In the generative AI revolution, quality data is a valuable commodity. But not all data is created equally. Sarah Guo and Elad Gil sit down with SurgeAI founder and CEO Edwin Chen to discuss the meaning and importance of quality human data. Edwin talks about why he bootstrapped Surge instead of raising venture funds, the importance of scalable oversight in producing quality data, and the work Surge is doing to standardize human evals. Plus, we get Edwin’s take on what Meta’s investment into Scale AI means for Surge, as well as whether or not he thinks an underdog can catch up with OpenAI, Anthropic, and other dominant industry players.

Sign up for new podcasts every week. Email feedback to show@no-priors.com

Follow us on Twitter: @NoPriorsPod | @Saranormous | @EladGil | @echen | @HelloSurgeAI

Chapters:

00:00 – Edwin Chen Introduction

00:41 – Overview of SurgeAI

02:28 – Why SurgeAI Bootstrapped Instead of Raising Funds

07:59 – Explaining SurgeAI’s Product

09:39 – Differentiating SurgeAI from Competitors 

11:27 – Measuring the Quality of SurgeAI’s Output

12:25 – Role of Scalable Oversight at SurgeAI

14:02 – Challenges of Building Rich RL Environments

16:39 – Predicting Future Needs for Training AI Models

17:29 – Role of Humans in Data Generation

21:27 – Importance of Human Evaluation for Quality Data

22:51 – SurgeAI’s Work Toward Standardization of Human Evals

23:37 – What the Meta/ScaleAI Deal Means for SurgeAI

24:35 – Edwin’s Underdog Pick to Catch Up to Big AI Companies

24:50 – The Future Frontier Model Landscape

26:25 – Future Directions for SurgeAI

29:29 – What Does High Quality Data Mean?

32:26 – Conclusion