Building Trust in AI: Liran Hason CEO of Aporia, Ensuring Safe and Transformative AI | S2: E52

0:05Hey everyone, welcome back to Founder's Story. If you have not used generative AI, you might be living under a rock or you might be living on a ship somewhere in the ocean that doesn't have internet access. Because generative AI is everywhere. I mean, the last few years, it's just been insane. So we wanted to bring in an incredible expert, Leron Hayson, who is the co-founder and CEO of Aporia. And we're going to dive into your story, all things generative AI. So let's just kick it off with you. What was your story? Like, why did you get into this? And why did you want to found Aporia? Thank you, Dan.

0:44Thanks for having me. Yeah, so the reason we started Aporia really was from first-hand experience. I personally started coding when I was 10 years old. Fast forward when I was 24. So I worked for a startup company where we've had the core component of our product, which was built on AI. Obviously, back then, it was more machine learning than generative AI, but still same concepts. And every time we released our software to production, we had some issues with our clients saying, hey, guys, something isn't working. Can you check this out? And it was always rooted in the very same thing. We had issues with our AI workloads.

1:28right so what we've realized is on one hand AI has a huge promise and can change the lives of all of us like it just did in the last two years you know so that's on one hand on the other hand unlike traditional software it's non-deterministic and with and this challenge is enormous right and And this is going to make or break whether we as a society are going to use AI. And for us, this was a cue that, hey, this is a super exciting problem to work on. We have experienced it on our own. Let's spend the rest of our time in trying to solve that and help other AI teams overcome these challenges. I was reading some stats recently that a lot of corporations, businesses, people, they're disappointed in how AI has not yet transformed their life in the ways that maybe they thought it was going to be.

2:29And I wonder if it's because of these issues that you are solving. So what are your thoughts there around the sentiment currently of how companies and businesses are leveraging AI? Yeah, so that's 100 % true. Like when you speak with the average AI team at an enterprise, what you'll hear is they have mapped somewhere in between 200 to 300 potential use cases for you. So that's amazing. It's like a big, big number. However, when you ask them like, hey, how many of these projects are live in production, whether for your employees or your customers, then you start to see like different range of numbers to be zero, could be one, two could be very, very advanced.

3:18So there is a huge gap. I like to call it the GNI chasm, like there's a massive drop in the amount of AI projects. So when you ask them like, hey, what's going on? Like where are all these projects? So what we usually hear is, hey, listen, we've built something, it's kind of working, right? Like when we played around it locally on our own computer, it worked well. But when we got into pilot phase and we tried it out with 10 to 20 users or so. We started getting all these weird and funny behaviors, which we just cannot allow ourselves, you know, as a significant brand, as a public company. And that's what is keeping like hallucinations, inconsistent behavior of AI.

4:05That's what's keeping these AI projects in pilot and not getting live or allowing us to enjoy the potential value of them. I mean, I've had my own personal experiences where I'm relying on it. And if I didn't check and edit and work through, I might be giving wrong information. Then other people are going to get mad at me, companies. So I could see how people need to really inspect what you expect, I guess. So your company has been named a technology pioneer by World Economic Forum, Forbes next billion dollar company. I mean, what is that like thinking that this company you have may be a unicorn, may be the next big thing, something that's going to completely impact society?

4:52Hey, everyone. I'm not sure if you've heard, but our show Founders Story is now available on the iHeartRadio app. So check that out. iHeartRadio online or you grab the app. It's super easy. You can listen to all of our episodes wherever you enjoy your podcast, whether that's iHeartRadio, iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and many more. But check it out. Yeah, so obviously it's super exciting. To be completely honest, it's not about the valuation of the company. It's more about the potential impact we're able to make, right? I strongly believe that there are massive use cases, massive places where AI could change our lives, really from thinking about healthcare, your banking system, like really on our every day-to-day lives.

5:44And being able to do so in a responsible way is really, really crucial. So getting the notion of, hey, what we're building is really at the cutting edge of this technology. We are getting kind of moving forward with our vision and delivering on the promise of, hey, we're going to make AI reliable and secure. Yeah, this is like super exciting. That's what gets me and the entire team pumped on every day that we get and go to the office. So tell me, I'm curious, from your personal perspective, what are you most excited about besides your company and the things that you're doing and yourself? What are you personally most excited about when you think of maybe we'll be at AGI or maybe one day ASI, you know, the future, five, 10 years from now, how AI is going to transform.

