[HN Gopher] Andrew Ng: Building Faster with AI [video]
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Andrew Ng: Building Faster with AI [video]
Author : sandslash
Score : 130 points
Date : 2025-07-10 14:02 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.youtube.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.youtube.com)
| bgwalter wrote:
| Ng is now a businessman who sells courses. What startup has he
| built with "AI" himself?
| reactordev wrote:
| He doesn't have to at this point, he just throws money at
| younger ones that will build it.
|
| I want an Andrew Ng Agent.
| Bluestein wrote:
| ... in essence, an "A-Ngent".-
|
| (I'll see myself out ...)
| arkmm wrote:
| Not affiliated, but someone's already working on that for
| you: https://www.realavatar.ai/
| reactordev wrote:
| I'm serious, the man's a genius...
| hoegarden wrote:
| Baidu.
| bgwalter wrote:
| The video's description is about _building_ startups through
| vibe coding, not _using_ "AI" like self-driving or chatbots
| in startups.
|
| Additionally, Baidu wasn't a startup when he joined in 2014.
| hoegarden wrote:
| Ng built baidu's AI department and began their start in
| various sectors with actual AI system design, so yes, he
| isn't a failed startup entrepreneur like any vibe startup
| maker who already wants to stop and give advice.
|
| Maybe you can help me hire a vibe coder with 10 years
| experience?
| bgwalter wrote:
| He built it _without_ LLMs in 2014 and now he is selling
| LLMs for coding to the young. That is the entire point of
| this subthread.
| hoegarden wrote:
| Right.. He's just a giant, not a midget with a step
| ladder.
|
| But I do question why anyone who played a significant
| role in the foundation of the current AI generation would
| teach an obvious new Zuckerberg generation who will
| apparently think they are the start of everything if they
| get a style working in the prompt.
|
| If not for 3 people in 2012, I find it highly unlikely a
| venture like OpenAI could have occurred and without Ng in
| particular I wouldn't be surprised if the field would
| have been missing a few technical pieces as well as the
| hire-able engineers.
| crystal_revenge wrote:
| A good chunk of Ng's work these days seems to be around AI Fund
| [0] which he explicitly mentioned in the video, in the first 5
| seconds, involves co-founding these startups and being in the
| weeds with the initial development.
|
| Additionally, he does engage pretty closely with the teams
| behind the content of his deeplearning.ai lectures and does
| make sure he has a deep understanding of the products these
| companies are highlighting.
|
| He certainly is a businessman, but that doesn't exlcudethe
| possibility that he remains highly knowledgeable about this
| space.
| dcreater wrote:
| He's lost credibility in my eyes given that his courses
| essentially have a pay to play model for startups like
| langchain
| mrbonner wrote:
| You become a millionaire by selling books (courses) of how to
| become millionaire to others.
| DataDaemon wrote:
| when there is a gold rush, just sell courses how to mine gold
| w10-1 wrote:
| Not sure why this has drawn silence and attacks - whence the
| animus to Ng? His high-level assessments seem accurate, he's a
| reasonable champion of AI, and he speaks credibly based on
| advising many companies. What am I missing? (He does fall on the
| side of open models (as input factors): is that the threat?)
|
| He argues that landscape is changing (at least quarterly), and
| that services are (best) replaceable (often week-to-week) because
| models change, but that orchestration is harder to replace, and
| that there are relatively few orchestration platforms.
|
| So: what platforms are available? Are there other HN posts that
| assess the current state of AI orchestration?
|
| (What's the AI-orchestration acronym? not PAAS but AIOPAAS? AOP?
| (since aspect-oriented programming is history))
| handfuloflight wrote:
| We've defined agents. Let's now define orchestration.
| ramraj07 wrote:
| Bold claim. I am not convinced anyone's done a good job
| defining agents and if they did 99% of the population has a
| different interpretation.
| handfuloflight wrote:
| Okay. We've tried to define agents. Now let's try to define
| orchestration.
| lhuser123 wrote:
| And make it more complicated than K8s
| stego-tech wrote:
| > So: what platforms are available?
