Notes on ‘AI Engineering’ (Chip Huyen) chapter 7: Finetuning

Finally back on track and reading the next chapter of Chip Huyen’s book, ‘AI Engineering’. Here are my notes on the chapter. Overview and Core Philosophy “Data will be mostly just toil, tears and sweat.” This is how we start the chapter :) This candid assessment frames dataset engineering as a discipline that requires both technical...

This chapter was all about RAG and agents. It’s only 50 pages, so clearly there’s only so much of the details she can get into, but it was pretty good nonetheless and there were a few things in here I’d never really read. Also Chip does a good job bringing the RAG story into the story about agents, particularly in terms of how she defines agents....

This chapter represents a crucial bridge between academic research and production engineering practice in AI system evaluation. What sets it apart is the Chip’s very balanced perspective - neither succumbing to the prevalent hype in the field nor becoming overly academic. Instead, she melds together practical insights with theoretical...

Really enjoyed this chapter. My tidied notes from my readings follow below. 150 pages in and we’re starting to get to the good stuff :) Overview and Context This chapter serves as the first of two chapters (Chapters 3 and 4) dealing with evaluation in AI Engineering. While Chapter 4 will delve into evaluation within systems, Chapter 3 addresses...

Had the first of a series of meet-ups I’m organising in which we discuss Chip Huyen’s new book. My notes from reading the chapter follow this, and then I’ll try to summarise what we discussed in the group. At a high-level, I really enjoyed the final part of the chapter where she got into how she was thinking about the practice of ‘AI Engineering’...