FICO

FIRED UP FOR #FICOCHALLENGE🔥! For the last few years, fall has brought me #backtoschool, doing my most rewarding work: the FICO Educational #Analytics Challenge #FEAC. This fall #TeamFICO is hitting the road again, kicking off the program's fourth year at #HBCUs Alabama Agricultural and Mechanical University, Dillard University, Morehouse College and Fayetteville State University. This edition of the challenge is all about #cybersecurity––students will design and train their own #machinelearning #ML systems #AI capable of spotting network intrusions before they wreak havoc and cause costly damage. We'll cover a range of threats, from denial-of-service #DOS attacks and #botnets to #ransomware and #crypto mining, with the students applying their learnings and models to real-world cybersecurity scenarios. FEAC’s greatest strength is that, after my kickoff talk at the schools, FICO’s team of data scientists will spearhead weekly instruction and #mentor participants throughout the semester, and often into the future. Special thanks to Dr. Velma Latson, co-executive director of the HBCU Data Science Consortium (DSC). Through the partnership with DSC, FICO supports the development of university analytics curricula at institutions without formal data science programs. Our goal: strengthen the pipeline of diverse data science talent entering the field, while giving students hands on experience in Responsible AI and real-world analytics they can carry into their careers. See you in class! Link to news release: https://lnkd.in/gRPfayWx

PADRES FTW! It took until the 8th inning, but the #SanDiego Padres pulled it out, beating the Washington Nationals 5-4. We San Diegans are like that––never count us out. Beautiful night at #PetcoPark #GoPadres!

#AGENTIC APATHY AND DEBT: For quite a while we've been hearing about the #cognitiveapathy that #genAI imparts when people, especially young people, rely on #chatbots to do too much thinking for them. In Forbes Technology Council, Shammy Narayanan talks about #cognitivedebt, which "occurs when a team yields structural comprehension and mental ownership of a codebase to automated [#LLM] models. Although productivity metrics shoot upward in the short term, the team's collective mental model of the system decays.​... borrowing understanding from algorithms without building internal human comprehension creates fragile organizations." I totally agree. Shammy lays out some actionable guardrails for how to keep humans in the loop with programming agents, including, “To maintain control in an agentic development ecosystem, enterprises must treat AI agents with the same rigorous governance applied to human staff and vendor software. Every autonomous agent must be logged in a centralized enterprise agent registry detailing its responsibilities, constraints, cost footprint and access tier.​” At FICO, we do this through agentic development #blockchains and agent blockchains, which achieve these objectives in an immutable, auditable manner. I’m glad to hear more voices talking about agentic #AIgovernance!

HAPPY LABOR DAY! Wishing you a fun and festive end to the summer, while honoring those whose work keeps our lives, and country, running. Enjoy it!

THOUGHTS ON BILL GATES: Bill Gates’s recent warning on #AI––aptly summed up with the post’s subtitle, ”We need a plan to ensure that the good outweighs the bad,“––has been the talk of the industry for the past week. As for me––the guy who has written 165+ patent applications to build #artificialintelligence that works; can be trusted; that is #ResponsibleAI; and provides value, reliability, consistency, and safety––I am all about minimizing the risk of using this transformative technology. FICO has been on this path since 1992. We are successful practitioners of using AI to drive value, and in the right places.   But utilizing AI as a tool is not the ultimate objective. Furthermore, it doesn’t always provide goodness. In my circles, seeing people use AI to generate 7,000 lines of code, but directors not knowing what or how the code works, is #AIslop. This leads to a deadening of productivity and, worse yet, unlearning and over dependence on technology to do one’s thinking.   Model #standards, Responsible AI, and #blockchains for AI, #AImonitoring, #genAI, #agents, and #agenticAI require purposeful, conscious decisions of where and how AI is applied, what protections need to be in place, how they will be monitored, enforced, and when the AI should be shut down. This is vastly different than asking AI to broadly solve problems or execute tasks without software and hardware controls.   With AI, the “good outweighs the bad” only if you are the one who is not experiencing the bad. #InterpretableAI and #AIregulation to protect citizens from automated decisions are not only necessary; they must be preceded by applying the right analytics, AI, and genAI to the problem given the associated risks, controls, existing regulation, and harm.    Bill Gates full blog: https://lnkd.in/gJaSksQa

What do the world’s best golfers and the world’s most predictive credit score have in common? I’m not sure… but what I am sure about is that I’m fortunate to work with the best clients and coworkers. The people have always been my favorite part of working at FICO. Being surrounded by the brightest minds in the industry challenges me to be better every day, and it’s part of what keeps me excited to continue pushing forward (along with the great innovations FICO continues to deliver). It was an incredible experience to be at the PGA TOUR Championship at the beautiful East Lake Golf Club in Atlanta this week. Thank you to everyone who attended and made this experience possible. Today is moving day, and I’m still torn on who I’m rooting for…. But, Go Scottie! 😉

Big step forward for the FICO Mortgage Direct License Program: Informative Research officially joined our growing network of mortgage industry partners. 🚀 This program exists because of partnerships like this one. Lenders want more choice, transparency, and pricing flexibility in how they access FICO Scores, and providers like Informative Research are what make that possible in practice, not just in principle. With their participation, the DLP program now accounts for over 73% of total mortgage reseller volume. As Julie May, VP and GM of B2B Scores at FICO, put it: "Informative Research's participation is another important milestone as FICO works to make those benefits available more broadly across the market." Thanks to Matthew Orlando, James Boss, Mark Jones, and the entire Informative Research team for the partnership and for joining us on this journey. Read the full press release here: https://lnkd.in/eJfiNZ_A

FICO didn't build the gold standard in credit scoring to just stop there. What's coming next for mortgage is a game changer.   At FICO World, I sat down with Michael Crockett, COO at Xactus, and Kristina Robinson, Director of Communications at FICO, for a conversation centered on one theme: precision isn't just a product feature; it's the foundation of a healthier mortgage ecosystem.   The FICO Score Mortgage Simulator is the only score simulator built on actual FICO Score algorithms. Not an approximation, but the real thing… giving lenders and borrowers a clear, accurate view of where they stand, and what's possible.   Then add FICO Score 10T, the world's most predictive score, to that equation. Now what you have is the infrastructure to transform how lending decisions get made for years to come.   Better tools. More accurate decisions. A more inclusive, competitive market.   This is the trust and safety our ecosystem depends on.   That's the innovation FICO is bringing, and why our partnership with Xactus matters.

Comparing your Chapter 3 to someone else's Chapter 10 is a game you'll never win...   I had the opportunity to unpack that, and a lot more, with Carter Armendarez on Tech Sales with Carter. We talked about my personal journey from an IC, to sales leadership, to now leading GTM partnerships at FICO. The through line? Trust the process, help others, and have fun on the journey. Big thanks to Carter for having me on... I really enjoyed the conversation and insights. See the link below for the full interview - would love to hear what resonates with you. https://lnkd.in/dXjqfZuw