🎊 AI Spotlight: Dana Fos 🎊

We’re excited to present Dana Fos, CTO at Cloud IX as this week’s AI Spotlight. 

Let’s dive into our interview with Dana and see how she is using AI.

1. Share your AI origin story

I actually started back when everything was just machine learning, but called AI. It was during an on-call shift where I was starting at screen after screen of monitoring graphs, eyes getting blurred and never quite sure if that blip I saw was the beginning of an incident or just a giant data package.  I started playing with some ideas I picked up from a workshop on AI / ML (Artificial Intelligence / Machine Learning) earlier that week at the Amazon campus. By 2am, I had finished my first simple script in python and had it monitoring those graphs for me. On-call shifts became dramatically less stressful after that and allowed us to get sleep. That script is still running in Nordstrom on that group of services, edited and upgraded a lot since then, but it's still running.  

2. What three AI tools have been most game changing for you? 

ChatGPT, which was my first experience as a user. ProdOps.ai, which helps me manage the product aspect of things for Cloud IX. GitHub, co-pilot, saves so much time in code review.

3. If you were just starting your AI journey today where would you start? 

I would start as a user to get familiar with the eb and flow. The way the responses will bend to meet you where you are is something that takes a bit to get used to and really understand. It helps to forge the way you prompt.  

4. Share the spotlight: Name 3+ women leading in AI we should all follow. 

Fei-Fei Li, Co-Director of the Stanford Human-Centered AI Institute and a pioneer in computer vision. Timnit Gebru, Founder of the Distributed AI Research Institute (DAIR) and a leading voice on ethical AI, bias, and fairness in machine learning. Cynthia Breazeal, Professor at MIT and pioneer in social robotics, known for her work on human-AI interaction and personal robotics. The voices helping to shape the ethics are extremely important right now while things are still so malleable.

5. As a woman in AI, what do you want our allies to know? 

Being an ally is not a passive sport, it requires action in the form of calling out biases. 

Advocating when women are not in the room and most of all, listening to understand rather than to respond. 

Want to be the next in AI Spotlight? It’s a great opportunity to share your voice with our community!

Fill out the WxAI AI Spotlight Nomination Form for your chance to step into the AI Spotlight and to share your voice with the Women And AI community. 

Want to be the next in AI Spotlight? It’s a great opportunity to share your voice with our community!

Fill out the WxAI AI Spotlight Nomination Form for your chance to step into the AI Spotlight and to share your voice with the Women And AI community.