Rafe Brena, PhD

AI expert (30+y as a researcher), writepreneur, futurologist.

Check my newsletter about AI and Tech without the nonsense hype:

[Rafe Brena, PhD @rbrena]

Many people think Generative AI systems like ChatGPT don’t “understand” the text they produce.
This opinion is just wrong.
I used to think the same but changed my mind.
See my proof in the following (no joke)

🧵 [1/5]

[Rafe Brena, PhD @rbrena]

Does the Pope understand where AI is going?

[Rafe Brena, PhD @rbrena]

Do you agree with the scathing declarations about AI in the encyclical?
It's not just "yes" or "no"...
https://t.co/ZNboiCM1CS

[Rafe Brena, PhD @rbrena]

I Have a PhD in AI, But My Entire Perspective Shifted With These 3 Generative AI Breakthroughs. This is my last post, published by @towards_AI :
https://t.co/agF0TlS0Uz

[Rafe Brena, PhD @rbrena]

Check my "Demystifying AI" mini-course, oriented to seniors (like me).
https://t.co/Raz9YMHo4A
No-nonsense simple clarifications from my 30+ career in AI research.
I was in AI before it became cool.

[Rafe Brena, PhD @rbrena]

Denying any cognitive capabilities from AI is becoming more and more unsustainable…

[Sebastien Bubeck @SebastienBubeck]

Yet more evidence that a pretty major shift is happening, this time by Scott Aaronson

https://t.co/R1kPhCWhwD

[Vinod Khosla @vkhosla]

Writing has been on the wall. Self driving will surely win over human driving. Better consumer experience, far lower cost, more scalability and predictability. If I were @Google I’d be investing tens of billions of dollars per year to entrench myself before others caught up. Maybe a larger market than search!

[Gary Marcus @GaryMarcus]

Why do people take him seriously when he says stuff like this?

[Rafe Brena, PhD @rbrena]

A glimpse of programming's future, by the great Andrew Ng:

[Andrew Ng @AndrewYNg]

Despite having worked on AI since I was a teenager, I’m now more excited than ever about what we can do with it, especially in building AI applications. Sparks are flying in our field, and 2025 will be a great year for building!

One aspect of AI that I’m particularly excited about is how easy it is to build software prototypes. AI is lowering the cost of software development and expanding the set of possible applications. While it can help extend or maintain large software systems, it shines particularly in building prototypes and other simple applications quickly.

If you want to build an app to print out flash cards for your kids (I just did this in a couple of hours with o1’s help), or write an application that monitors foreign exchange rates to manage international bank accounts (a real example from https://t.co/zpIxRSuky4’s finance team), or analyzes user reviews automatically to quickly flag problems with your products (https://t.co/zpIxRSuky4's content team does this), it is now possible to build these applications quickly through AI-assisted coding.

I find AI-assisted coding especially effective for prototyping because (i) stand-alone prototypes require relatively little context and software integration and (ii) prototypes in alpha testing usually don’t have to be reliable. While generative AI also helps with engineering large, mission-critical software systems, the improvements in productivity there aren't as dramatic, because it’s challenging to give the AI system all the context it needs to navigate a large codebase and also to make sure the generated code is reliable (for example, covering all important corner cases).

Until now, a huge friction point for getting a prototype into users’ hands has been deployment. Platforms like Bolt, Replit Agent, Vercel V0 use generative AI with agentic workflows to improve code quality, but more importantly, they also help deploy generated applications directly. (While I find these systems useful, my own workflow typically uses an LLM to design the system architecture and then generate code, one module at a time if there are multiple large modules. Then I test each module, edit the code further if needed — sometimes using an AI-enabled IDE like Cursor — and finally assemble the modules.)

Building prototypes quickly is an efficient way to test ideas and get tasks done. It’s also a great way to learn. Perhaps most importantly, it’s really fun! (At least I think it is. 😄)

How can you take advantage of these opportunities in the coming year? As you form new year resolutions, I hope you will:
- Make a learning plan! To be effective builders, we all need to keep up with the exciting changes that continue to unfold. How many short courses a month do you want to take in 2025? If you discuss your learning plan with friends, you can help each other along. For instance, we launched a learning summary page that shows what short courses people have taken. A few https://t.co/zpIxRSuky4 team members have agreed to a friendly competition to see who can take more courses in 2025!
- Go build! If you already know how to code, I encourage you to build prototypes whenever inspiration strikes and you have a spare moment. And if you don’t yet code, it will be well worth your while to learn. Even small wins — like the flash cards I printed out, which inspired my daughter to spend an extra 20 minutes practicing her multiplication table — make life better. Perhaps you’ll invent something that really takes off. And even if you don’t, you’ll have fun and learn a lot along the way.

[Original text: https://t.co/YgfCpE6FL8 ]

[Rafe Brena, PhD @rbrena]

Why has nobody talked about intelligent agents for ages, and why is it now trendy? Check my post at https://t.co/u58ZtIwPrs

[Rafe Brena, PhD @rbrena]

My recent post about OpenAI o1.
What's your take?
https://t.co/StVZu3rhh5

[Rafe Brena, PhD @rbrena]

@elonmusk Elon is embarrassing himself…

[Rafe Brena, PhD @rbrena]

Way too many AI applications lack focus, are too general, or don't need AI at all.
I discuss what the 2nd GenAI wave will look like in my newsletter, https://t.co/cIHZzvJHVj

[Rafe Brena, PhD @rbrena]

Human-brain cells in computer, IBM trains LLM with 100% accuracy and more, in the Skeptic AI Enthusiast:
https://t.co/nU3m7m8DjO

[Rafe Brena, PhD @rbrena]

@ylecun Dis-donc, j'avais pas entendu ces mots là! Est-ce le langage courant d'aujord'hui?

[Rafe Brena, PhD @rbrena]

@GaryMarcus I don't know what happened to Elon; he used to be a regular guy. Now, he is extreme right...

[Rafe Brena, PhD @rbrena]

@robinhanson @GaryMarcus Yes, but not Elon's bubble.

[Rafe Brena, PhD @rbrena]

"The antidote to hype is to focus on concrete value."
—Eric Siegel
AI shouldn't be about hype. We need AI products with REAL value.
This and more in my newsletter "The Skeptic AI Enthusiast," curated by a veteran in the AI field.

[Rafe Brena, PhD @rbrena]

In the age of synthetic voices, what about no voice at all? That's "silent voice." Check it on https://t.co/u58ZtIwPrs

[Rafe Brena, PhD @rbrena]

Competition of robots against humans doesn't make much sense. You see, it’s not too hard to build a robot that hits the ball ten times harder than a human and, thus, wins almost every match.
This and more in my free newsletter (https://t.co/u58ZtIwPrs)

[Rafe Brena, PhD @rbrena]

Google's table tennis player is interesting, but competition between robots and humans is irrelevant!
This and more in my free newsletter.