The Rise of the AI Engineer - Shawn Swyx Wang, React Summit US 2023

Learn about the rise of the AI engineer, a new role emerging from ML engineering, with five key drivers, and explore the future of AI in language, highlighting key milestones and applications.

Key takeaways
  • AI engineering is emerging as a new role, distinct from ML engineering
  • Five key reasons for the rise of AI engineer: economics, sociology, tech, product shift, and fine tuning
  • AI engineering can be done without extensive ML background, just by leveraging APIs and prompts
  • AI engineers will focus on unlocking capabilities without training models, like front-end engineers
  • There will be a shift from “ready, aim, fire” to “fire-ready-aim” in AI development
  • AI agents will become a key aspect of AI engineering
  • The role of AI is not to replace jobs, but to augment and enhance human capabilities
  • The term “AI engineer” is emerging as a new industry term
  • OpenAI’s GPT-3 is a significant milestone in AI engineering progress
  • The number of AI engineers will soon surpass the number of ML engineers
  • The future of AI is in language, with applications like code assistance and copilots