Ben Lorica and Paco Nathan on Immigration & Regulatory Policy, Hardware, and Model Insights.
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This is our monthly conversation on topics in AI and Technology with Paco Nathan, the founder of Derwen, a boutique consultancy focused on Data and AI. This episode begins with an analysis of potential shifts in US immigration policy and its impact on skilled tech workers, followed by a look at the contrasting regulatory approaches to AI in the US and EU. The conversation then explores the need for balanced deregulation, ensuring it doesn’t favor specific companies or compromise safety. A deep dive into the AI chip market reveals Nvidia’s continued dominance, while also highlighting the potential of AMD and other players. The episode also examines DeepSeek’s innovative approach to model development through resource constraints, and the implications of reasoning-enhanced models on inference scaling. Finally, the discussion touches on the rise of multimodal models and their potential impact on end-users, as well as the need for better multimodal understanding.
Audio version
Interview highlights – key sections from the video version:
- The Future of Skilled Immigration: H-1B Reform Under New Administration
- AI Regulation: Navigating US-EU Policy Dynamics in a Changing Political Landscape
- Balanced Deregulation
- AI Chip Market Analysis: 2025 Outlook and Competition Landscape”
- DeepSeek: Innovation Through Resource Constraints
- The Rise of Reasoning-Enhanced Models: Implications for Inference Scaling
- Multimodal Models in 2025: Challenges and Opportunities
- Recommendations
Recommendations:
- [Ben] House of Huawei: The Secret History of China’s Most Powerful Company
- [Ben] How Chinese Hackers Graduated From Clumsy Corporate Thieves to Military Weapons
- [Paco] Ron Chrisley: exploring “consciousness” formally, with a survey of tests for spurious claims
Related content:
- A video version of this conversation is available on our YouTube channel.
- What AI Teams Need to Know for 2025
- Previous monthly roundups with Ben Lorica and Paco Nathan
- DeepSeek: What You Need to Know
- Inference Scaling for Enhanced Reasoning
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