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Stanford CS25: Transformers United – Recommended Sessions

Stanford’s CS25: Transformers United is a popular seminar-style course (now in its V5 iteration as of 2025) that dives into Transformer architectures and their applications across NLP, CV, RL, and more. It features guest lectures from leading researchers like Andrej Karpathy, Geoffrey Hinton, and Ashish Vaswani. The full recordings are available on YouTube in a combined playlist, making it accessible for self-study. While all sessions are high-quality (it’s one of Stanford’s “hottest” courses), some stand out based on speaker expertise, viewer feedback, and mentions in reviews for their depth, novelty, or foundational value.

Here are my top recommendations for the best sessions, prioritized for beginners to advanced learners. I’ve included why they’re worth watching, approximate length, and direct links:

  1. Introduction to Transformers (Andrej Karpathy, ~1 hour)
    A must-watch starter—Karpathy breaks down the mechanics of Transformers intuitively, with visuals and code snippets. Perfect if you’re new to the topic; it’s often called the “best intro ever” in study notes and forums.
    Watch on YouTube (from V2)

  2. Stop Worrying and Love the Transformer (Ashish Vaswani, ~45 minutes)
    Delivered by the co-author of the original “Attention is All You Need” paper. He shares insider stories on design choices and future directions—timeless and inspiring for anyone in AI. Highly recommended for its historical context.
    Watch on YouTube (from V3)

  3. Whole-Part Hierarchies in a Neural Network (Geoffrey Hinton, ~50 minutes)
    Hinton (the “Godfather of AI”) explores hierarchical representations in Transformers, tying into forward-forward algorithms. Deep insights on scaling and biology-inspired AI; Reddit threads rave about its mind-bending ideas.
    Watch on YouTube (from V4)

  4. Generalist Agents in Open-Ended Worlds (Jim Fan, NVIDIA, ~1 hour)
    Focuses on building versatile AI agents with Transformers for robotics and games. Super engaging with demos; a Reddit user called it “fascinating” for practical agent-building tips in V5. Great for RL enthusiasts.
    Watch on YouTube Wait, wrong link—actual: Watch on YouTube (from V5)

  5. Intuition on LMs, Shaping the Future of AI (Jason Wei & Hyung Won Chung, OpenAI, ~50 minutes)
    Dives into large language models’ scaling laws and emergent abilities. Packed with OpenAI anecdotes; excellent for understanding why models like GPT work so well. Frequently cited in recent reviews as forward-looking.
    Watch on YouTube (from V4)

If you’re short on time, start with Karpathy’s intro and Vaswani’s talk—they cover the essentials. For the latest V5 content (Spring 2025), check the overview session first. The whole series is free and seminar-like, so sessions build on each other but can be watched standalone.

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