This is a clip from a conversation with Francois Chollet from Sep 2019. New full episodes every Mon & Thu and 1-2 new clips or a new non-podcast video on all other days. You can watch the full conversation here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bo8MY4JpiXE (more links below) Podcast full episodes playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLrAXtmErZgOdP_8GztsuKi9nrraNbKKp4 Podcasts clips playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLrAXtmErZgOeciFP3CBCIEElOJeitOr41 Podcast website: https://lexfridman.com/ai Podcast on iTunes: https://apple.co/2lwqZIr Podcast on Spotify: https://spoti.fi/2nEwCF8 Podcast RSS: https://lexfridman.com/category/ai/feed/ Note: I select clips with insights from these much longer conversation with the hope of helping make these ideas more accessible and discoverable. Ultimately, this podcast is a small side hobby for me with the goal of sharing and discussing ideas. For now, I post a few clips every Tue & Fri. I did a poll and 92% of people either liked or loved the posting of daily clips, 2% were indifferent, and 6% hated it, some suggesting that I post them on a separate YouTube channel. I hear the 6% and partially agree, so am torn about the whole thing. I tried creating a separate clips channel but the YouTube algorithm makes it very difficult for that channel to grow unless the main channel is already very popular. So for a little while, I'll keep posting clips on the main channel. I ask for your patience and to see these clips as supporting the dissemination of knowledge contained in nuanced discussion. If you enjoy it, consider subscribing, sharing, and commenting. François Chollet is the creator of Keras, which is an open source deep learning library that is designed to enable fast, user-friendly experimentation with deep neural networks. It serves as an interface to several deep learning libraries, most popular of which is TensorFlow, and it was integrated into TensorFlow main codebase a while back. Aside from creating an exceptionally useful and popular library, François is also a world-class AI researcher and software engineer at Google, and is definitely an outspoken, if not controversial, personality in the AI world, especially in the realm of ideas around the future of artificial intelligence. Subscribe to this YouTube channel or connect on: - Twitter: https://twitter.com/lexfridman - LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lexfridman - Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/lexfridman - Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lexfridman - Medium: https://medium.com/@lexfridman - Support on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/lexfridman
François Chollet on June 16, 2025 at AI Startup School in San Francisco. François Chollet is a leading voice in AI. He's the creator of the Keras library, author of Deep Learning with Python, and the founder of the ARC Prize, a global competition aimed at measuring true general intelligence. He's spent years thinking deeply about what intelligence actually is, and why scaling up today’s AI models isn’t enough to reach it. In this talk, he walks through the limits of pretraining and memorized skills, and lays out a path toward true general intelligence— AI that can adapt on the fly, reason in new situations, and invent novel solutions. He explains why abstraction and compositionality matter, how ARC became the benchmark for progress, and what his team at a new research lab called Ndea is building next. Apply to Y Combinator: https://ycombinator.com/apply Work at a startup: https://workatastartup.com Chapters: 00:00 - The Falling Cost of Compute 00:57 - Deep-Learning’s Scaling Era & Benchmarks 01:59 - The ARC Benchmark 03:02 - The 2024 Shift to Test-Time Adaptation 05:01 - What Is Intelligence? 07:12 - Why Benchmarks Matter (and Mislead) 08:57 - ARC 1 Exposes Scaling Limits 10:58 - ARC 2: Compositional Reasoning Arrives 12:55 - Humans vs. Models on ARC 2 14:58 - Previewing ARC 3 & Interactive Agency 17:00 - Kaleidoscopic Hypothesis and Abstractions 22:00 - Type 1 vs. Type 2 Abstractions 26:00 - Discrete Program Search & Inventive AI 29:00 - Fusing Intuition with Symbolic Reasoning 32:00 - Building AGI Through Meta-Learning Systems 33:44 - NDEA: a new AI research lab
