Intelligence [Professor Yi Ma]

Dec 13, 2025 1h 39m

What if everything we think we know about AI understanding is wrong? Is compression the key to intelligence? Or is there something more—a leap from memorization to true abstraction? In this…

Pedro Domingos: Tensor Logic Unifies AI Paradigms

Dec 08, 2025 1h 27m

Pedro Domingos, author of the bestselling book "The Master Algorithm," introduces his latest work: Tensor Logic - a new programming language he believes could become the fundamental language for…

He Co-Invented the Transformer. Now: Continuous Thought Machines - Llion Jones and Luke Darlow [Sakana AI]

Nov 23, 2025 1h 12m

The Transformer architecture (which powers ChatGPT and nearly all modern AI) might be trapping the industry in a localized rut, preventing us from finding true intelligent reasoning, according to the…

Why Humans Are Still Powering AI [Sponsored]

Nov 03, 2025 24m

Ever wonder where AI models actually get their "intelligence"? We reveal the dirty secret of Silicon Valley: behind every impressive AI system are thousands of real humans providing crucial data,…

The Universal Hierarchy of Life - Prof. Chris Kempes [SFI]

Oct 25, 2025 40m

"What is life?" - asks Chris Kempes, a professor at the Santa Fe Institute.Chris explains that scientists are moving beyond a purely Earth-based, biological view and are searching for a universal…

Frequently Asked Questions

How many episodes does Machine Learning Street Talk (MLST) have?

Machine Learning Street Talk (MLST) has published 252 episodes since April 2020, covering topics in Technology.

Is Machine Learning Street Talk (MLST) still active?

Machine Learning Street Talk (MLST) is currently highly active with new episodes weekly. Average episode length is 1h 28m.

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