Before he turned 23, Cyril Gorlla studied at UC San Diego’s Halıcıoğlu Data Science Institute in La Jolla on a full-ride scholarship, interned at Intel Corp. and started his graduate degree. But when an opportunity arose to pursue his own company in April, Gorlla dropped out of the graduate program and went all-in on his new endeavor.

In October, Gorlla and Trevor Tuttle co-founded CTGT — an artificial intelligence start-up backed by the likes of billionaire businessman Mark Cuban, Zapier software company co-founder Mike Knoop, and Y Combinator, a start-up accelerator behind companies such as Airbnb, DoorDash and Twitch.

CTGT says it is dedicated to making AI “more transparent and efficient” by enhancing machine learning, eliminating “AI hallucinations” and putting its services in key industries such as health care and finance.

An AI hallucination is when an artificial intelligence tool gives incorrect or misleading results.

AI that cant explain its reasoning is not intelligent enough for many areas where complex rules and requirements apply, Cuban said in a statement. I invested in CTGT because it is solving this problem.

AI science seeks to develop computers, robots and other machines that can reason, learn and behave in a way that normally would require human intelligence or can analyze data more massive than humans can manage. They can improve by analyzing large amounts of data to identify patterns and relationships and use that information to make or aid in predictions, recommendations or decisions.

CTGT’s core service is providing a platform to track the behavior of language learning models (LLMs), flagging issues along the way and showing larger patterns of learning. Some of CTGT’s clients have requested its expertise for creating ground-up models that are efficient and interpretable.

The business offers three packages — starter, standard and advanced. The starter package, at a rate of $10,000 per year, includes the base-level platform, risk analysis and LLM integration. The standard package offers enhanced features for $50,000, while the advanced model features real-time safety monitoring, multi-model evaluation and customizable safety practices.

AI has been subtly integrated into people’s lives since the 1960s but has grown in prominence in the past few years. CTGT seeks to remedy issues that Gorlla said are common in today’s AI tools.

“[CTGT] ran on this assumption that the way AI has been going — the status quo — is pretty unintelligent, ironically, for artificial intelligence,” Gorlla said. “We’re basically just throwing more resources, money and compute power at the problem, and we’re expecting that it’ll reach true intelligence or artificial general intelligence when we throw enough vanity at it.

“Our perspective was really about looking at it from a principles-first perspective and making sure what we do is theoretically grounded so we actually understand what’s going on inside those models.”

Technology has long had an impact on Gorlla, who moved to the United States from India when he was 2. During the COVID-19 pandemic, his interest in AI deepened.

Though there are disparities between him and his peers, Gorlla says he saw technology as an equalizing force.

“I had a pretty typical immigrant upbringing, I’d say — household utilities disconnected oftentimes,” Gorlla said. “Essentially, that environment fostered in me an appreciation and cognizance of how much technology could improve my immediate surroundings and give me access to opportunities beyond my actual means.”

During his time at UC San Diego, Gorlla was a recipient of the Endowed Chair’s Fellowship for his graduate studies at the Data Science Institute and was named one of 12 “Shining Stars” in the university’s class of 2022.

It was there that he met Tuttle and got recognition for a research paper on AI.

“At UCSD, there’s always this feeling of being in a place where a lot of the bedrock of modern AI and computer science was really laid,” Gorlla said. “And I think being in that environment got me thinking about how to make sure my work represents a meaningful step in that direction with all that history.”

New UC San Diego school deepens exploration of artificial intelligence

Before their company’s launch, Gorlla and Tuttle secured support from Y Combinator. The group of start-up founders aims to improve start-up success rates by providing mentorship and an investor database, among other benefits. CTGT was among the 0.5% of applicants to be accepted in this year’s fall batch.

Tuttle and Gorlla had conversations with Cuban and Knoop, as well as OpenAI and Airbnb Chief Executives Sam Altman and Brian Chesky. Gorlla even discussed AI entrepreneurship with former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi at an Oct. 15 event.

Gorlla said the combination of support and his personal drive pushed him to fully invest in CTGT.

“I didn’t want to see my research languish on an academic server,” Gorlla said. “I wanted to actually see it affecting people and actually being deployed in companies. And that’s what’s been happening now.”

Currently, CTGT is owned and operated exclusively by Gorlla and Tuttle. The start-up has “selectively qualified” nine clients so far, serving companies that have the resources to work with. But the breadth of Gorlla and Tuttles work could grow soon, as they hope to expand to a staff of 10 in the near future.

“We want to make sure there’s a real problem that we’re solving before we expand this team and throw all this money at it,” Gorlla said. “So now that we’ve basically validated that hypothesis we have, now we think it’s the right time to pursue that.”

For more information, visit ctgt.ai.