About Me
In a Nutshell
I have 20 years of expertise as an AI researcher, entrepreneur, consultant, and executive. I can give you true insights into how AI really works and what its potential and limits are - unlike many self-proclaimed freshly baked “AI experts” who suddenly appeared with the hype of ChatGPT and who learn about AI from trendy blogs and newsletters.
I'm also a runner, PADI divemaster, private pilot, philosopher, and a lifelong Atari enthusiast and vintage computer collector.
Academic Career
If you had asked me ten years ago where I envisaged my professional future, I would have said I wanted to become a prominent AI researcher in academia. Sure enough, I was still full of academic idealism.
I conducted great research projects in the area of man-machine interaction, I was the head of a university department, I had a Ph.D. in AI, a master's in cybernetics, and another master's in philosophy, and I had just returned from an academic visit to Oxford University's Future of Humanity Institute. And I wanted to save the world.
However, the local academic treadmill of publish-or-perish culture turned out to be very distant from the real-world impacts I had imagined. So, in 2015, I decided to take a leap of faith and leave my senior academic and management positions at the university to join a corporation as a chief data scientist in O2 Czech Republic.
PPF and O2 Czech Republic
You may wonder why O2. I'll tell you. Because PPF then recently acquired O2 and was damn well situated in the CEE region to make a real impact on things. They had no AI and very scattered and inefficient data science and big data teams here and there. So, I thought, what if we fix it? And why not build excellent AI competencies in O2 and PPF?
Dataclair.ai – Center for Artificial Intelligence
Fast forward seven years: spring of 2022, I was the founder and CEO of Dataclair – O2 and PPF Center of AI Excellence. Dataclair has a fantastic team of 40 individuals and is making an impact in various industries, including telecommunications, finance and banking, media, transportation and mobility, ethical machine learning and privacy, and even oncology research.
I had wonderful teammates and wonderful people I reported to, and I learned so much from them. I had completed my mission. So, where should I head next?
Helping People with All Things AI
How can I create an even greater impact? I want to help as many people as possible to prepare their businesses and lives for the world pervaded by AI. And I don't just mean technical and business AI. I take these for granted. I truly mean "all things AI," which includes social, psychological, future-oriented, and risk-related aspects too.
That's why I decided to go the freelance way and dedicate one part of it to helping individual clients. So, now we can join our journeys in direct personal contact.
AI Community and Startup Projects
The other part of my current professional life is devoted to developing AI startup initiatives with significant societal impact. This is a natural continuation of my long-standing passion for safe, ethical, and useful AI. It stems from the same reasons that I cooperate with the Centre for Theoretical Studies at Charles University and the Czech Effective Altruism Group, as well as why I organize the Prague AI Safety Meetup.
Furthermore, I do my best to be helpful to the Czech AI Safety and Alignment community, and I am involved in the global movement for the minimization of existential risks.
