Becoming an AI Evangelist // Alex Volkov // #215

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.// AbstractFollow 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.// BioAlex 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/Merchhttps://mlops-community.myshopify.com/// Related LinksEvaluation Survey: https://hq.yougot.us/primary/WebInterview/3AW6LW5D/Start Website: https://thursdai.newsAlex 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-divesThe Future of Search in the Era of Large Language Models // Saahil Jain // MLOps Podcast #150: https://youtu.be/hMoMvK89iogDSPy: Transforming Language Model Calls into Smart Pipelines // Omar Khattab // MLOps Podcast #194: https://youtu.be/NoaDWKHdkHg--------------- ✌️Connect With Us ✌️ -------------Join our Slack community: https://go.mlops.community/slackFollow us on Twitter: @mlopscommunitySign up for the next meetup: https://go.mlops.community/registerCatch 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