Nvidia Alum Snags Funding for Startup That Fixes Broken AI. Nvidia前员工为修复故障AI的初创公司获得资金

The startup founded by Gaurav Agarwal, an alumnus of chipmakers Nvidia Corp. and Texas Instruments Inc., has come out of stealth-mode to close a $4.7 million seed round led by pi Ventures. It was joined by firms including Anorak Ventures and TenOneTen Ventures. The Silicon Valley startup uses foundation models to detect and fix problems in AI, such as hallucinations — a well-publicized phenomenon — or failure to factor in critical real-time information.

The 44-year-old founder recounted what he called a near-death experience while test-driving a semi-autonomous vehicle on a California highway. The AI was unable to detect road debris so he had to brake manually to avoid an accident, he said.

“I’ve seen AI failures while at Ola and Nvidia,” Agarwal, also the startup’s CEO, said in a telephone interview. “There’s an urgent need to avoid these types of scenarios, particularly in high-stakes AI use cases such as cancer detection, aircraft maintenance and AI-powered recruitment tools.” 

Agarwal, who’s based in Fremont, Calif., created RagaAI ahead of the seminal launch of ChatGPT by OpenAI, which catalyzed the global development of large language models. RagaAI is among a new crop of startups trying to fulfill a need that’s arisen during that frenzy of activity.  

AI could potentially contribute $15.7 trillion to the global economy by 2030, according to a PwC study. But much of the current activity is focused on building models and applications, rather than diagnosing errors or testing them. 

RagaAI’s platform — which Agarwal said his team developed in-house — offers more than 300 tests to help enterprises triage issues and trace their root causes. It can spot things such as poor data labeling and bias, he said. It helps detect hallucinations — false and misleading information presented as fact — and also deliberate attacks or attempts intended to get a model to make mistakes, Agarwal added.

His startup will deploy the capital into research, expanding its team of about 40 engineers mainly in Bangalore. It already works with several large clients in ecommerce, aeronautics and medical imaging, though Agarwal wouldn’t disclose names. The platform has been able to help clients reduce failures by 90%, he said without into details.

该初创公司由前Nvidia公司和德州仪器公司员工高拉夫·阿加瓦尔创立，已结束隐秘模式，完成由pi Ventures领投的470万美元种子轮融资。该轮融资还吸引了包括Anorak Ventures和TenOneTen Ventures在内的多家公司参与。这家硅谷初创公司使用基础模型来检测和修复人工智能中的问题，例如广为人知的幻觉现象，或未能考虑关键的实时信息。

44岁的创始人回忆了他在加利福尼亚高速公路试驾一辆半自动驾驶车辆时所谓的濒死经历。他说，人工智能无法检测到道路上的碎片，所以他不得不手动刹车以避免事故。

阿加瓦尔，同时也是这家初创公司的首席执行官，在电话采访中表示：“我在奥拉和Nvidia工作期间见过人工智能的失败。尤其是在癌症检测、飞机维修和人工智能招聘工具等高风险人工智能应用场景中，迫切需要避免这类情况。”

阿加瓦尔目前居住在加利福尼亚州的弗里蒙特，他在OpenAI推出ChatGPT之前创立了RagaAI，该产品催化了全球大型语言模型的开发。RagaAI是众多试图满足这一热潮中出现需求的新兴初创公司之一。

根据普华永道的一项研究，到2030年，人工智能可能会为全球经济贡献15.7万亿美元。但目前大部分活动都集中在构建模型和应用程序上，而不是诊断错误或测试它们。

阿加瓦尔表示，他的团队在内部开发的RagaAI平台提供了超过300种测试，以帮助企业分类问题并追踪其根本原因。他说，它可以发现数据标签不良和偏见等问题。它还有助于检测幻觉——作为事实呈现的虚假和误导信息——以及故意攻击或试图让模型犯错的企图。

他的初创公司将把这些资金投入到研究中，扩大其团队，该团队主要位于班加罗尔，目前约有40名工程师。他表示，该公司已经与多家大型电子商务、航空和医学成像客户合作，尽管阿加瓦尔没有透露具体名称。他说，该平台已帮助客户将失败率降低了90%，但没有提供详细信息。