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How AI Accelerates your Time with Nyla Worker Flores

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Nyla Worker Flores, an AI Product Manager, has always been driven by a desire to optimize time and efficiency. Her passion for automation and problem-solving has led her to leverage AI technology to enhance productivity. Since graduating from college, she has dedicated her career to researching and developing AI-driven automation tools that help individuals and businesses make better use of their time.


During her astrophysics research, Nyla Worker Flores encountered a major challenge—manually labeling galaxy images to identify planetary nebulae and supernova remnants. The process was slow and hindered progress in the field. Determined to find a solution, she discovered a 1996 research paper on using multi-layer perceptrons for galaxy classification. The idea of AI approximating complex patterns fascinated her, sparking a deep dive into perceptrons, deep learning, and artificial intelligence.


Driven by curiosity, Nyla pursued online courses and self-learning, building on her strong mathematical foundation. Her dedication led to research opportunities at the UMN, followed by roles at eBay and later, NVIDIA. Through continuous exploration and innovation, she has harnessed AI to streamline processes and drive efficiency in various industries.


Navigating Challenges in AI Innovation


As a leader in AI, Nyla Worker Flores has had to approach innovation with an experimental mindset rather than relying on rigid business frameworks. While at NVIDIA, she played a key role in productizing synthetic data for training robots and edge AI models, firmly believing that manually labeled data would not scale for diverse robotics applications. Many companies invested heavily in labeled datasets, only to realize they were incomplete or unsuitable for real-world production.


Nyla started working with NVIDIA Research, which had already done research on synthetic data for AI in robotics. After identifying a customer organization called Festo, she helped drive productization in an area that had never been fully realized for production. The project presented numerous challenges, from system latency to unpredictable edge cases in synthetic data that were not typically encountered in academic research. Through continuous adaptation and rigorous experimentation, the product evolved into a successful solution, demonstrating the power of synthetic data in AI training.


Beyond experimentation, the AI industry moves at an extraordinary pace, requiring constant adaptability. Nyla encountered this firsthand with the pipeline of 3D content generation and  generative AI. To stay ahead, her team had to completely readapt our workflow to take in the generative methods applicable to game engines to improve the synthetic data. This experience reinforced the importance of flexibility and the willingness to evolve with emerging technology.


Breaking Barriers and Gaining Recognition in AI

For Nyla Worker Flores, winning at the WAI Awards NA 2023 was more than a personal achievement—it was a step toward breaking biases in the tech industry. As a woman in AI, she has often found herself in male-dominated spaces, where recognition is harder to earn. While she has worked with many talented colleagues, unconscious biases have sometimes led to her contributions being overlooked until she proved herself. Winning an award serves as both a shield against these biases and a testament to the impact of her work.


The Need for Diversity in AI Development

Nyla understands the responsibility that comes with shaping AI systems. The people behind AI models, whether through action or inaction, embed beliefs into these technologies, which then influence millions worldwide. Without diverse representation, AI risks reinforcing narrow perspectives rather than reflecting a truly inclusive society. She strongly advocates for increasing diversity in AI development, ensuring that the technology serves a broad and equitable range of communities.


Advice for Aspiring AI Professionals

Her motivation stems from a desire to accelerate innovation and expand human knowledge. She envisions a future where AI and robotics take on repetitive tasks, allowing people to focus on creativity and problem-solving. However, she acknowledges that AI is a challenging field, especially for women.


For those considering a career in AI, Nyla’s advice is clear: persistence is key. The journey will be difficult, and moments of doubt are inevitable. But the hardest learning experiences often lead to the most valuable breakthroughs. "Your biggest competition is yourself," she says. "Just don't give up and don't compare yourself”.


Interview by Nyla Worker Flores

Edited by Savita Prasad


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