17- Amina Al Sherif – AI/ML Specialist @Google / Author/ Spy /Computational Linguist <script>
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In this episode we talk with the Amina Al Sherif who works as an AI/ML specialist at Google Cloud. In this fascinating conversation we talk about Aminas journey starting off as a computational linguist to working as a spy- yes you heard that right a SPY, to being an AI/ML specialist. We also talk about AI ethics, AI literacy, when to use GenAI, when NOT to use GenAI, how she keeps up with everything happening in the GenAI space, we also talk about her next fiction book, her secret to generating creative ideas, all this and more - you don’t want to miss this jam packed episode with Amina. Sit back grab your favorite drink and enjoy the show

Amina’s background and her journey (02:02 )

Project Maven (07:10 )

AI Ethics (12:36 )

How to keep up with everything changing in the GenAI space (18:00 )

If she could rewind time - how could this technology be introduced to the public (22:31 )

Interesting projects in the AI/ML space (29:21 )

What is one thing most misunderstood about how GenAI works (33:33 )

Hypothetical predictions of how GenAI could end up being (37:30 )

How should one get started off in the AI/ML space (41:01 )

Life as an author and managing different responsiblities (45:27 )

How to get the creative juices flow (53:22 )

How to overcome writers block(55:52 )

LinkedIn - Amina Al Sherif

Amina’s books - her own bookstore or Amazon

Full Show notes :

00:00 .00
Anand Kumar (host)
Hey Amina welcome to the show.

00:02 .73
Amina
Thank you for having me Anon I appreciate it.

00:08 .24
Anand Kumar (host)
Awesome! Before we get started I mean I know you have a very extensive and interesting background on you know how you got to where you are today if you can give the listeners a background of your journey that’ll be awesome. Okay.

00:25 .12
Amina
Yeah, so I assume when you mean where I got to today. It’s you know, being an ai and machine learning lead at Google, so I’ll go on that assumption. So I started my undergrad.

00:38 .46
Anand Kumar (host)
Yeah.

00:41 .82
Amina
In computational linguistics but I was really interested in the linguistics part and less interested in the computer science piece of it. Until I joined the military here in the United States and the military basically told me that there was no way I was going to get a security clearance. That I needed to become what I wanted to do which was be a spy. I spoke and speak several languages. So that’s what I wanted to do and you know since I was young who doesn’t want to be a spy and so they told me hey we based on your background I’m originally egyptian.

01:15 .50
Anand Kumar (host)
Ah.

01:20 .20
Amina
And based on your background. We don’t think you’re going to get a security clearance and so we’re going to shove you over to the it and networking side of the army because you know that’s where we put the people. So not not a very.

01:36 .59
Anand Kumar (host)
So.

01:37 .14
Amina
Glorious turn of events for me. Certainly definitely not where I saw my career going but it’s it’s funny how things work. I end up going to the first iteration of the cyber training at.

01:40 .96
Anand Kumar (host)
I.

01:53 .60
Amina
The us army cyber school in Fort Gordon and from there kind of got launched into my my technical career I was dealing with a lot of really large data sets. You know surprise surprise I did end up actually being a spy but I got to do technical things at the same time.

02:08 .58
Anand Kumar (host)
He.

02:13 .28
Amina
And I dealt with a lot of data in my job and there wasn’t a whole lot of automation put into place especially where I was working at in the special operations field and so that’s when I started to kind of explore coding basically out of necessity. Not really because I wanted to learn. But I was a 1 person shop and so I had to kind of automate myself to a certain extent or else I wasn’t going to get the job done. Fast forward a couple years from there I actually broke my back on a jump during my military service and ended up in bed for three months

02:38 .97
Anand Kumar (host)
And.

02:47 .42
Anand Kumar (host)
Go.

02:52 .10
Amina
And so of course the first thing that came to mind was what am I going to do with my brain while I sit here like a vegetable in in bed recovering from a broken back and so I did that classic kind of.

02:57 .36
Anand Kumar (host)
So.

03:06 .66
Amina
Well I’m going to join a boot camp and learn a little bit more about this coding thing because it seems interesting I could do some fun stuff with this and the next thing you know I graduate from the coding boot camp on a whim apply to Google this was back in 2016 and somehow made it into Google now my journey with machine learning started up at that point because I was launched the first project that I was launched into as a generalist ceo or sales engineer was a project known as project Maven at Google. Um, and publicly because there was a lot of public. A lot of public exposure on that project but the basic premise of it that the public knows and Google knows is that Google was building Ai for drones. For the department of defense here in the United States

00:02 .87
Amina
Um, okay, so yeah, but the last part of my journey getting to the machine learning piece of um, working machine learning at Google was as I mentioned joining project Maven and suddenly I was launched into the world of computer vision and um.

00:22 .82
Amina
I’m a fully taught self-taught machine learning engineer at this point. Um, now of course recently with ll lens becoming super popular. Um I think Google kind of folded in on itself and was looking for people who had experience in that field. And being a computational linguist that’s kind of you know one of the few things that we are experts at is understanding how language interacts with um, really electronic systems of any kind. It doesn’t have to be code. Um and it doesn’t have to be machine learning. Um.

00:53 .98
Anand Kumar (host)
I.

00:56 .67
Amina
Yeah that’s how I got to where that’s like the the longer maybe version of how I got to to where I am today I’ve been at Google off and on for the last six years and yeah, I’m still in public sector but I work with um, well frankly, all the customers that we have. Under our umbrella so federal defense state and local governments education I kind of work with all those those different kinds of customers.

01:25 .32
Anand Kumar (host)
Awesome! Ah, thank you for that over you mean and that that is awesome that there’s almost so many things I want to Dr down on and talk about but the first thing I’ll start off with saying I personally I don’t know any I have not had like you know a real life friend as a sp old. It’s great to know somebody in real life who’s who is