Send us a text From Elephant Butts to Ethical AI — Duncan Curtis on De-Risking GenAI at Sama Episode intro Duncan Curtis, SVP for GenAI & AI Product + Technology at Sama, has shipped everything from autonomous-vehicle platforms at Zoox to game-changing data products at Google. Today he leads a 160-person team that’s reinventing how training data is curated, labeled, and audited so enterprises can ship production-ready GenAI—without the lurking model risk. Sama’s newest release, Sama Automate, is already cutting annotation time by 40 percent while keeping quality above SLAs, and Duncan says they’re “aiming for a 10× improvement by 2025.” (aiuserconference.com, sama.com) If you want the inside track on AI ROI, ethical guardrails, and why A’s hire A’s (but B’s hire C’s!), lean in—this one’s for you. (And yes, we do get to elephant butts.) Timestamped roadmap 00:46 Meet Duncan Curtis03:51 The Duncan Brand05:52 Making Time for Yourself08:47 Autonomous Cars — 9× Safer12:21 Favorite Jobs13:24 Inside Sama14:39 Data & LLM Training16:04 De-Risking Models19:08 Ethical AI22:43 Stopping Hallucinations27:18 Data Labeling Deep-Dive31:56 Production-Ready GenAI33:44 AGI Horizons35:34 What Makes Sama Different36:31 Calculating AI ROI38:50 State of the LLMs44:48 Elephant Butts & Closing ThoughtsQuick links LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/duncan-curtis/Sama: https://www.sama.com/Latest blog: “Sama Introduces New Data Automation Platform” (sama.com)Hear more: Duncan on “Human Guardrails in Generative AI” (DataCamp podcast) (datacamp.com)Hashtags

MakingDataSimple #AIProduct #GenAI #DataLabeling #EthicalAI #AIROI #AutonomousVehicles #Podcast

Want to be featured as a guest on Making Data Simple? Reach out to us at [email protected] and tell us why you should be next. The Making Data Simple Podcast is hosted by Al Martin, WW VP Technical Sales, IBM, where we explore trending technologies, business innovation, and leadership ... while keeping it simple & fun.

The line between generic AI capabilities and truly transformative business applications often comes down to one thing: your data. While foundation models provide impressive general intelligence, they lack the specialized knowledge needed for domain-specific tasks that drive real business value. But how do you effectively bridge this gap? What's the difference between simply fine-tuning models versus using techniques like retrieval-augmented generation? And with constantly evolving models and technologies, how do you build systems that remain adaptable while still delivering consistent results? Whether you're in retail, healthcare, or transportation, understanding how to properly enrich, annotate, and leverage your proprietary data could be the difference between an AI project that fails and one that fundamentally transforms your business. Wendy Gonzalez is the CEO — and former COO — of Sama, a company leading the way in ethical AI by delivering accurate, human-annotated data while advancing economic opportunity in underserved communities. She joined Sama in 2015 and has been central to scaling both its global operations and its mission-driven business model, which has helped over 65,000 people lift themselves out of poverty through dignified digital work. With over 20 years of experience in the tech and data space, Wendy’s held leadership roles at EY, Capgemini, and Cycle30, where she built and managed high-performing teams across complex, global environments. Her leadership style blends operational excellence with deep purpose — ensuring that innovation doesn’t come at the expense of integrity. Wendy is also a vocal advocate for inclusive AI and sustainable impact, regularly speaking on how companies can balance cutting-edge technology with real-world responsibility. Duncan Curtis is the Senior Vice President of Generative AI at Sama, where he leads the development of AI-powered tools that are shaping the future of data annotation. With a background in product leadership and machine learning, Duncan has spent his career building scalable systems that bridge cutting-edge technology with real-world impact. Before joining Sama, he led teams at companies like Google, where he worked on large-scale personalization systems, and contributed to AI product strategy across multiple sectors. At Sama, he's focused on harnessing the power of generative AI to improve quality, speed, and efficiency — all while keeping human oversight and ethical practices at the core. Duncan brings a unique perspective to the AI space: one that’s grounded in technical expertise, but always oriented toward practical solutions and responsible innovation. In the episode, Richie, Wendy, and Duncan explore the importance of using specialized data with large language models, the role of data enrichment in improving AI accuracy, the balance between automation and human oversight, the significance of responsible AI practices, and much more. Links Mentioned in the Show: SamaConnect with WendyConnect with DuncanCourse: Generative AI ConceptsRelated Episode: Creating High Quality AI Applications with Theresa Parker & Sudhi Balan, Rocket SoftwareRegister for RADAR AI New to DataCamp? Learn on the go...