About this episode
Nathan Lambert reflects on his departure from the Allen Institute for AI and the impact of his work there.
I’m departing the Allen Institute for AI (Ai2), where I got the great privilege to work on the Olmo models, to grow, to learn, and to have broad lasting impacts. This post is an attempt to reflect on why what we did was influential, despite obviously being far from the frontier in performance (even when within size buckets), and how this reflects on various paths to impact in AI today. To start, I shared the following note with the company yesterday: Dear Ai2. As many of you know, today is my last day working at Ai2. I joined Ai2 largely as an accident. I met Luca at ICML 2023 in Hawaii and realized I could level up my open post-training work dramatically if I got the chance to join. When I got an offer it was an absolute no-brainer, it was such a welcoming and exciting environment. It has been a wonderful ride that has transformed my life, and I couldn’t be prouder of the work we did together. Ai2 has a wonderful scientific culture at its core and I’m excited to see this continue. I feel very lucky to have been here and that I personally have benefited massively from everyone who has worked so hard to cultivate that culture and environment. It is and has been a team effort. This…
People in this episode
Host: Nathan Lambert
Topics covered
- AI
- career transition
- scientific culture
- impact in AI
- personal reflection
Keywords
- Allen Institute for AI
- AI models
- career change
- scientific culture
- personal growth
Mentioned in this episode
Organizations: Allen Institute for AI
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