|
| I couldn't tell you, but what I _can_ contribute to that
| discussion is that orchestration of AI in its current form
| would focus on one of two approaches: consistent output despite
| the non-deterministic state of LLMs, or consistent inputs that
| leans into the non-deterministic state of LLMs. The problem
| with the former (output) is that you cannot guarantee the
| output of an AI on a consistent basis, so a lot of the
| "orchestration" of outputs is largely just brute-forcing tokens
| until you get an answer within that acceptable range; think the
| glut of recent "Show HN" stuff where folks built a slop-app by
| having agents bang rocks together until the code worked.
|
| On the input side of things, orchestration is less about AI
| itself and more about ensuring your data and tooling is
| consistently and predictably accessible to the AI such that the
| output is similarly predictable or consistent. If you ask an AI
| what 2+2 is a hundred _different_ ways, you increase the
| likelihood of hallucinations; on the other hand, ensuring the
| agent /bot gets the same prompt with the same data formats and
| same desired outputs every single time makes it more likely
| that it'll stay on task and not make shit up.
|
| My engagement with AI has been more of the input-side, since
| that's scalable with existing tooling and skillsets in the
| marketplace instead of the output side, which requires niche
| expertise in deep learning, machine learning, model training
| and fine-tuning, etc. In other words, one set of skills is
| cheaper and more plentiful while also having impacts throughout
| the organization (because _everyone_ benefits from consistent
| processes and clean datasets), while the other is incredibly
| expensive and hard to come by with minimal impacts elsewhere
| unless a profound revolution is achieved.
|
| One thing to note is that Dr. Ng gives the game away at the Q&A
| portion fairly early on: "In the future, the people who are the
| most powerful are the people who can make computers do exactly
| what you want it to do." In that context, the current AI slop
| is antithetical to what he's pitching. Sure, AI can improve
| speed on execution, prototyping, and rote processes, but the
| real power remains in the hands of those who can build with
| precision instead of brute-force. As we continue to hit
| barriers in the physical capabilities of modern hardware and
| wrestle with the effects of climate change and/or poor energy
| policies, efficiency and precision will gradually become more
| important than speed - at least that's my thinking.
| handfuloflight wrote:
| This is great thinking, thank you for writing this.
| lubujackson wrote:
| I'm guessing because this is basically an AI for Dummies
| overview, while half of HN is deep in the weeds with AI
| already. Nothing wrong with the talk! Except his focus on "do
| everything" agents already feels a bit stale as the move seems
| to be going in the direction of limited agents with a much
| stronger focus on orchestration of tools and context.
| hakanderyal wrote:
| From the recent threads, it feels like the other half is
| totally, willfully ignorant. Hence the responses.
| davorak wrote:
| > I'm guessing because this is basically an AI for Dummies
|
| I second this, for the silence at least, I listened to the
| talk because it was Andrew Ng and it is good or at least fun
| to listen to talks by famous people, but I did not walk away
| with any new key insights, which is fine, most talks are not
| that.
| jart wrote:
| I like Andrew Ng. He's like the Mister Rogers of AI. I always
| listen when he has something to say.
| koakuma-chan wrote:
| Is he affiliated with nghttp?
| dmoy wrote:
| No?
|
| ng*, ng-*, or *-ng is typically "Next Generation" in
| software nomenclature. Or, star trek (TNG). Alternatively,
| "ng-" is also from angular-js.
|
| Ng in Andrew Ng is just his name, like Wu in Chinese.
| janderson215 wrote:
| Wu from Wu-Tang?
| mnky9800n wrote:
| And he's been doing it forever and all from the original idea
| that he could offer a Stanford education on ai for free on
| the Internet thus he created coursera. The dude is cool.
| pchristensen wrote:
| I have had reservation about Ng from a lot of his past hype, but
| I thought this talk was extremely practical and tactical. I
| recommend watching it before passing judgement.
| croes wrote:
| I haven't watched the video yet, but title does sound like
| quantity over quality.
|
| Why faster and not better with AI?
| androng wrote:
| https://toolong.link/v?w=RNJCfif1dPY&l=en
| Keyframe wrote:
| strong MLM energy vibe in that talk.
| imranq wrote:
| My two takeaways is you build 1) Having a precise vision of what
| you want to achieve 2) Being able to control / steer AI towards
| that vision
|
| Teams that can do both of these things, especially #1 will move
| much faster. Even if they are wrong its better than vague ideas
| that get applause but not customers
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