An expert overview of post-training techniques for language models, covering the entire workflow from data generation and curation to advanced algorithms like Supervised Fine-Tuning (SFT), Direct Preference Optimization (DPO), and Reinforcement Learning (RL), along with practical advice on evaluation and iteration.
This talk introduces Anaximander, a system designed to bridge the gap between traditional, GUI-driven Geographic Information System (GIS) workflows and modern, code-heavy machine learning practices. Anaximander integrates geospatial foundation models directly into QGIS, allowing experts to interactively orchestrate, run, and evaluate models for tasks like semantic segmentation and object detection on satellite imagery.
At Applied Compute, efficient Reinforcement Learning is critical for delivering business value. This talk explores the transition from inefficient synchronous RL to a high-throughput asynchronous 'Pipeline RL' system. The core challenge is managing 'staleness'—a side effect of in-flight weight updates that can destabilize training. The speakers detail their first-principles systems model, based on the Roofline model, used to simulate and find the optimal allocation of GPU resources between sampling and training, balancing throughput with algorithmic stability and achieving significant speedups.
Aishwarya Naresh Reganti and Kiriti Badam, with experience from OpenAI, Google, and Amazon, share a framework for building successful enterprise AI products. They detail why AI development differs from traditional software, emphasizing the challenges of non-determinism and the agency-control trade-off, and introduce their 'Continuous Calibration, Continuous Development' (CC/CD) lifecycle to build reliable, value-driven AI systems.
A deep dive into the key takeaways from CES 2026, covering the surge in humanoid robotics and the evolution of software-defined vehicles, followed by a nuanced analysis of the shifting US-China export controls on advanced AI chips.
Robert from OpenAI discusses the critical role of structured evaluations (evals) and graders for developing advanced collaborative agents. He explores the limitations of 'vibe-based' assessments, introduces a maturity model for evals, and presents a comprehensive rubric for measuring agent performance beyond simple accuracy, connecting these concepts to the power of Reinforcement Fine-Tuning (RFT).
Nikesh Arora, CEO of Palo Alto Networks, shares his unconventional journey and leadership philosophy. He provides a masterclass in building a multi-platform company through strategic M&A, explains why founders should sometimes ignore customers, and reveals how to lead with conviction while managing imposter syndrome.
Stewart Butterfield, co-founder of Slack and Flickr, shares the product frameworks and leadership principles that guided his success. He delves into concepts like "utility curves" for feature investment, the "owner's delusion" in product design, and why focusing on "comprehension" is often more important than reducing friction. He also introduces powerful mental models for organizational effectiveness, such as combating "hyper-realistic work-like activities" and applying Parkinson's Law to team growth.
Intuit CEO Sasan Goodarzi discusses the operational playbook for reinventing a 40-year-old company, from its slow transition to SaaS to its early adoption of AI. He shares insights on winning the SMB market by treating small businesses like consumers, building effective channel partnerships, and developing a platform strategy. Goodarzi also details his leadership philosophy, emphasizing that grit and curiosity are more critical than raw talent.
Jenn Wortman Vaughan and Hanna Wallach, co-founders of the Women in Machine Learning (WiML) workshop, reflect on their intersecting careers, the founding and evolution of WiML over 20 years, and their influential research in responsible AI, from interpretability and fairness to the current challenges in generative AI.
Drawing surprising parallels between AI agents and robotics, this talk argues that the agent development community is repeating a key mistake from the self-driving industry: underestimating the difficulty of action and over-focusing on reasoning. It covers essential robotics concepts like DAgger, MDPs, simulation, and the critical importance of a robust offline infrastructure, explaining why perfect reasoning doesn't guarantee successful execution in the real world.
Alex Gavrilescu introduces Backlog.md, a Git-based project management tool designed to structure AI-driven development. By breaking down features into Markdown tasks and using a multi-step review process, it helps prevent AI agents from running out of context or deviating from requirements, enabling a more predictable and efficient workflow.
Yusuf Olokoba, founder of Muna, details a compiler-based approach to transform Python AI functions into self-contained native binaries. This talk explores the technical pipeline, including custom AST-based tracing, type propagation, and the strategic use of LLMs for code generation, enabling a universal, OpenAI-style client for running any model on any platform.
This talk introduces Meta-ACE, a learned meta-optimization framework that dynamically orchestrates multiple strategies (context evolution, adaptive compute, hierarchical verification, and more) to maximize AI agent performance. The framework profiles each task to select an optimal strategy bundle, overcoming the single-dimension limitations of previous methods.
This talk explores the history of high-assurance software, from the near-perfect code of the NASA Space Shuttle to the Airbus A320. It argues that while these rigorous engineering and formal verification practices were once too expensive for mainstream use, the economic shift brought by AI and agentic coding can make aerospace-level reliability a practical reality for a wide range of applications, solving the key quality limitations of current AI-generated code.
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