2 min read

How Orca Simplifies AI Debugging

Written by
Rob McKeon
Published on
Dec 13, 2024

The Problem

Every software engineer has a horror story about a minor code change that caused a system-wide meltdown. It’s an almost universal rite of passage. Thankfully, in most “traditional” software systems, identifying and resolving these issues typically takes a few hours at most. 

Debugging AI systems, however, is a far more complex and time-consuming process. Neural networks operate as black boxes, making it difficult to pinpoint issues or verify that fixes work as intended. What might take hours for traditional software can stretch into weeks or even months for AI systems, as teams struggle to identify root causes and test solutions.

How AI systems are debugged today

Today, debugging AI models generally involves two steps: detecting when something’s wrong and fixing the underlying issue.

  1. Detecting misbehavior
    Observability tools can flag unwanted outcomes and general areas of concern. However, they fall short of pinpointing the exact problem, leaving teams with incomplete insights.

  2. Fixing the issue
    Engineers often have to rely on intuition and experience to create new training data, retrain the model, and test the results. This trial-and-error approach is time-intensive and prone to tradeoffs. Fixes for one problem often create new issues or lead to diminished performance in other areas. For instance, think of the months it took Google to address issues in Gemini’s image generation.

How Orca Fixes This

Orca transforms debugging from a reactive, trial-and-error process into a precise, data-driven workflow. Here’s how:

Step 1: Diagnose and fix, instead of just observing
Orca connects your AI’s outputs to the exact data points in the model memory that influenced them. This capability pinpoints the root cause of misbehavior by showing not just what went wrong, but why it happened. For instance, Orca can identify whether an incorrect classification stems from mislabeled training data, insufficient examples, or overfitting to outliers.

Step 2: Make targeted fixes
Once the root cause is clear, Orca enables precise interventions. Instead of adding or modifying large datasets that hopefully both fix the issue and avoids introducing performance loss, you can adjust only the specific data points that caused the issue. This reduces the need for retraining the entire model and minimizes the risk of introducing new errors.

Step 3: Validate fixes instantly
Orca allows teams to test changes in real time. Using modular memory augmentation, the platform simulates how the updated data impacts the AI’s performance without requiring a full retraining cycle. Engineers can immediately see if their fixes resolve the issue or if further adjustments are needed.

Step 4: Automate learning from high-quality signals
In cases where high-quality signals are available—such as human reviewers correcting outputs—Orca’s platform can incorporate these corrections automatically. This real-time learning capability ensures the model improves continuously without requiring manual intervention for every iteration.

Step 5: Prevent future issues
Orca’s proactive monitoring highlights areas where the AI has low confidence, even if outputs are technically correct. By augmenting data in these high-risk areas, the platform prevents future failures and ensures consistent reliability.

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