Fireside chat #9: Language Processing: From Prototype to Production

Ines Montani is a software developer working on AI and NLP technologies. She is the co-founder and CEO of Explosion, where they make spaCy, one of the leading open-source libraries for Natural Language Processing in Python, and Prodigy, a modern annotation tool for creating training data for machine learning models. In this fireside chat, Ines joins Hugo Bowne-Anderson, Outerbounds’ Head of Developer Relations, to discuss what NLP in production actually looks like, including patterns, trends, challenges, use cases, and more. After attending, you’ll know - What NLP in production actually means; - Trends and patterns in NLP use cases across industries (spaCy is used across finance, legal, medical, traditional manufacturing, e-commerce, customer service, media, energy, logistics, transport, and print media!); - What skills data scientists and ML engineers need to build end-to-end NLP systems; - What all the hype around large language models is, such as GPT-3, and how they can deliver real value in the world of NLP. And much more! The fireside chat will be followed by an AMA with Ines and Hugo at http://slack.outerbounds.co. 00:00 Prelude 03:57 The fireside chat begins! 08:57 NLP, spaCy, Prodigy, and Explosion 17:40 What is NLP and why is it important? 20:57 What industries is NLP most relevant to and how do they use NLP? 24:57 NLP -- from prototype to production! 34:43 Technical challenges in moving from prototype to prod 37:40 Applied NLP thinking 47:40 The biggest current challenges in the NLP space 51:30 Large language models, ChatGPT, and how they can deliver actual value 1:01:56 spaCy v4 ...... coming soon!