Creative uses of AI, with Jennifer Marsman, Principal Engineer at Microsoft

Welcome to the Pieces AI productivity podcast, where we dig into how experts use AI to be more productive, as well as geeking out in general on different AI topics.

🇬🇧 In this episode, Jim is at NDC London, and spent some time chatting with Jennifer Marsman, Principal Engineer at Microsoft. They talk about how AI is a great assistant to do the busy work, so you can be creative and in control. They also dive into Phi-4, talk a bit about luddites, and Jennifer shares how AI helps with both bedtime stories, and managing medication for her dog!

🌐 Links:

Connect with Jennifer on LinkedIn

Follow Jennifer on X

Jennifer’s talk at NDC London

Jennifer’s lie detection with ML talk at NDC London 2017

WordleGPT:

PhiRecycling

Phi-4

Textbooks are all you need

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In this episode:

00:00 - Intro

01:16 - The ways Jennifer uses AI to be more productive - writing poems and bedtime stories

02:14 - Using AI to convert time-based rules into a schedule

03:44 - AI is great for busy work, so we can do the fun stuff!

04:37 - Jennifer and Jim agree that AI is best as a copilot, not a pilot

05:00 - Humans are better than AI at creativity, AI is just a tool

07:40 - Not all problems need AI, sometimes code is better

11:15 - Phi-4, trained on textbook quality data and runs on device

13:30 - Phi-4 for trash sorting

16:00 - Phi-4 is available in Pieces! 🎉

16:22 - How Phi-4 was trained on synthetic data

18:50 - How do engineers gain skills to review AI generated code?