The science of AI with Yejin Choi

By Bill Gates | November 16, 2023

I’ve spent a lot of 2023 thinking, reading, and talking about artificial intelligence. While some of its capabilities are shockingly impressive, its occasionally baffling behaviour poses lots of questions about the science behind it. How does it work? Why is it easier for machines to mimic human thinking than human movement? Is the race towards larger AI models the right approach, or are there better paths forward? And what’s next on the horizon?

To talk through these answers and more, I sat down with Yejin Choi for the latest episode of Unconfuse Me. Few people are better at explaining the science of artificial intelligence than she is. She’s a computer science professor at the University of Washington, senior resource manager at the Allen Institute for AI, and the recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship. I thought her TED Talk earlier this year was incredibly informative.

I felt the same way after chatting with Yejin in person. Over the course of our conversation, we talked about how to train a large language model, why it’s so hard for robots to pick tools out of a box, and the role universities should play in the future of AI research. Like all my previous guests, she also brought a record to play—a song called “Virtual Insanity” (fitting for a back-and-forth on AI) that she used to listen to while working for Microsoft in the early 2000s.

I hope you’ll check this episode out. You can find it—and catch up on any episode of Unconfuse Me you might have missed—on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Thanks for reading, and thanks for being an Insider.