# How Do AI Models Actually Think? - Laura Ruis

Page: https://stenobird.com/podcast/machine-learning-street-talk/how-do-ai-models-actually-think-laura-ruis
Text version: https://stenobird.com/podcast/machine-learning-street-talk/how-do-ai-models-actually-think-laura-ruis.md
Podcast: [Machine Learning Street Talk (MLST)](https://stenobird.com/podcast/machine-learning-street-talk)
Published: 2025-01-20T00:28:12+00:00
Episode link: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/machinelearningstreettalk/episodes/How-Do-AI-Models-Actually-Think----Laura-Ruis-e2tn9l9
Audio file: https://anchor.fm/s/1e4a0eac/podcast/play/97281129/https%3A%2F%2Fd3ctxlq1ktw2nl.cloudfront.net%2Fstaging%2F2025-0-20%2F808da284-ab46-0ae7-eb82-bb0885ebbcb1.mp3
Processing state: processed
JSON: https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/machine-learning-street-talk/episodes/how-do-ai-models-actually-think-laura-ruis
Duration seconds: 4681

## Resource

Laura Ruis, a PhD student at University College London and researcher at Cohere, explains her groundbreaking research into how large language models (LLMs) perform reasoning tasks, the fundamental mechanisms underlying LLM reasoning capabilities, and whether these models primarily rely on retrieval or develop procedural knowledge. SPONSOR MESSAGES: *** CentML offers competitive pricing for GenAI model deployment, with flexible options to suit a wide range of models, from small to large-scale deployments. https://centml.ai/pricing/ Tufa AI Labs is a brand new research lab in Zurich started by Benjamin Crouzier focussed on o-series style reasoning and AGI. Are you interested in working on reasoning, or getting involved in their events? Goto https://tufalabs.ai/ *** TOC 1. LLM Foundations and Learning 1.1 Scale and Learning in Language Models [00:00:00] 1.2 Procedural Knowledge vs Fact Retrieval [00:03:40] 1.3 Influence Functions and Model Analysis [00:07:40] 1.4 Role of Code in LLM Reasoning [00:11:10] 1.5 Semantic Understanding and Physical Grounding [00:19:30] 2. Reasoning Architectures and Measurement 2.1 Measuring Understanding and Reasoning in Language Models [00:23:10] 2.2 Formal vs Approximate Reasoning and Model Creativity [00:26:40] 2.3 Symbolic vs Subsymbolic Computation Debate [00:34:10] 2.4 Neural Network Architectures and Tensor Product Representations [00:40:50] 3. AI Agency and Risk Assessment 3.1 Agency and Goal-Directed Behavior in Language Models [00:45:10] 3.2 Defining and Measuring Agency in AI Systems [00:49:50] 3.3 Core Knowledge Systems and Agency Detection [00:54:40] 3.4 Language Models as Agent Models and Simulator Theory [01:03:20] 3.5 AI Safety and Societal Control Mechanisms [01:07:10] 3.6 Evolution of AI Capabilities and Emergent Risks [01:14…

## Actions

- request_transcript: `POST https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/machine-learning-street-talk/episodes/how-do-ai-models-actually-think-laura-ruis/transcription-requests` — Idempotently request low-priority transcript generation for this episode.
- read_markdown: `GET https://stenobird.com/podcast/machine-learning-street-talk/how-do-ai-models-actually-think-laura-ruis.md` — Read the agent-friendly Markdown representation of this episode resource.

A page view does not enqueue transcription. Agents should invoke `request_transcript` explicitly when they need this episode processed.

## Transcript

Full transcripts are not published on public pages unless there is a clear rights basis.