Rafael Laguna de la Vera

Founding Director @SPRIND - Find me nowadays @rafbuff.mastadon.social

[Rafael Laguna de la Vera @rafbuff]

I'm off to @rafbuff.mastadon.social folks, follow me there (and yeah, it takes some time getting used to it, but well worth it)

[Rafael Laguna de la Vera @rafbuff]

@itsolelehmann @keypousttchi This round thing on our neck proves that there is at least one high performance, low power AI algorithm we haven’t found, yet. Europe can’t out-von-Neumann the US, but we can find the next s-curve for ML/AI. If you have ideas, go here #NFAI https://t.co/tybu9UUfYS @SPRIND

[Rafael Laguna de la Vera @rafbuff]

@ThomasBurkhartB Tell them to move, its more fun because it is not a proprietary hellhole

[Rafael Laguna de la Vera @rafbuff]

I'm off to @rafbuff.mastadon.social folks, follow me there (and yeah, it takes some time getting used to it, but well worth it)

[Rafael Laguna de la Vera @rafbuff]

@ThomasBurkhartB More nerds on Masta

[Rafael Laguna de la Vera @rafbuff]

Zeitenwende 2.0 = Gründerzeit 2.0? Wie gelingt der nachhaltige militärisch-zivile Innovationstransfer? Wo sind die größten Bottlenecks?

Freue mich auf die Diskussion zu diesem Thema mit Rafaela Kraus, Paul Höller und Larissa Holzki am Dienstag, dem 2. September.

https://t.co/qvWtPA6H7i

[Rafael Laguna de la Vera @rafbuff]

Es gibt viel Grund zu Technikoptimismus, denn einige Folgeinnovationen werden uns in den nächsten Jahrzehnten helfen, die großen Herausforderungen zu meistern, die uns heute oft als bedrückend, gefährlich und unlösbar erscheinen. https://t.co/YasWL7wi4x

[Rafael Laguna de la Vera @rafbuff]

It was good to join this #Eurostack discussion earlier this week in Paris https://t.co/9iOQqrOAQf

[Florian Herrmann @fwhfreising]

Gespräch mit Transmutex, RWE & SPRIND: Transmutex plant in Bayern eine neuartige Anlage zur Transmutation – ein Prozess, der Atommüll reduzieren, Energie erzeugen und wertvolle Isotope für die Medizin gewinnen kann. Der Freistaat begleitet die Idee offen.

#Innovation #Transmutation #Kerntechnik #Bayern #Forschung

[Rafael Laguna de la Vera @rafbuff]

We are getting closer and closer to the WALL-E world friends. Is this a future we want? I agree with @karpathy that pure #Tiktok is already more than we need. Let's do something useful, something that is good for all people with this...

[Andrej Karpathy @karpathy]

Very impressed with Veo 3 and all the things people are finding on r/aivideo etc. Makes a big difference qualitatively when you add audio.

There are a few macro aspects to video generation that may not be fully appreciated:

1. Video is the highest bandwidth input to brain. Not just for entertainment but also for work/learning - think diagrams, charts, animations, etc.
2. Video is the most easy/fun. The average person doesn't like reading/writing, it's very effortful. Anyone can (and wants to) engage with video.
3. The barrier to creating videos is -> 0.
4. For the first time, video is directly optimizable.

I have to emphasize/explain the gravity of (4) a bit more. Until now, video has been all about indexing, ranking and serving a finite set of candidates that are (expensively) created by humans. If you are TikTok and you want to keep the attention of a person, the name of the game is to get creators to make videos, and then figure out which video to serve to which person. Collectively, the system of "human creators learning what people like and then ranking algorithms learning how to best show a video to a person" is a very, very poor optimizer. Ok, people are already addicted to TikTok so clearly it's pretty decent, but it's imo nowhere near what is possible in principle.

