This is hands down the best primer on how AI models work. It’s a 90-minute talk by Spotify Co-President Gustav Söderstöm to bring their employees up to speed, but it works for any audience. His premise: AI models might be highly complex in practice, but in theory, they are quite easy to understand — if you take away all the jargon. That’s what he does, masterfully, and explains everything from the basics of large language models to how AI models can generate images and music from text alone. I had many moments during the talk when I thought to myself «Ok, I understand this, but how about…?» and it’s always the next thing he goes on to explain. So good.

From Weekly Filet #452, in August 2023.