Episode 103: Human-First AI with Christopher Nguyen

Augmented reveals the stories behind the new era of industrial operations, where technology will restore the agility of frontline workers. In this episode of the podcast, the topic is Human-First AI. Our guest is Christopher Nguyen (https://www.linkedin.com/in/ctnguyen/), CEO, and Co-Founder of Aitomatic (https://www.aitomatic.com/). In this conversation, we talk about the why and the how of human-first AI because it seems that digital AI is one thing, but physical AI is a whole other ballgame in terms of finding enough high-quality data to label the data correctly. The fix is to use AI to augment existing workflows. We talk about fishermen at Furuno, human operators in battery factories at Panasonic, and energy optimization at Westinghouse. If you like this show, subscribe at augmentedpodcast.co (https://www.augmentedpodcast.co/). If you like this episode, you might also like Episode 80: The Augmenting Power of Operational Data, with Tulip's CTO, Rony Kubat (https://www.augmentedpodcast.co/80). Augmented is a podcast for industry leaders, process engineers, and shop floor operators, hosted by futurist Trond Arne Undheim (https://trondundheim.com/) and presented by Tulip (https://tulip.co/). Follow the podcast on Twitter (https://twitter.com/AugmentedPod) or LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/company/75424477/). Trond's Takeaway: Physical AI is much more interesting of a challenge than pure digital AI. Imagine making true improvements to the way workers accomplish their work, helping them be better, faster, and more accurate. This is the way technology is supposed to work, augmenting humans, not replacing them. In manufacturing, we need all the human workers we can find. As for what happens after the year 2100, I agree that we may have to model what that looks like. But AIs might be even more deeply embedded in the process, that's for sure. Transcript: TROND: Welcome to another episode of the Augmented Podcast. Augmented brings industrial conversations that matter, serving up the most relevant conversations in industrial tech. Our vision is a world where technology will restore the agility of frontline workers. In this episode of the podcast, the topic is Human-First AI. Our guest is Christopher Nguyen, CEO, and Co-Founder of Aitomatic. In this conversation, we talk about the why and the how of human-first AI because it seems that digital AI is one thing, but physical AI is a whole other ballgame in terms of finding enough high-quality data to label the data correctly. The fix is to use AI to augment existing workflows. We talk about fishermen at Furuno, human operators in battery factories at Panasonic, and energy optimization at Westinghouse. Augmented is a podcast for industrial leaders, process engineers, and for shop floor operators hosted by futurist Trond Arne Undheim and presented by Tulip. Christopher, how are you? And welcome. CHRISTOPHER: Hi, Trond. How are you? TROND: I'm doing great. I thought we would jump into a pretty important subject here on human-first AI, which seems like a juxtaposition of two contradictory terms, but it might be one of the most important types of conversations that we are having these days. I wanted to introduce you quickly before we jump into this. So here's what I've understood, and you correct me if I'm wrong, but you are originally from Vietnam. This is back in the late '70s that you then arrived in the U.S. and have spent many years in Silicon Valley mostly. Berkeley, undergrad engineering, computer science, and then Stanford Ph.D. in electrical engineering. You're a sort of a combination, I guess, of a hacker, professor, builder. Fairly typical up until this point of a very successful, accomplished sort of Silicon Valley immigrant entrepreneur, I would say, and technologist. And then I guess Google Apps is something to point out. You were one of the first engineering directors and were part of Gmail, and Calendar, and a bunch of different apps there. But now you are the CEO