S1E42 - AI for Science and the Thermodynamics of Generative AI - with Max Welling (UvA, CuspAI)

In this episode, we sit with Max Welling, Professor of Machine Learning at the University of Amsterdam, co-founder and CTO of CuspAI, and a foundational figure behind variational autoencoders (VAEs), equivariant networks, and Bayesian deep learning. We talk about AI for science, the physics underneath generative models, and what's still missing on the road to real intelligence.

Max starts with what impresses him and what worries him about the LLM era, then makes the case that the next leaps will come from physical AI and from science itself. We dig into how machine learning actually works in...