# Why Frontier AI Still Sees Like a Toddler, w/ Andrew Dai

Page: https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-neuron-ai-explained-6886341/why-frontier-ai-still-sees-like-a-toddler-w-andrew-dai
Text version: https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-neuron-ai-explained-6886341/why-frontier-ai-still-sees-like-a-toddler-w-andrew-dai.md
Podcast: [The Neuron: AI Explained](https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-neuron-ai-explained-6886341)
Published: 2026-06-17T18:40:00+00:00
Episode link: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/the-neuron/episodes/Why-Frontier-AI-Still-Sees-Like-a-Toddler--w-Andrew-Dai-e3ktr8r
Audio file: https://anchor.fm/s/f51d3fd0/podcast/play/121613019/https%3A%2F%2Fd3ctxlq1ktw2nl.cloudfront.net%2Fstaging%2F2026-5-17%2F426321530-44100-2-beb0b918e9c85.mp3
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JSON: https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/the-neuron-ai-explained-6886341/episodes/why-frontier-ai-still-sees-like-a-toddler-w-andrew-dai
Duration seconds: 2577

## Resource

AI can write code, pass exams, and summarize the web, but ask it to reason through a real-world image, and the magic often breaks. Andrew Dai, co-founder and CEO of Elorian, joins The Neuron to explain why visual reasoning may be one of the biggest unsolved problems in AI. Andrew spent years at Google Brain and DeepMind, including work connected to Gemini and sparse mixture-of-experts systems. Now, he’s building Elorian around a simple but powerful idea: if AI is going to understand the physical world, it needs more than text-based reasoning layered on top of images. In this episode, Corey and Grant talk with Andrew about why frontier models struggle with counting, navigation, design, engineering, charts, and physical reasoning; why scaling language models hasn’t solved vision; what a “visual chain of thought” might look like; and how better visual reasoning could accelerate robotics, satellite analysis, product design, and mechanical engineering. Sponsored by Dell Technologies and NVIDIA. Learn more at techrepublic.com/hubs/the-enterprise-guide-to-scalable-ai/. Sponsored by Outshift: Visit https://outshift.cisco.com/?utm_campaign=fy26q3_outshift_ww_paid-media_ioc-neuronai-outshift_podcast&utm_channel=podcast&utm_source=podcast to learn more about the Internet of Cognition. Subscribe to The Neuron for more conversations with the people building the future of AI.

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## Transcript

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