Code or Coral reef – what artificial intelligence has to do with Fabian’s dives

Fabian Schepp is Senior Consultant and part of valantic’s GenAI Taskforce. He is passionate about providing links between the business, data, & AI world.

Hi Fabian, you are a passionate diver and have completed over 100 dives on three continents. Do you prefer exploring the underwater world or the depths of artificial intelligence? Or do you even see a parallel here?

The parallel is unmistakable. Whether I’m sitting in a boat heading out to a reef, putting on my equipment and jumping into the water, or starting a new AI project, you never know what to expect at the beginning. The great parallel between diving and artificial intelligence is to have respect for this new, unknown environment and at the same time to proceed with a healthy spirit of discovery. After all, it is only after the jump into the cold water that you know what discoveries await you.

Speaking of diving: Which aspect inspires you the most when you dive into new GenAI projects?

Every AI project offers the opportunity to dive into new industries and areas of expertise. It is about “getting into” new tasks and really getting to the core of the problem. This is something of a puzzle that you have to solve as a team, and it’s a lot of fun for me. In our projects, we work cross-functionally with various experts. As an industrial engineer, I feel at home on both the business and technology sides. Being part of a cross-functional team and establishing links between the business, data, & AI worlds is exactly my passion.

What sparked your enthusiasm for generative AI?

At the end of 2022, I needed a birthday card on short notice. So that I wouldn’t arrive empty-handed, I had GenAI create a picture and write a suitable poem. This was one of my first points of contact with GenAI. During my studies, I specialized in data and AI topics. For me, the big disruptive power of GenAI lies in how easy it is to use. Everyone can operate a chatbot and suddenly accomplish things that were previously impossible. By contrast, few people can get a machine vision model to work in a productive environment. I believe that it is precisely this combination of ease of use and versatile capabilities that makes generative AI one of the biggest revolutions we have seen in a long time.

In recent months, you have developed a concept for empowering employees to use GenAI effectively and rolled this concept out at valantic. How did your colleagues react to the technology and their new digital colleague VALLY?

We have conducted over 60 workshops with as many as 200 participants apiece throughout the valantic group, training more than 4,000 people. In the workshops, people were enthusiastic and curious. The groups were always very varied. Some people were already GenAI early adopters, others had never tried the technology before. Everyone wanted to understand what it is, how it works, and how it can be used in everyday work. In the workshop, our colleagues were given a case study and access to VALLY, our internal GenAI chatbot. This enabled them to apply the knowledge they had acquired directly, making the workshop very interactive and application oriented.

In conclusion: Do you have a personal favorite prompt for GenAI, one that you use often and gladly in your private life? 

I find the topic of travel planning super cool, because generative AI also claims to improve the quality of life. Since I like to program myself, I recently built my own little travel consultant for a road trip through Andalusia. That way, you get to see places that you would never have thought of yourself. And if you want to try something funny, I would like to pass on something that I learned from a participant in the workshops. To entertain yourself, you can tell the AI to use “bro-style” as its tonality. The result is very funny answers; they make me smile every time.

Thank you for the insights and inspiring conversation, Fabian.