(Photo by Chris Ried on Unsplash)
Do I still have technical skills? Yes!
People notice that my posts on LinkedIn (or my newsletter, or my blog, or my Radar articles) cover higher-level issues around ML and AI – like strategy, risk, and AI literacy.
Some of them are surprised that I can still analyze data, write code for data pipelines, train models, or deploy those models into production.
(Among other pursuits, I've spent the past several years knee-deep in using ML/AI for text analysis projects like NLP/NLU – getting computers to "understand" text.)
This hands-on experience is why I can explain AI to executives with a straight face. I can show them how it works, where it fits into their business, and where it breaks down. That's also why I'm able to help CTOs and developers incorporate AI into their apps. And why I can mentor newer data scientists about the realities of the field.
I can do all of this so-called "non-technical" work in AI because I still have a foot in the technical game.
Safety first
What the model doesn't know, can hurt you
It's not either/or
A person with technical know-how can ulso understand how a business operates.