6:35What are you personally excited about? So on me personally, I'm excited about healthcare specifically. I think, you know, in healthcare, there is really just so much potential to save many lives, to identify, you know, disease or illness at a very early stage that today, unfortunately we cannot do that. Find cures for different type of cancer and other diseases. So I think seeing that kind of area evolving, that's what I'm personally most excited about. We had another guest on that with their organization, they're trying to help people live past 200 years old. How do you feel about that? Would you want to live to 200?

7:21Or if not, What is an age that you'd want to live to healthy? So, yeah, I think it's a good question, right? So it depends if in these 200 years, do you feel like 200 years old or do you feel younger than that? I think that's kind of the question, right? That is true. Yeah, that's a good point. My number is like 140. 140, interesting. If I feel like maybe 60, 70 to 140, I think I'm good. But if I feel like 140, I don't want to live to 140. So let's dive into guardrails. Can you explain more about that? Because I'm very interested to hear. I haven't really heard this before. And I want to learn more about what this is, what I need to look out for it, and how are you solving this?

8:07When thinking about AI, and I think in the past few years, we are all experiencing with ChatGPT and others AI-based solutions. right what's happening is we feel as if we're talking with a real human being however it's not as consistent it's not as reliable as you may be it can make up facts and be very very confident about what it says right so our thesis and the way we see how this the human society can actually use ai's technology is not by blindly relying on ai's technology, but rather having AI or being overseen and guardrail by a human being. Now, it doesn't mean that there has to be a real human being constantly monitoring every input and every output of these systems, but this is really where an automated system like Aporia, a guardrail's platform, comes into the picture.

9:06So imagine a system that observes every interaction that you have with an AI chatbot or something like that, right? Whether what you're sending is, I don't know, out of place or non-compliant. And how is the response that you're getting from that system, right? So essentially what our system is doing, it acts in real time. is capable of detecting hallucinations, incorrect facts, profanity, toxicity, and so on, and mitigate these issues before they reach the end user. So the system can actually change the way the LLM or the AR responds. I mean, I would think that's very needed, not only just by the experiences that we're having, but I'm seeing like European Union is just releasing some guardrails that they're trying to put into place and some other places, they want no guardrails.

10:03It seems like there's a wide spectrum as to what people think we should or should not be doing. But at least this gives those protections and there needs to be something that is going to keep us in line in a sense when it comes to the use of AI. Because we know how humans are. We're going to take something that could be amazing and we might turn it into something not great. So I'm glad that you are solving that. So last question for you on this. Is there a specific tool or something that you are using AI for right now, besides your company and what you're doing? But is there another way that you are finding AI as something that you can't live without in your life, maybe a productivity tool or something like that?

10:49It's a good question. Obviously, we use a lot of AI in our daily work. Me personally, I just use it sometimes in rephrasing email. However, I will mention, like, I would never ask an AI system to craft an email for me. Just kind of more, you know, rephrasing and getting kind of different forwarding ideas and stuff like that. I like that. I like the ideas. It really is great for coming up with ideas, but I might be getting lazy and using AI too much for my email. So if I ever send you an email and it sounds like AI, it's probably AI. It's AI. But no, I really appreciate it. If people want to find out more information about your organization, maybe they need your help.

11:34They want to learn more about you personally. How can they do so? Absolutely. Happy to connect on LinkedIn. Send me a message. Amazing. Yeah. What's your website? It's aporia.com. A-P-O-R-I-A.com. Amazing. Well, congratulations for possibly the next billion dollar company. I know you said it's not about the valuation, but I feel like if you get to that status, your impact is going to just be massive. You can't not impact so many people. We are all about impact and AI is one of the most exciting things. like I hope I live for another 100 years just because I want to see what comes about from AI and what it does solve and how it does help people and and organizations and everything so the future is just going to be incredible and we're here in it so congratulations on everything and thanks again for joining us today on Founder's Story.

12:30Thank you for tuning in to Founder's Story. Keep exploring, keep dreaming, and join us next time for more inspiring entrepreneurial journeys.