Listen "Reasoning in LLMs, role of academia and keeping up with AI research | Dr. Vivek Gupta"
Episode Synopsis
Vivek is an Assistant Professor at Arizona State university. Prior to that, he was at the University of Pennsylvania as a postdoctoral researcher and completed his PhD in CS from the University of Utah. His PhD research focused on inference and reasoning for semi structured data and his current research spans reasoning in large language models (LLMs), multimodal learning, and instilling models with common sense for question answering. He has also received multiple awards and fellowships for his research works over the years.
Conversation time stamps:
00:01:40 Introduction
00:02:52 Background in AI research
00:05:00 Finding your niche
00:12:42 Traditional AI models vs. LLMs in semi-structured data
00:18:00 Why is reasoning hard in LLMs?
00:27:10 Will scaling AI models hit a plateau?
00:31:02 Has ChatGPT pushed boundaries of AI research
00:38:28 Role of Academia in AI research in the era of LLMs
00:56:35 Keeping up with research: filtering noise vs. signal
01:09:14 Getting started in AI in 2024?
01:20:25 Maintaining mental health in research (especially AI)
01:34:18 Building good habits
01:37:22 Do you need a PhD to contribute to AI?
01:45:42 Wrap up
More about Vivek: https://vgupta123.github.io/
ASU lab website: https://coral-lab-asu.github.io/
And Vivek's blog on research struggles: https://vgupta123.github.io/docs/phd_struggles.pdf
About the Host:Jay is a PhD student at Arizona State University working on improving AI for medical diagnosis and prognosis.
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/shahjay22/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/jaygshah22
Homepage: http://jayshah.me/ for any queries.
Stay tuned for upcoming webinars!
***Disclaimer: The information in this video represents the views and opinions of the speaker and does not necessarily represent the views or opinions of any institution. It does not constitute an endorsement by any Institution or its affiliates of such video content.***
Conversation time stamps:
00:01:40 Introduction
00:02:52 Background in AI research
00:05:00 Finding your niche
00:12:42 Traditional AI models vs. LLMs in semi-structured data
00:18:00 Why is reasoning hard in LLMs?
00:27:10 Will scaling AI models hit a plateau?
00:31:02 Has ChatGPT pushed boundaries of AI research
00:38:28 Role of Academia in AI research in the era of LLMs
00:56:35 Keeping up with research: filtering noise vs. signal
01:09:14 Getting started in AI in 2024?
01:20:25 Maintaining mental health in research (especially AI)
01:34:18 Building good habits
01:37:22 Do you need a PhD to contribute to AI?
01:45:42 Wrap up
More about Vivek: https://vgupta123.github.io/
ASU lab website: https://coral-lab-asu.github.io/
And Vivek's blog on research struggles: https://vgupta123.github.io/docs/phd_struggles.pdf
About the Host:Jay is a PhD student at Arizona State University working on improving AI for medical diagnosis and prognosis.
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/shahjay22/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/jaygshah22
Homepage: http://jayshah.me/ for any queries.
Stay tuned for upcoming webinars!
***Disclaimer: The information in this video represents the views and opinions of the speaker and does not necessarily represent the views or opinions of any institution. It does not constitute an endorsement by any Institution or its affiliates of such video content.***
More episodes of the podcast Jay Shah Podcast
Beyond Accuracy: Evaluating the learned representations of Generative AI models | Aida Nematzadeh
23/10/2025
Differential Privacy, Creativity & future of AI research in the LLM era | Niloofar Mireshghallah
04/02/2025
Future of Software Development with LLMs, Advice on Building Tech startups & more | Pritika Mehta
14/08/2024
ZARZA We are Zarza, the prestigious firm behind major projects in information technology.