AI + a16z

Security Founders Talk Shop About Generative AI

Dean De Beer, Kevin Tian, Travis McPeak, and Derrick Harris

Posted May 15, 2024

In this episode of the AI + a16z podcast, recorded live at our San Francisco office, security-startup founders Dean De Beer (Command Zero), Kevin Tian (Doppel), and Travis McPeak (Resourcely) share their thoughts on generative AI, as well as their experiences building with LLMs and dealing with LLM-based threats.

Here’s a sample, from Dean, discussing the myriad considerations when choosing and operating a large language model:

“The more advanced your use case is, the more requirements you have, the more data you attach to it, the more complex your prompts — all this is going to change your inference time.

“I liken this to perceived waiting time for an elevator. There’s data scientists at places like Otis that actually work on that problem. You know, no one wants to wait 45 seconds for an elevator, but taking the stairs will take them half an hour if they’re going to the top floor of . . .  Same thing here: If I can generate an outcome in 90 seconds, it’s still too long from the user’s perspective, even if them building out and figuring out the data and building that report [would have] took them four hours [or] two days.”

More About This Podcast

Artificial intelligence is changing everything from art to enterprise IT, and a16z is watching all of it with a close eye. This podcast features discussions with leading AI engineers, founders, and experts, as well as our general partners, about where the technology and industry are heading.

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