During SF Tech Week, we hosted an evening exploring how human intelligence powered AI training at scale (micro1) and shaped the future of applications. From frontier LLMs (Amazon AGI) to voice AI (Cartesia) and enterprise agents (Microsoft), leaders from across the AI ecosystem shared how expert data, human-centered design, and ethical guardrails were driving the next generation of AI.

The discussion highlighted how the most advanced AI systems still rely deeply on human expertise, whether in data curation, model evaluation, or ethical alignment, and how collaboration between researchers, technologists, and human contributors continues to accelerate real-world impact. The night brought together founders, engineers, and investors for a thoughtful conversation on where human intelligence fits in an increasingly automated world.

Panelists included: Ali Ansari (Founder of micro1), Arjun Desai (Co-Founder of Cartesia), Kevin Huang (Applied Scientist, Microsoft), Rob McGrorty (Product Lead, Amazon AGI Labs)

‍Moderated by: Jules Qiu (Radical Ventures)