#107 – Chris Olah on what the hell is going on inside neural networks

Big machine learning models can identify plant species better than any human, write passable essays, beat you at a game of Starcraft 2, figure out how a photo of Tobey Maguire and the word 'spider' are related, solve the 60-year-old 'protein folding problem', diagnose some diseases, play romantic matchmaker, write solid computer code, and offer questionable legal advice.<p> Humanity made these amazing and ever-improving tools. So how do our creations work? In short: we don't know.</p><p> Today's guest, Chris Olah, finds this both absurd and unacceptable. Over the last ten years he has been a leader in the...