Zach hosts tech leader, CTO, MIT professor, and author – Mark Herschberg. Mark’s resume is impressive and storied; highlights include helping HBS develop market theory training software and parachuting into Fortune 500 companies to foster start-up-like innovation. He has also worked extensively with big data and machine learning since the 90s, developing many data-driven projects, some of which use AI.

Currently, Mark is doing a lot of work with Generative AI; he holds patents that use Gen AI and is currently working with a handful of companies whose products are based on AI. Zach and Mark talk about his current projects as well as several issues Gen AI poses to tech and society at large.

They hit on hallucinations and the need for Generative AI that cites its sources. They talk about AI’s impact on the signal-to-noise ratio (misinformation) and how both machines and humans need to be better trained to fact-check information. They also discuss future engineers and the continued need to understand what’s going on under the hood of the software, even if Gen AI makes troubleshooting easier.