AI, Ethics, and Remote Work: A Deep Dive with Adam Haney | Ep12

The podcast episode features a discussion with Adam Haney, VP of Engineering at Invisible Technologies. Adam explains the company's role in operational excellence through a mix of human and automated labor to solve enterprise business problems, focusing on human data creation for foundation model providers like large language models. Adam elaborates on the training phases of large language models, emphasizing the initial unsupervised phase where models learn from a vast corpus of textual data. He then delves into the alignment phase, crucial for ensuring models align with creator preferences and societal norms, involving human-centric processes to rank results and safeguard against undesirable outputs. He also touches on the cultural and societal implications of AI, acknowledging the potential biases and perspectives embedded in AI models due to their training on human language data. Adam is optimistic about AI's future, believing it can foster abundance and aid in societal decision-making if guided by ethical and cultural principles. The conversation shifts to the impact of remote and distributed work environments, highlighting the benefits and challenges, particularly in global teams. Adam shares his journey with Bellhop, a gig economy company, discussing his progression from the first engineer to CTO and the importance of building systems for managing technology and people in a scaling enterprise. Lastly, Adam discusses his role as an angel investor, focusing on bright, curious first-time founders, and his personal interests, including woodworking, flying, and attending concerts by the jam band Phish. The podcast concludes with reflections on the symbiosis between founding companies and angel investing, and the varied interests that enrich life outside of technology.