Person
1 episodes · 20 quoted claims
Upwork was formed in 2015 through the merger of the marketplaces oDesk and Elance, according to Andrew Rabinovich.
“Upwork is a company that, as a result of a merger of two large marketplaces, oDesk and Elance, started in early 2000s and then 2015 merged to become Upwork.”
Upwork launched an AI companion called Uma, short for Upwork's Mindful AI, on its platform.
“we've launched this AI companion on Upwork's platform called Uma, which stands for Upwork's Mindful AI.”
Andrew Rabinovich founded a company in 2003 that detected cancer in human tissue using biomedical imaging.
“I got really interested in doing biomedical imaging, and in 2003, I founded the first company that was detecting cancer in human tissue.”
Rabinovich says his Google team released Google Goggles, described as the first AR app for both Android and iOS, which is now the lens feature in Pixel phones.
“we released the world's first AR app for both Android and iOS. That was called Google Goggles. Today, that's the lens feature in the Pixel phones.”
Sergey Brin wanted to build Google Glass using the technology from Google Goggles, according to Rabinovich.
“Sergey Brin wanted to bring all of that technology and build Google Glass.”
Rabinovich says his team at Google developed the Inception neural network, which powered many Google products including visual search in Google Photos.
“we developed the most advanced neural network at a time called the Inception, and that powered a large number of products within Google”
Rabinovich joined Magic Leap to work on what he describes as the most advanced spatial computer in the world at the time.
“joined Magic Leap to build the most advanced spatial computer in the world at the time.”
Rabinovich says Magic Leap raised around $3 billion while he was there.
“I think in total, while I was there, we raised around $3 billion, and people thought this was like an astronomical amount”
Rabinovich estimates that Magic Leap, Microsoft, Meta and Apple have collectively spent close to $100 billion on mixed reality.
“Cumulatively to date, between Magic Leap and Microsoft and Meta and Apple, I think we're getting close to $100 billion”
A Google X project aimed to build a programmable contact lens powered by heat from the eye, but after about five years only one pixel was lit and it was abandoned.
“we wanted to create a programmable contact lens that would get power from the heat of your eye”
Rabinovich started Headroom, an AI videoconferencing company that understood participants' speech, expressions and attention.
“I started a company called Headroom, where the goal was to tap into video conferencing experiences that everybody was having”
Headroom built a software development kit that could be plugged into any collaborative platform, which led to Upwork's interest in acquiring it.
“Headroom developed an SDK that you could plug it in into any collaborative platform”
Rabinovich says he and his team joined Upwork the previous December to help turn it into an outcome-driven business.
“since December of last year, I've been at Upwork together with my team in the effort to transform it to be this outcome-driven business.”
Stanford won the 2005 DARPA Grand Challenge with a self-driving car, according to Rabinovich.
“I remember when Stanford won the DARPA grand challenge in 2005, where a self-driving car drove, I think, from LA.”
Rabinovich says he is comfortable letting his children ride in Waymo cars but is wary of Uber rides alone.
“I actually let my kids take them. I'm a little apprehensive of my kids getting into Uber on their own, but I'm totally fine with them taking Waymos around them.”
Rabinovich argues language models say an apple falls because of text they have read, not because they understand gravity.
“if you ask a large language model what happens if you drop an apple from the roof of your house, of course, it'll tell you it'll fall”
Rabinovich says robots succeed in confined settings such as surgical robotics and warehouse packaging.
“Now, with robots, one great example of successful, from my perspective, robots are those that are in an extremely confined environments, like surgical robotics”
Rabinovich says projector efficiency in see-through AR displays is too low, so batteries do not last long enough.
“If we talk about augmented reality with see-through displays, the efficiency of of the projectors that we have are just too low, so the batteries don't last long enough.”
Rabinovich predicts AI will let a $10,000 translation budget cover all languages instead of one.
“if in the past you were able to translate a podcast from English to Japanese for $10,000, tomorrow you'll be able to take the podcast and translate them to all languages in the world for the same $10,000.”
Rabinovich predicts search engines and retrieval systems will give way to dialogue with AI.
“I believe in the future, search engines of this form or any kind of retrieval systems will go away, and everything will be a dialogue between a human and a machine in any mode.”