No Priors Ep. 71: The Best of 2024 (so far) with Sarah Guo and Elad Gil

Believe or not, we’re almost halfway through 2024. Sarah and Elad have spent the first of this year talking with some of the most innovative minds in the AI industry, so we’re taking a look at some of our favorite No Priors conversations so far featuring Dylan Field (Figma); Emily Glassberg-Sands (Stripe); Brett Adcock (Figure AI); Aditya Ramesh, Tim Brooks and Bill Peebles (OpenAI’s Sora Team); Scott Wu (Cognition); and Alexandr Wang (Scale). Watch or listen to the full episodes here: Emily Glassberg Sands from Stripe: https://youtu.be/wiD1BfNEi-U Dylan Field from Figma: https://youtu.be/k7F0yRs1IWY Brett Adcock from Figure: https://youtu.be/O3fp1Xf7Ztw Aditya Ramesh, Tim Brooks and Bill Peebles from OpenAI’s Sora team: https://youtu.be/reMnn6bV_fI Cognition’s Scott Wu: https://youtu.be/OvBiqmcnjHY Alexandr Wang from Scale: https://youtu.be/2SWRU7YOd6c Sign up for new podcasts every week. Email feedback to show@no-priors.com Follow us on Twitter: @NoPriorsPod | @Saranormous | @EladGil Show Notes: 0:00 Introduction 0:46 Emily Glassberg Sands on the Future of AI and Fintech 4:23 Dylan Field on AI and Human Creative Potential 9:03 Brett Adcock on Running Figure AI’s Hardware and Software Processes 12:43 OpenAI’s Sora Team on Artists’ Creative Experiences with their Model 17:43 Scott Wu Gives Advice for Human Engineers Co-Working with AI 21:06 Alexandr Wang on How Quality Data Builds Confidence in AI Systems

Sarah GuohostElad GilhostEmily Glassberg SandsguestDylan FieldguestBrett AdcockguestAditya RameshguestTim BrooksguestBill PeeblesguestScott WuguestAlexandr Wangguest

Jul 11, 202425mWatch on YouTube ↗

WHAT IT’S REALLY ABOUT

Mid-2024 AI: From Fintech and Design to Robots and AGI

This mid-year 'best of' episode of No Priors curates standout conversations from 2024 on how AI is reshaping finance, design, robotics, software engineering, and model evaluation. Guests from Stripe, Figma, Figure, OpenAI, Cognition, and Scale AI discuss practical deployments of AI and emerging opportunities. Themes include AI as a creative and technical copilot, humanoid robots for physical labor, video models like Sora as world simulators, and AI agents such as Devin that redefine software work. The episode closes by emphasizing the importance of rigorous evaluation and trust as models approach and sometimes exceed human-level capabilities.

IDEAS WORTH REMEMBERING

5 ideas

Identity modeling is a major AI opportunity in fintech.

Robustly understanding who a business is, what it sells, and how it fits into a complex regulatory and payments environment is both technically hard and critical for credit, compliance, and support—making it prime AI white space.

AI will first augment, not replace, creative and engineering roles.

Designers and engineers will use AI for brainstorming, first drafts, and code generation, while humans still handle cultural context, emotional nuance, product judgment, and overall architecture.

Iterative, test-driven development is essential for complex AI hardware.

Figure AI emphasizes rapid prototyping, clear customer-driven requirements, and structured design gates to continuously refine humanoid robots, mirroring agile software practices but on longer hardware timelines.

Video models like Sora unlock new creative and simulation paradigms.

Beyond traditional films, generative video enables novel interactive media and provides rich data about physical dynamics, potentially powering robotics and other world-simulation use cases.

Future software engineers will act more like technical product architects.

As AI handles more implementation, human engineers will focus on problem framing, system design, and high-level reasoning, while deep fundamentals (algorithms, networks, logic) remain valuable under the hood.

WORDS WORTH SAVING

5 quotes

Using financial data to help businesses be more successful, to grow the pie, to grow the GDP, I think is really powerful.

— Emily Glassberg Sands

Before you see potential replacement of any part of the design role, you instead see augmentation and you see access.

— Dylan Field

We really don't believe in spending a lot of time just doing research and analyzing. We spend a lot of time on just building and testing.

— Brett Adcock

You learn so much about the physical world just from training on raw video that we really believe that it's going to be essential for things like physical embodiment moving forward.

— OpenAI Sora research team

The role of a software engineer five or 10 years from now looks something like a mix between a technical architect and a product manager today.

— Scott Wu

AI applications and white space in fintech and financial infrastructureAI-augmented creativity and the evolving role of designers and engineersBuilding humanoid robots and running complex hardware–software projects at speedGenerative video (OpenAI Sora), world modeling, and future media formatsAI engineers (Devin) and the future skill set for software developersTrust, evaluation, and measurement of advanced AI systemsSocietal and economic impacts of rapidly advancing AI capabilities

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