This is a clip from a conversation with Francois Chollet from Sep 2019. New full episodes every Mon & Thu and 1-2 new clips or a new non-podcast video on all other days. You can watch the full conversation here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bo8MY4JpiXE (more links below) Podcast full episodes playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLrAXtmErZgOdP_8GztsuKi9nrraNbKKp4 Podcasts clips playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLrAXtmErZgOeciFP3CBCIEElOJeitOr41 Podcast website: https://lexfridman.com/ai Podcast on iTunes: https://apple.co/2lwqZIr Podcast on Spotify: https://spoti.fi/2nEwCF8 Podcast RSS: https://lexfridman.com/category/ai/feed/ Note: I select clips with insights from these much longer conversation with the hope of helping make these ideas more accessible and discoverable. Ultimately, this podcast is a small side hobby for me with the goal of sharing and discussing ideas. For now, I post a few clips every Tue & Fri. I did a poll and 92% of people either liked or loved the posting of daily clips, 2% were indifferent, and 6% hated it, some suggesting that I post them on a separate YouTube channel. I hear the 6% and partially agree, so am torn about the whole thing. I tried creating a separate clips channel but the YouTube algorithm makes it very difficult for that channel to grow unless the main channel is already very popular. So for a little while, I'll keep posting clips on the main channel. I ask for your patience and to see these clips as supporting the dissemination of knowledge contained in nuanced discussion. If you enjoy it, consider subscribing, sharing, and commenting. François Chollet is the creator of Keras, which is an open source deep learning library that is designed to enable fast, user-friendly experimentation with deep neural networks. It serves as an interface to several deep learning libraries, most popular of which is TensorFlow, and it was integrated into TensorFlow main codebase a while back. Aside from creating an exceptionally useful and popular library, François is also a world-class AI researcher and software engineer at Google, and is definitely an outspoken, if not controversial, personality in the AI world, especially in the realm of ideas around the future of artificial intelligence. Subscribe to this YouTube channel or connect on: - Twitter: https://twitter.com/lexfridman - LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lexfridman - Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/lexfridman - Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lexfridman - Medium: https://medium.com/@lexfridman - Support on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/lexfridman
François Chollet is an AI researcher at Google and creator of Keras. Support this podcast by supporting our sponsors (and get discount): - Babbel: https://babbel.com and use code LEX - MasterClass: https://masterclass.com/lex - Cash App: download app & use code "LexPodcast" EPISODE LINKS: Francois's Twitter: https://twitter.com/fchollet Francois's Website: https://fchollet.com/ On the Measure of Intelligence (paper): https://arxiv.org/abs/1911.01547 PODCAST INFO: Podcast website: https://lexfridman.com/podcast Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/2lwqZIr Spotify: https://spoti.fi/2nEwCF8 RSS: https://lexfridman.com/feed/podcast/ Full episodes playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLrAXtmErZgOdP_8GztsuKi9nrraNbKKp4 Clips playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLrAXtmErZgOeciFP3CBCIEElOJeitOr41 OUTLINE: 0:00 - Introduction 5:04 - Early influence 6:23 - Language 12:50 - Thinking with mind maps 23:42 - Definition of intelligence 42:24 - GPT-3 53:07 - Semantic web 57:22 - Autonomous driving 1:09:30 - Tests of intelligence 1:13:59 - Tests of human intelligence 1:27:18 - IQ tests 1:35:59 - ARC Challenge 1:59:11 - Generalization 2:09:50 - Turing Test 2:20:44 - Hutter prize 2:27:44 - Meaning of life CONNECT: - Subscribe to this YouTube channel - Twitter: https://twitter.com/lexfridman - LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lexfridman - Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/LexFridmanPage - Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lexfridman - Medium: https://medium.com/@lexfridman - Support on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/lexfridman
