When Not to Use AI? A Return To Product First Principles!

"We can use AI/ML here?"... but "should we?" This panel is about the times technology takes over the story for better or worse. Remember product fundamentals: be it robot safety, building a consistent customer experience, or making a design statement.

Featuring:

• Nils Alstad — Founder / CEO of a stealth defense robotics startup; formerly CPO at Phantom Auto and customer ops lead at Canvas Robotics (acquired by Amazon)
• Fernando Nobre — CTO at Durable; formerly Applied Science Manager at Amazon and perception scientist at Canvas Robotics (acquired by Amazon)
• Lucas Thelosen — Founder / CEO at Gravity; formerly Head of Product, Data & AI at Google Cloud

Autonomy teams have learned (sometimes the hard way!) that deterministic systems sometimes beat probabilistic ones. Sometimes the simple, predictable solution just works. Sometimes a set of clear rules beats a system that learns on its own. Sometimes AI that's 99% accurate fails on the 1% that matters most.

Our panelists will share their experiences navigating AI decisions in their own work: when it made sense, when it didn't, and how they think about the tradeoffs.

If you've ever wondered whether that AI feature in your backlog is solving a real problem or just checking a box, this one's for you as we remember to apply solid first principles!