The videos coming from Veo 3 and friends are the output of a neural network. This is a differentiable process. So you can now take arbitrary objectives, and crush them with gradient descent. I expect that this optimizer will turn out to be significantly, significantly more powerful than what we've seen so far. Even just the iterative, discrete process of optimizing prompts alone via both humans or AIs (and leaving parameters unchanged) may be a strong enough optimizer. So now we can take e.g. engagement (or pupil dilations or etc.) and optimize generated videos directly against that. Or we take ad click conversion and directly optimize against that.

Why index a finite set of videos when you can generate them infinitely and optimize them directly.

I think video has the potential to be an incredible surface for AI -> human communication, future AI GUIs etc. Think about how much easier it is to grok something from a really great diagram or an animation instead of a wall of text. And an incredible medium for human creativity. But this native, high bandwidth medium is also becoming directly optimizable. Imo, TikTok is nothing compared to what is possible. And I'm not so sure that we will like what "optimal" looks like.

[Rafael Laguna de la Vera @rafbuff]

Does Europe 🇪🇺 need its own path to AGI?
Watch my keynote at Rise of AI Conference 2025 last week in Berlin: https://t.co/3d0zeq40Ow

[SPRIND, Federal Agency for Breakthrough Innovation @SPRIND]

Interview Of The Week @theinnovator : Rafael Laguna de la Vera, Germany’s SPRIND
https://t.co/MtkNgQVAXG

[Rafael Laguna de la Vera @rafbuff]

Autonomous drones have the power to dramatically improve the way we live: delivering goods to remote areas, saving lives in extreme conditions, and performing tasks that are dangerous or even impossible for humans. To unlock this potential, we need breakthrough innovation.

[SPRIND, Federal Agency for Breakthrough Innovation @SPRIND]

The dream of fully autonomous flight is not yet a reality. What is missing are robust systems that can safely navigate complex environments without GNSS or human intervention. We are tackling this challenge with our SPRIND Funke Fully Autonomous Flight 2.0 https://t.co/No5xnXqqzV

[SPRIND, Federal Agency for Breakthrough Innovation @SPRIND]

How Germany’s innovation agency wants to set up a military offshoot. SPRIND explains how it could use Germany’s stimulus package to boost European defence.
https://t.co/c9XEfCfmQ2

[SPRIND, Federal Agency for Breakthrough Innovation @SPRIND]

From Academic Research to Start-Up: A Marine Biologist’s Algae Farming Vision
https://t.co/ekHu2IpIHL

[SPRIND, Federal Agency for Breakthrough Innovation @SPRIND]

At VENTURE SPRIND, 50+ teams from the SPRIND portfolio from the fields of DeepTech, Computing and Quantum, Life Science, Energy Storage, Climate, Biomanufacturing, AI and Robotics and Advanced Materials pitched in front of 250+ international investors https://t.co/xiU8gxfm9S

[SPRIND, Federal Agency for Breakthrough Innovation @SPRIND]

Listen to the latest @GTAI_de #Podcast w/@SPRIND´s Innovation Manager Olav Carlsen. Disruptive innovation is key to any economy's survival, but disrupters must traverse arid patches of funding. The German government is helping.
https://t.co/KLNeOAIIgn

[SPRIND, Federal Agency for Breakthrough Innovation @SPRIND]

This is VENTURE SPRIND, where 300+ investors met with 50+ start-ups in #Berlin https://t.co/WIFBYc5x7u

[SPRIND, Federal Agency for Breakthrough Innovation @SPRIND]

Rulemapping Group GmbH has closed a €12 million funding round including SPRIND, Hidden Peak Capital and prominent business angels as investors
https://t.co/v6dS71pVLW

[SPRIND, Federal Agency for Breakthrough Innovation @SPRIND]

Yesterday, at VENTURE SPRIND 50+ great teams and startups from deep tech, biotech, and life sciences pitch their breakthrough innovations to 300+ investors. Have a look at the teams and make sure you do not miss VENTURE SPRIND next year 👇
https://t.co/WIFBYc5x7u

[Rafael Laguna de la Vera @rafbuff]

@axelpopaxel @KumarAGarg @ARIA_research @open_phil Great program, we are on it, thx Axel