This is a clip from a conversation with Francois Chollet from Sep 2019. New full episodes every Mon & Thu and 1-2 new clips or a new non-podcast video on all other days. You can watch the full conversation here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bo8MY4JpiXE (more links below) Podcast full episodes playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLrAXtmErZgOdP_8GztsuKi9nrraNbKKp4 Podcasts clips playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLrAXtmErZgOeciFP3CBCIEElOJeitOr41 Podcast website: https://lexfridman.com/ai Podcast on iTunes: https://apple.co/2lwqZIr Podcast on Spotify: https://spoti.fi/2nEwCF8 Podcast RSS: https://lexfridman.com/category/ai/feed/ Note: I select clips with insights from these much longer conversation with the hope of helping make these ideas more accessible and discoverable. Ultimately, this podcast is a small side hobby for me with the goal of sharing and discussing ideas. For now, I post a few clips every Tue & Fri. I did a poll and 92% of people either liked or loved the posting of daily clips, 2% were indifferent, and 6% hated it, some suggesting that I post them on a separate YouTube channel. I hear the 6% and partially agree, so am torn about the whole thing. I tried creating a separate clips channel but the YouTube algorithm makes it very difficult for that channel to grow unless the main channel is already very popular. So for a little while, I'll keep posting clips on the main channel. I ask for your patience and to see these clips as supporting the dissemination of knowledge contained in nuanced discussion. If you enjoy it, consider subscribing, sharing, and commenting. François Chollet is the creator of Keras, which is an open source deep learning library that is designed to enable fast, user-friendly experimentation with deep neural networks. It serves as an interface to several deep learning libraries, most popular of which is TensorFlow, and it was integrated into TensorFlow main codebase a while back. Aside from creating an exceptionally useful and popular library, François is also a world-class AI researcher and software engineer at Google, and is definitely an outspoken, if not controversial, personality in the AI world, especially in the realm of ideas around the future of artificial intelligence. Subscribe to this YouTube channel or connect on: - Twitter: https://twitter.com/lexfridman - LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lexfridman - Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/lexfridman - Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lexfridman - Medium: https://medium.com/@lexfridman - Support on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/lexfridman
François Chollet has spent years asking a different question than most of the AI world. Instead of scaling what already works, he’s trying to understand what intelligence actually is—and how to build it from first principles. In this episode of Lightcone, he traces that path from his early work on deep learning to the creation of the ARC prize, and the launch of ARC V3, a new benchmark designed to measure something deeper than performance: the ability to learn, adapt, and reason efficiently in entirely new environments. He explains why today’s systems may be hitting limits, what recent breakthroughs really mean, and why reaching true general intelligence may require a fundamentally different approach. 00:00 - AGI by 2030? 00:31 - Introducing Ndea: A New Path Beyond Deep Learning 01:08 - A New ML Paradigm 01:30 - Replacing neural nets with compact symbolic programs 03:04 - Why Ndea Isn’t Competing With Coding Agents 05:20 - Why Everyone Might Be Wrong About Scaling LLMs 07:22 - Why Coding Agents Suddenly Work So Well 08:50 - The Limits of LLMs in Non-Verifiable Domains 10:48 - What AGI Actually Means (And Why Most Definitions Are Wrong) 13:30 - Why Deep Learning Hits a Wall 14:00 - ARC’s Origin Story 18:20 - ARC Benchmarks Explained: From V1 to V3 22:49 - The RL Loop Powering Coding Agents Today 27:03 - ARC-AGI V3: Measuring “Agentic Intelligence” 31:14 - Inside the ARC Game Studio 35:31 - Could AGI Fit in 10,000 Lines of Code? 44:01 - Building Ndea: From Idea to Compounding Research Stack 46:46 - The Future of ARC: Benchmarks That Evolve With AI 47:21 - Why There’s Still Huge Opportunity for New AI Paradigms 53:37 - How to Build a Breakout Open Source Project - Lessons From Kera 56:39 - Advice For How To Think About AI Apply to Y Combinator: https://www.ycombinator.com/apply Work at a startup: https://www.ycombinator.com/jobs
