Machine Minds
Machine Minds - the minds behind the machines! This is the show where we dive deep into the intricate worlds of robotics, AI, and Hard Tech. In each episode, we bring you intimate conversations with the founders, investors, and trailblazers who are at the heart of these tech revolutions. We dig into their journeys, the challenges they've overcome, and the breakthroughs that are shaping our future. Join us as we explore how these machine minds are transforming the way we live, work, and understand our world.
Machine Minds
Episode 102 | Active Physical Intelligence Unleashed | Tara Javidi & Sam Bigdeli
How do you get AI to seek the right data in the real world instead of drowning in all of it?
In this episode, I sit down with Tara Javidi (UCSD professor and AI researcher) and Sam Bigdeli (repeat founder & former semiconductor supply‑chain exec), co-founders of Kav AI, to talk about “active physical intelligence”—hypothesis‑driven, curiosity‑led AI that hunts for the signals that matter in physical systems.
We cover:
- Why passive, data-soaks-everything AI hits a wall in the physical world
- Hypothesis-driven learning: letting models ask “what should I look at next?”
- From oil & gas spills to structural failures—predicting the next “leak” like a language model predicts the next word
- Handling massive, messy, multimodal sensor streams in real time (volume of context, not just length)
- Interpretability when your model is deciding which sensor to query and why
- What academia gets wrong (and right) about startups—and vice versa
- The hardest part of moving from novelty-driven research to problem-driven product
- How (and when) to disagree productively as co-founders
Links mentioned
- Website: www.kavai.com
- Company LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/kav-artificial-intelligence/
- Sam Bigdeli: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sam-bigdeli-5310b923/
- Tara Javidi: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tara-javidi-28b450155/
🎙 Connect with me
LinkedIn – https://www.linkedin.com/in/greg-toroosian