Peroptyx - combining machine learning with human insight

by Startacus Admin

The lowdown on Peroptyx, the machine learning startup that helps companies refine their AI systems with real-world human insight and feedback

Artificial intelligence and machine learning are, bit by bit, changing our lives. For now, many of those changes are small - chat bots that can resolve our customer service needs without a human ever becoming involved, machine learning using its unique qualities to improve analytics beyond what we could achieve manually, and generally small things that aren’t particularly noticeable in most people’s everyday lives. 

But it is, as we have said before, the future, and as it improves and evolves, it will become ever more present and vital. However, as much as it can improve our human insights and models, it requires human insight and guidance to ensure that it is understanding things correctly and doing what it is supposed to. 

County Mayo-based machine learning startup Peroptyx knows this and believes that the best way of achieving this two-way learning and development is by connecting the machine learning model to a network of people, made experts by simply living where they live and doing what they do. 

A simplistic example of how and why this is important is one many of us have heard over the phone: “I’m sorry; I didn’t quite get that”. How many times have we had to call, say, our bank and are met with an automated service which can’t understand half of what we say? 

Now imagine having an accent completely different to what the creators of that service expected - how well will that call go? Local offensive slang that a programmer from another culture won’t know to flag, misunderstandings, incorrect and inappropriate information - all of this and much more can be avoided by having machine learning models evaluated by a pre-screened qualified network of data evaluators across the globe, tailored for each product so that they are appropriately tested on relevant and authentic people. In this way, the startup can ensure that your machine learning model is consistently accurate, makes no unreliable assumptions, and provides the best experience possible.

Irish physicist and internet pioneer Dr Dennis Jennings is the startup’s chairman, and the team is filled with experts whose experience comes from Abbott, Intel, Microsoft, the US National Science Foundation, the UK Government, and Akamai.

In May, Peroptyx announced that they had secured €1.7 million in seed funding in a round led by Delta Partners, in conjunction with Enterprise Ireland, the Western Development Commission, and some Irish and US private investors. This funding will allow them to grow their team and expand.

 

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Published on: 17th June 2021