This is a clip from a conversation with Francois Chollet from Sep 2019. New full episodes every Mon & Thu and 2-5 new clips every Tue & Fri. You can watch the full conversation here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bo8MY4JpiXE or listen to it here: https://lexfridman.com/francois-chollet/ and subscribe on your podcast app. You can watch other clips on the clips playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLrAXtmErZgOeciFP3CBCIEElOJeitOr41 or full episodes on the full episode playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLrAXtmErZgOdP_8GztsuKi9nrraNbKKp4 Note: I select clips with insights from these much longer conversation with the hope of helping make these ideas more accessible and discoverable. Ultimately, this podcast is a small side hobby for me with the goal of sharing and discussing ideas. For now, I post a few clips every Tue & Fri. I did a poll and 92% of people either liked or loved the posting of daily clips, 2% were indifferent, and 6% hated it, some suggesting that I post them on a separate YouTube channel. I hear the 6% and partially agree, so am torn about the whole thing. I tried creating a separate clips channel but the YouTube algorithm makes it very difficult for that channel to grow unless the main channel is already very popular. So for a little while, I'll keep posting clips on the main channel. I ask for your patience and to see these clips as supporting the dissemination of knowledge contained in nuanced discussion. If you enjoy it, consider subscribing, sharing, and commenting. François Chollet is the creator of Keras, which is an open source deep learning library that is designed to enable fast, user-friendly experimentation with deep neural networks. It serves as an interface to several deep learning libraries, most popular of which is TensorFlow, and it was integrated into TensorFlow main codebase a while back. Aside from creating an exceptionally useful and popular library, François is also a world-class AI researcher and software engineer at Google, and is definitely an outspoken, if not controversial, personality in the AI world, especially in the realm of ideas around the future of artificial intelligence. Subscribe to this YouTube channel or connect on: - Twitter: https://twitter.com/lexfridman - LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lexfridman - Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/lexfridman - Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lexfridman - Medium: https://medium.com/@lexfridman - Support on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/lexfridman
This is a clip from a conversation with Francois Chollet on the Artificial Intelligence podcast from Sep 2019. You can watch the full conversation here: http://bit.ly/2O28EyF or listen to it here: https://lexfridman.com/francois-chollet/ and subscribe on your podcast app. You can watch other clips on the clips playlist: http://bit.ly/2JYkbfZ or full episodes on the full episode playlist: http://bit.ly/2EcbaKf Please note, I select clips with insights from these much longer conversation with the hope of helping make ideas from the podcast more accessible and discoverable. Ultimately, this podcast is a small side hobby for me with the goal of sharing and discussing ideas. For now, I post a clip every day when there is not a full length video. I did a poll and 92% of people either liked or loved the posting of daily clips, 2% were indifferent, and 6% hated it, some suggesting that I post them on a separate YouTube channel. I hear the 6% and partially agree, so am torn about the whole thing. I tried creating a separate clips channel but the YouTube algorithm makes it very difficult for that channel to grow unless the main channel is already very popular. So for a little while, I'll keep posting clips on the main channel. I ask for your patience and to see these clips as supporting the dissemination of knowledge contained in nuanced discussion. If you enjoy it, consider subscribing, sharing, and commenting. Full episode: http://bit.ly/2O28EyF Full episodes playlist: http://bit.ly/2EcbaKf Clips playlist: http://bit.ly/2JYkbfZ Podcast website: https://lexfridman.com/ai François Chollet is the creator of Keras, which is an open source deep learning library that is designed to enable fast, user-friendly experimentation with deep neural networks. It serves as an interface to several deep learning libraries, most popular of which is TensorFlow, and it was integrated into TensorFlow main codebase a while back. Aside from creating an exceptionally useful and popular library, François is also a world-class AI researcher and software engineer at Google, and is definitely an outspoken, if not controversial, personality in the AI world, especially in the realm of ideas around the future of artificial intelligence. Subscribe to this YouTube channel or connect on: - Twitter: https://twitter.com/lexfridman - LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lexfridman - Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/lexfridman - Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lexfridman - Medium: https://medium.com/@lexfridman - Support on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/lexfridman