Dan Shipper 📧 on X: "Everyone is focused on tracking the ways LLMs are getting better. And they are. But we know there are still things that LLMs can’t do well—the tasks where you can feel the architecture fighting the problem. So I was excited to chat with Eve Bodnia (@eve_bodnia), who is developing https://t.co/9FFN6Le9af" / X

Everyone is focused on tracking the ways LLMs are getting better. And they are. But we know there are still things that LLMs can’t do well—the tasks where you can feel the architecture fighting the problem. So I was excited to chat with Eve Bodnia (@eve_bodnia), who is developing to LLMs, on @every's AI & I. Eve's argument: energy-based models (EBMs), which map possible outcomes onto a mathematical landscape, will lead to the next AI phase shift. We get into: - How energy-based models work. Likely outcomes sit in valleys, and unlikely ones sit on peaks. Whereas LLMs process one token at a time, an EBM scans the full terrain to find the lowest point, or the most probable answer. - Language-based versus data-native models. LLMs are language-dependent even when the problem has nothing to do with language. "If your data is numbers, relationships, and functions, and you try to map those rules into words and then search for the next word, you're losing a lot of information," Bodnia says. EBMs work directly with the underlying data structure, including numbers and spatial coordinates. - Sequential versus panoramic reasoning. An LLM is like driving through San Francisco without a map. Each turn constrains the next, and if you go down the wrong street, you can't reverse course. An EBM has the bird's-eye view—it can evaluate multiple routes at once and course-correct before hitting a dead end. - The LLM plateau no one wants to talk about. LLMs are getting incrementally better, step-change improvements aren’t coming, Eve argues. To achieve that, we need new solutions that compensate for what LLMs are inherently bad at, like non-language reasoning, verification, and real-time data analysis. This is a must-watch for anyone who's curious what might come after the LLM. Watch below! Timestamps: Introduction: 00:00:51 Why correctness and verifiability matter in AI: 00:02:09 What an energy-based model is: 00:09:33 How EBMs construct energy landscapes to understand data: 00:14:21 Why modeling intelligence through language alone is a flawed approach: 00:19:00 What it means for a model to "understand" data: 00:26:54 How EBMs solve the vibe coding problem and enable formally verified code: 00:37:21 Why LLM progress is plateauing: 00:43:21 Mission-critical industries haven't adopted LLMs, and why EBMs can fill that gap: 00:49:54

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3:02 PM · Apr 15, 2026 10.3KViews

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