Measuring AI in Ruby: Tracing, Evals, and the Cost of Hype
From Model Benchmarks to Business Tradeoffs — Where Ruby Fits in the AI Reality Check
What does it really mean to measure AI in production? In Episode 7 of The Ruby AI Podcast, we dive into tracing, evaluations, and the economic side of building with LLMs — and why Ruby might be the best place to separate hype from reality.
🎧 Measuring AI in Ruby: Tracing, Evals, and the Cost of Hype
Available now wherever you get your podcasts — including Apple Podcasts and Spotify.
This episode unpacks the messy but essential work of evaluating models, tracing requests, and managing cost tradeoffs in real AI systems. We compare big-name LLMs against cheaper options, explore why prompt strategies feel like compiled code, and share what it takes to keep Phoenix testing Rails applications at scale.
But the conversation goes wider. We get into why SaaS economics make AI different from past waves, why Ruby’s flexibility makes it ideal for experimentation, and how the community blends serious engineering with playful tinkering — from Ruby LLM to “quantum Ruby” experiments. Along the way, we shout out Scott Werner’s latest gems, VSM and AirBee, pushing the boundaries of self-building AI systems.
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Show Notes
00:00 Introduction and Host Banter
00:40 Marketing and Positioning in AI
01:09 Top AI Researchers and Industry Insights
02:33 AI Contracts and Market Dynamics
04:51 Evaluating AI Models and Benchmarks
07:44 Challenges in AI Model Evaluation
18:45 Cost-Benefit Analysis in AI
26:01 Constrain Tool Outputs with Grammars
27:03 Introducing Preambles for Tool Calls
28:16 Reasoning Tokens and Multi-Turn Responses
28:55 Comparing AI Models: OpenAI vs. Anthropic
30:08 Ruby LLM Integration in AI Products
31:50 Evaluating Ruby LLM and Other Tools
35:13 The Importance of Modularity in AI Development
40:07 Ruby's Role in AI and Software Engineering
42:11 Innovative and Playful Ruby Projects
45:11 Scott Werner's AI Innovations
46:45 Concluding Thoughts on AI and Ruby
What's Next?
Episode 8: Go on… take a guess.
The next guest is one of the Ruby community’s sharpest voices. Think you know who it is? Drop your guess below. 💎
Who Else Should We Talk To?
Know someone doing innovative or inspiring work with Ruby and AI? Let us know we might feature them in an upcoming episode. Contact us at news@therubyaipodcast.com.
Let's continue to redefine what's possible with Ruby and AI!
💎 Valentino & Joe 💎