Vanishing Gradients

Episode 45: Your AI application is broken. Here’s what to do about it.


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Too many teams are building AI applications without truly understanding why their models fail. Instead of jumping straight to LLM evaluations, dashboards, or vibe checks, how do you actually fix a broken AI app?

In this episode, Hugo speaks with Hamel Husain, longtime ML engineer, open-source contributor, and consultant, about why debugging generative AI systems starts with looking at your data.

In this episode, we dive into:

  • Why “look at your data” is the best debugging advice no one follows.
  • How spreadsheet-based error analysis can uncover failure modes faster than complex dashboards.
  • The role of synthetic data in bootstrapping evaluation.
  • When to trust LLM judges—and when they’re misleading.
  • Why most AI dashboards measuring truthfulness, helpfulness, and conciseness are often a waste of time.
  • If you're building AI-powered applications, this episode will change how you approach debugging, iteration, and improving model performance in production.

    LINKS

    • The podcast livestream on YouTube
    • Hamel's blog
    • Hamel on twitter
    • Hugo on twitter
    • Vanishing Gradients on twitter
    • Vanishing Gradients on YouTube
    • Vanishing Gradients on Twitter
    • Vanishing Gradients on Lu.ma

    • Building LLM Application for Data Scientists and SWEs, Hugo course on Maven (use VG25 code for 25% off)

    • Hugo is also running a free lightning lesson next week on LLM Agents: When to Use Them (and When Not To)

    • ...more
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      Vanishing GradientsBy Hugo Bowne-Anderson

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