#15 - Ritwik Gupta: AI Policy and Impactful AI Research
Description
A conversation with Ritwik Gupta, a tech director at the Defense Innovation Unit and a PhD student at UC Berkeley in Berkeley AI Research (BAIR). Ritwik's research explores applications of computer vision to real-world disaster recovery. We discuss the intersection of AI and Policy, research aimed at real-world impact, challenges of balancing a full time job with doing a PhD, and experiences starting a PhD after spending years in industry.
Ritwik's socials:
website: https://ritwikgupta.me/
twitter: https://twitter.com/Ritwik_G
--- Chapters
00:00 Intro
01:21 Transition from Bioinformatics to Computer Science
05:44 Working Before Grad School
12:28 Deciding to do a PhD
14:53 Imposter Syndrome in the PhD
21:34 Going Back to School After Time in Industry
26:46 Juggling a Full-Time Job and a PhD
32:45 Citations Counts vs Real World Impact
38:07 Intersection of Policy and Computer Science
39:57 Management Skills and Transitioning Roles
45:09 Experiences So Far in the PhD
48:58 The Role of Ethics Statements in Papers
01:06:36 The Berkeley Climate Initiative
01:13:44 Advice
United States
