Alex Volkov serves as the AI Evangelist with Weights & Biases, Host of ThursdAI, Founder and CEO of Targum, and AI Consultant GPU POOR Def. not an owl.

MLOps podcast #215 with Alex Volkov, AI Evangelist at Weights & Biases, Becoming an AI Evangelist.

// Abstract

Follow Alex's journey into the world of AI, from being interested in running his first AI models to founding an AI startup, running a successful weekly AI news podcast & newsletter, and landing a job with  @WeightsBiases.

// Bio

Alex Volkov is an AI Evangelist at Weights & Biases, celebrated for his expertise in clarifying the complexities of AI and advocating for its beneficial uses. He is the founder and host of ThursdAI, a weekly newsletter and podcast that explores the latest in AI, its practical applications, open-source, and innovation. With a solid foundation as an AI startup founder and 20 years in full-stack software engineering, Alex offers a deep well of experience and insight into AI innovation.

// MLOps Jobs board

jobs.mlops.community

// MLOps Swag/Merch

https://mlops-community.myshopify.com/

// Related LinksEvaluation Survey: https://hq.yougot.us/primary/WebInterview/3AW6LW5D/Start

Website: https://thursdai.news

Alex on X (+X spaces are also there) - https://twitter.com/altryne/

ThursdAI podcast/newsletter - https://sub.thursdai.news

Denver local AI tinkerers meetup - https://denver-boulder.aitinkerers.org/

Weights & Biases Growth Team hack week review - https://www.youtube.com/watchInterview

w/ Crew AI creator Joao Moura - https://sub.thursdai.news/p/jan14-sunday-special-deep-dives

The Future of Search in the Era of Large Language Models // Saahil Jain // MLOps Podcast #150: https://youtu.be/hMoMvK89iog

DSPy: Transforming Language Model Calls into Smart Pipelines // Omar Khattab // MLOps Podcast #194: https://youtu.be/NoaDWKHdkHg

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Catch all episodes, blogs, newsletters, and more: https://mlops.community/

Connect with Demetrios on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dpbrinkm/

Connect with Alex on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alex-volkov-/

Timestamps:

[00:00] Alex's preferred beverage

[00:17] Takeaways

[03:19] Take the Evaluation Survey!

[03:55] Alex's journey for the past 15 years

[08:10] Career moves

[15:15] Building communities

[20:02] AI/MLOps Growth in COVID

[27:23] Recent developments and insights

[31:58 - 33:03] WandB Ad

[33:54] Multimodal RAG and Lucid Dreaming

[39:55] Evaluation Practices in MLOps

[43:27] Evaluating AI models effectively

[52:52] Embedding models and updates

[56:14] AI model trade-offs

[1:01:13] Optimizing LLM user experience

[1:03:56] Perceived performance optimization

[1:05:45] Agents' hype and reality

[1:11:31] Exploring DSPy for evaluation

[1:14:13] Wrap up