The Delta of Intelligence is Human Data | Curtis Northcutt (Director of AI Research, Handshake)

Curtis Northcutt joins us on GroundZero.He is Director of AI Research at Handshake, founder of Cleanlab (acquired by Handshake) and invented confident learning during his PhD at MIT. In this conversation, we dig into why the delta between model generations is almost entirely human data, the four quadrants of the AI market, how expert data labeling is deeply misunderstood, the long tail of human knowledge that AI still can't touch, RL environments, coding benchmarks and nuances around Human Data market.PS: Handshake’s revenue has risen to nearly $1 billion up from $550 million in January and $5 million a year ago.TIMESTAMPS00:00:00 - Intro00:02:08 - The Snowman Effect: Growing Up in Rural Kentucky to 7 Years at MIT00:09:50 - Confident Learning, Two Systems of Intelligence & Why Classical ML Still Matters00:20:37 - The Origin of Cleanlab & the Handshake Acquisition00:28:00 - How Does GPT-5 Become GPT-6?00:31:20 - The Fastest Growing Data Lab: What Makes Handshake Different?00:35:32 - The Difference Between Good Data & Bad Data00:38:17 - New Kinds of Data, IA & AI00:42:04 - Scaling Coding Benchmarks & Efficiency in Long-Horizon Tasks00:49:12 - Pre-Training & Misconceptions Around Human Data00:57:13 - Open Questions: Taste, Personality & Quick Fire01:05:15 - Advice to Your 20-Year-Old Self: Skill & Obsession