The Moonshot Podcast

In the fifth installment of our Moonshot Podcast Deep Dive video interview series, X’s Captain of Moonshots Astro Teller sits down with Google DeepMind’s Chief Scientist Jeff Dean for a conversation about the origin of Jeff’s pioneering work scaling neural networks. They discuss the first time AI captured Jeff’s imagination, the earliest Google Brain framework, the team’s stratospheric advancements in image recognition and speech-to-text, how AI is evolving, and more. For more on X’s AI moonshots, check out Jeff on Episode 3 of The Moonshot Podcast, “Machines That Think”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_jLPA8Qpc74 00:00 - Introduction 00:35 - What Jeff’s childhood was like 03:50 - The first “non-trivial” thing Jeff coded 05:02 - Jeff’s “love/hate” relationship with C++ 06:59 - The first time AI captured Jeff’s imagination 10:40 - When neural networks fell “out of vogue” 12:24 - How Jeff made a career out of “starting over” 14:23 - The origins of Google Brain 17:30 - Critical components of scaling neural networks 18:43 - The earliest Google Brain framework 19:32 - How the team first built a 100x bigger neural network 22:04 - The cat video that started it all 25:02 - Google Brain’s major progress on image recognition 26:24 - Google Brain’s major progress on speech to text 27:29 - The origins of TensorFlow and TPUs 31:56 - Three breakthroughs in understanding language models 37:41 - Where Jeff thinks the world is headed 40:07 - The shift from “making things” to designing prompts 42:38 - How Jeff uses AI to enhance his own life 43:51 - Safety, security, and privacy in AI 50:26 - The future of understanding neural network behavior 53:34 - When computers are “smarter” than humans 56:52 - Jeff’s next-five-years plan Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

In the third installment of our Moonshot Podcast Deep Dive video interview series, X’s Captain of Moonshots Astro Teller sits down with Dr. Catie Cuan, robot choreographer and former artist in residence at Everyday Robots, for a conversation about how dance can be used to build beautiful and useful robots that people want to be around. Watch the video to hear how Catie and the Everyday Robots team transformed robotic motion into music, what it feels like when she’s dancing with a robot and why she’s “hyper-optimistic” about the future of robotics. For more, check out Catie on Episode 5 of The Moonshot Podcast, “Living With Robots”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aUcB73KgEVs 00:00 - Introduction 00:29 - Catie’s mission to make robots more humanistic and whimsical 02:12 - How Catie came to X and Everyday Robots 03:40 - Using dance to make robots less “robotic” 07:38 - Teaching robots human social cues 11:00 - Transforming robotic motion into sound with “music mode” 15:16 - Programming robots to “flock” together like animals 18:31 - How young kids interact with robots 20:15 - Catie’s own experience interacting with her robots 22:18 - Working with experts outside the field 24:36 - Designing robots to not look like “robots” 28:44 - Helping humanity face their visceral fear of robots 32:40 - The moonshot and legacy of Everyday Robots 35:42 - Catie’s advice for moonshot-takers 37:27 - Catie’s vision for what the future looks like Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

n the first installment of our Moonshot Podcast Deep Dive video interview series, X’s Captain of Moonshots Astro Teller sits down with Sebastian Thrun, co-founder of the Moonshot Factory, for a conversation about the history of Waymo and Google X, the ethics of innovation, the future of AI, and more. Watch the video to hear how the self-driving car project got its start, Sebastian’s philosophy for building great teams, and practical advice for anyone who wants to tackle a big problem with a moonshot idea. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

What if, rather than making you distracted, your smart device helped you be more present? In this episode, we revisit the early days of Google Glass: a bold Moonshot that opened up new ways of seeing and being in the world. We go behind the scenes with the designers and engineers who shaped it – and hear how their insights helped inspire IyO, a next-generation audio wearable designed to integrate our digital and physical lives while also liberating us from screens. From skydiving, to the real-life “babel fish”, this is a story about the power of invention, the importance of timing, and how to design and build technology that fits humanity – not the other way around. Hosted by Astro Teller, Captain of Moonshots, The Moonshot Podcast goes behind the scenes with the engineers and inventors using breakthrough technologies to try to find radical solutions to the world’s biggest problems. These are the untold stories from 15 years of Google’s innovation lab. Thank you to Ivy Ross, Isabelle Olsson, Ivo Stirovic, Jason Rugolo and Joe Sargent for featuring in this episode. The Moonshot Podcast is a Blanchard House production for X, The Moonshot Factory. It’s produced by Ellie Sans and Sophie Eastaugh. Original music by Louis Nanke-Mannell and Daniel Lloyd-Evans. Sound design and mix engineering by Louis Nanke-Mannell. The executive producers are Amica Sciortino Nowlan and Rebecca Maxted. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Natural disasters will keep coming — but what if we could stay one step ahead? That’s the mission of Bellwether, a moonshot working to build a “crystal ball” for the natural world. Their team is uniting the talents and expertise of firefighters and physicians to turn messy geospatial data into real-time forecasts for fire, flood and beyond, helping communities prepare for the unpredictable. We also meet the inventors behind 280 Earth, a project that uses waste heat from data centres to pull CO₂ from the air and produce clean water in the process. This is a story about resilience — technological, economic and human — and the power of radical foresight. Hosted by Astro Teller, Captain of Moonshots, The Moonshot Podcast goes behind the scenes with the engineers and inventors using breakthrough technologies to try to find radical solutions to the world’s biggest problems. These are the untold stories from 15 years of Google’s innovation lab. Thank you to Robert Baird, Sarah Russell, Jacques Gagne and Helen Riley for featuring in this episode. The Moonshot Podcast is a Blanchard House production for X, the moonshot factory. It’s produced by Ellie Sans and Sophie Eastaugh. Original music by Louis Nanke-Mannell and Daniel Lloyd-Evans. Sound design and mix engineering by Toby Matimong. The executive producers are Amica Sciortino Nowlan and Rebecca Maxted. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices