In this episode, Lukas Biewald, the founder and CEO of Weights & Biases, one of the goto platforms for machine learning, joins us to discuss Best Practices for GenAI in Production.  

Prior to founding Weights & Biases, Lukas co-founded Figure Eight (formerly CrowdFlower), a pioneer in the ML data-labeling space that was subsequently acquired by Appen in 2019.  

This discussion will focus on the best practices for integrating GenAI into production, with a particular focus on the importance of robust evaluation frameworks and key metrics for tracking performance. 

Lukas will also share insights on using Weights & Biases and the newest platform, Weave, for model evaluation and strategies for effective model monitoring. 

Last, but not least, he'll touch on the non-deterministic nature of GenAI models, share his perspective on the current AI landscape, and share advice on running a startup. 

SHOW NOTES

Learn more about the platforms:

Weave: https://wandb.github.io/weave/ 

Weights and Bias: https://github.com/wandb

Blog: https://wandb.ai/fully-connected 

Listen to Lukas’ Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/gradient-dissent-conversations-on-ai/id1504567418

Learn more about the Guardrails project:

https://github.com/outlines-dev/outlines

https://github.com/guardrails-ai/guardrails

Learn more about Edward Rutherfurd’s Books:

https://www.edwardrutherfurd.com/edward-rutherfurd-books.html

Topics:

1. Introduction

2. Tell us about your journey

Best practices for getting GenAI into Production

– Set the context. Tell us about WandB

– What are some of the best practices for getting into GenAI right now?

– How are companies handling model evaluation?  

– Tell us about Weave 

– What about model monitoring? 

– How are companies handling the non-deterministic nature of GenAI models?

– What part of GenAI is overhyped?

– What is underhyped?

– Is the stack going to get more complex and are better tools needed? 

Startups and Investing 

– What are some of the biggest lessons you've learned as a successful entrepreneur?

– What do you look for in startups? 

– When founders ask you for advice, what questions should they ask more?

– How do you hire great engineering talent in a very competitive market ?

– What do you like to read in your downtime?

– How can people follow your work?

This episode was sponsored by:  

Ai+ Training https://aiplus.training/ 

Home to hundreds of hours of on-demand, self-paced AI training, ODSC interviews, free webinars, and certifications in in-demand skills like LLMs and Prompt Engineering

And created in partnership with ODSC https://odsc.com/ 

The Leading AI Training Conference, featuring expert-led, hands-on workshops, training sessions, and talks on cutting-edge AI topics and tools, from data science and machine learning to generative AI to LLMOps

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