Full-stack approach for effective AI agents
There’s a lot of hype about AI agents right now, but developing robust agents isn’t yet a reality in general. Imbue is leading the way towards more robust agents by taking a full-stack approach; from hardware innovations through to user interface. In this episode, Josh, Imbue’s CTO, tell us more about their approach and some of what they have learned along the way.
Sponsors:
Neo4j – Is your code getting dragged down by JOINs and long query times? The problem might be your database…Try simplifying the complex with graphs. Stop asking relational databases to do more than they were made for. Graphs work well for use cases with lots of data connections like supply chain, fraud detection, real-time analytics, and genAI. With Neo4j, you can code in your favorite programming language and against any driver. Plus, it’s easy to integrate into your tech stack.
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Featuring:
Josh Albrecht – LinkedIn, X
Chris Benson – Website, GitHub, LinkedIn, X
Daniel Whitenack – Website, GitHub, X
Show Notes:
CARBS (Imbue’s cost-aware hyperparameter optimizer)
Imbue paper on the stepwise nature of self-supervised learning
A paper on initialization/feature learning co-authored by Jamie Simon, a member of Imbue’s technical team
Imbue
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Imbue CTO Josh Albrecht on Creating AI Agents for Reasoning, Reliability, and Robustness
In this episode, Nathan chats with Josh Albrecht, CTO of Imbue. They discuss how to create agents for reasoning, reliability, and robustness. If you need an ecommerce platform, check out our sponsor Shopify: https://shopify.com/cognitive for a $1/month trial period.
We're hiring across the board at Turpentine and for Erik's personal team on other projects he's incubating. He's hiring a Chief of Staff, EA, Head of Special Projects, Investment Associate, and more. For a list of JDs, check out: eriktorenberg.com.
SPONSORS:
Shopify is the global commerce platform that helps you sell at every stage of your business. Shopify powers 10% of ALL eCommerce in the US. And Shopify's the global force behind Allbirds, Rothy's, and Brooklinen, and 1,000,000s of other entrepreneurs across 175 countries.From their all-in-one e-commerce platform, to their in-person POS system – wherever and whatever you're selling, Shopify's got you covered. With free Shopify Magic, sell more with less effort by whipping up captivating content that converts – from blog posts to product descriptions using AI. Sign up for $1/month trial period: https://shopify.com/cognitive
Omneky is an omnichannel creative generation platform that lets you launch hundreds of thousands of ad iterations that actually work customized across all platforms, with a click of a button. Omneky combines generative AI and real-time advertising data. Mention "Cog Rev" for 10% off.
X/SOCIAL
@labenz (Nathan)
@eriktorenberg (Erik)
@CogRev_Podcast
TIMESTAMPS:
(00:00:00) – Episode Preview
(00:07:14) – What does it mean to be a research company?
(00:10:25) – How is the reasoning landscape these days and how might it evolve?
(00:11:03) – Data quality is highly important
(00:21:15) – What’s the difference between good features and a good world model?
(00:27:31) – The impact of new modalities on reasoning
(00:29:15) – How much can reasoning and knowledge be separated?
(00:45:13) – Imbue demo and are they building their own LLMs or using others?
(00:49:37) – Does Imbue have a deal with Nvidia?
(00:57:48) – Carbs framework
(01:12:57) – Imbue’s involvement with policy and and AI safety
(01:16:23) – Takeaways from AI Safety Summit and Biden’s Order
This show is produced by Turpentine: a network of podcasts, newsletters, and more, covering technology, business, and culture — all from the perspective of industry insiders and experts. We’re launching new shows every week, and we’re looking for industry-leading sponsors — if you think that might be you and your company, email us at erik@turpentine.co.
AI Agents That Reason and Code with Imbue Co-Founders Kanjun Qiu and Josh Albrecht
The future of tech is 25-person companies powered by AI agents that help us accomplish our larger goals. Imbue is working on building AI agents that reason, code and generally make our lives easier. Sarah Guo and Elad Gil sit down with co-founders Kanjun Qiu (CEO) and Josh Albrecht (CTO) to discuss how they define reasoning, the spectrum of specialized and generalized agents, and the path to improved agent performance. Plus, what’s behind their $200M Series B fundraise.
Kanjun Qiu is the CEO and co-founder of Imbue. Kanjun is also a partner at angel fund Outset Capital, where she invests in promising pre-seed companies. Previously, Kanjun was the co-founder and CEO of Sourceress, a machine learning recruiting startup backed by YC and DFJ. She was previously Chief of Staff to Drew Houston at Dropbox, where she helped scale the company from 300 employees to 1200.
Josh Albrecht is the CTO and co-founder of Imbue. He also invests in other founders via his fund, Outset Capital. He has published machine learning papers as an academic researcher; founded an AI recruiting company that went through YC and a 3D injection molding software company that was acquired; helped build Addepar as an early engineer; and served as a Thiel Fellow mentor. He started programming as a kid and began working professionally as a software engineer in high school.
Show Links:
Kanjun’s LinkedIn | Website | Google Scholar
Josh’s LinkedIn | Website | Google Scholar
Imbue raises $200M to build AI systems that can reason and code
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Follow us on Twitter: @NoPriorsPod | @Saranormous | @EladGil | @Kanjun | @JoshAlbrecht
Show Notes:
(00:00) - Introduction to Imbue
(04:55) - The Spectrum of Agent Tasks
(08:43) - Specialization and Generalization With Agents
(13:03) - Code and Language in AI Agents
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