Mircea Neagovici — Robotic Process Automation (RPA) and ML

Mircea Neagovici — Robotic Process Automation (RPA) and ML

Author: Lukas Biewald April 21, 2022 Duration: 46:22

Mircea Neagovici is VP, AI and Research at UiPath, where his team works on task mining and other ways of combining robotic process automation (RPA) with machine learning for their B2B products.

Mircea and Lukas talk about the challenges of allowing customers to fine-tune their models, the trade-offs between traditional ML and more complex deep learning models, and how Mircea transitioned from a more traditional software engineering role to running a machine learning organization.

Show notes (transcript and links): http://wandb.me/gd-mircea-neagovici

---

⏳ Timestamps:

0:00 Intro

1:05 Robotic Process Automation (RPA)

4:20 RPA and machine learning at UiPath

8:20 Fine-tuning & PyTorch vs TensorFlow

14:50 Monitoring models in production

16:33 Task mining

22:37 Trade-offs in ML models

29:45 Transitioning from software engineering to ML

34:02 ML teams vs engineering teams

40:41 Spending more time on data

43:55 The organizational machinery behind ML models

45:57 Outro

---

Connect with Mircea:

📍 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mirceaneagovici/

📍 Careers at UiPath: https://www.uipath.com/company/careers

---

💬 Host: Lukas Biewald

📹 Producers: Cayla Sharp, Angelica Pan, Sanyam Bhutani, Lavanya Shukla


Lukas Biewald hosts Gradient Dissent: Conversations on AI, a series that moves beyond theoretical discussions to examine how artificial intelligence is actually built and deployed. Each episode features a direct, unscripted talk with a leading practitioner-you’ll hear from engineers and researchers at places like NVIDIA, Meta, Google, Lyft, and OpenAI. The focus is on the tangible challenges and breakthroughs they encounter, from initial research to the complex reality of putting models into production. This isn't about abstract futures; it's a grounded look at the decisions shaping the field right now. Biewald, bringing his perspective from Weights & Biases, steers conversations toward the practical trade-offs and collaborative efforts that define modern AI work. For anyone in technology or business who wants to understand the mechanics behind the headlines, this podcast offers a rare, candid window into the process. You’ll come away with a clearer sense of how ideas become functional systems and what it really takes to operate at the cutting edge.
Author: Language: English Episodes: 100

Gradient Dissent: Conversations on AI
Podcast Episodes
Shaping the World of Robotics with Chelsea Finn [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 53:46
In the newest episode of Gradient Dissent, Chelsea Finn, Assistant Professor at Stanford's Computer Science Department, discusses the forefront of robotics and machine learning.Discover her groundbreaking work, where two…
The Power of AI in Search with You.com's Richard Socher [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:08:26
In the latest episode of Gradient Dissent, Richard Socher, CEO of You.com, shares his insights on the power of AI in search. The episode focuses on how advanced language models like GPT-4 are transforming search engines…
AI’s Future: Investment & Impact with Sarah Guo and Elad Gil [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:04:14
Explore the Future of Investment & Impact in AI with Host Lukas Biewald and Guests Elad Gill and Sarah Guo of the No Priors podcast.Sarah is the founder of Conviction VC, an AI-centric $100 million venture fund. Elad, a…
Revolutionizing AI Data Management with Jerry Liu, CEO of LlamaIndex [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 57:35
In the latest episode of Gradient Dissent, we explore the innovative features and impact of LlamaIndex in AI data management with Jerry Liu, CEO of LlamaIndex. Jerry shares insights on how LlamaIndex integrates diverse d…
Enabling LLM-Powered Applications with Harrison Chase of LangChain [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 51:54
On this episode, we’re joined by Harrison Chase, Co-Founder and CEO of LangChain. Harrison and his team at LangChain are on a mission to make the process of creating applications powered by LLMs as easy as possible.We di…