Meet the Team: Aaron Hosford, CSO and Co-Founder

Aaron Hosford serves as the Chief Science Officer and Co-Founder of Transparent AI, bringing over three decades of programming and machine learning expertise to our mission of creating auditable, explainable AI systems. A true autodidact with formal training in both mathematics and computer science from the University of Texas at Dallas, Aaron has dedicated his career to pushing the boundaries of what's possible in artificial intelligence. His rare combination of theoretical understanding and practical implementation skills makes him the perfect architect for our revolutionary approach to transparent machine learning systems that can be fully audited and understood by users.

Aaron's technical prowess is evidenced by his impressive track record of innovation across multiple industries. As the first named author on a patent titled "Anaphoric reference resolution using natural language processing and machine learning," he demonstrated his ability to solve complex linguistic challenges that were previously considered intractable. This work proved instrumental in the development of Bank of America's groundbreaking "Erica" chatbot, which successfully served tens of millions of banking customers with a remarkable 90% efficacy rate for helpful responses. Aaron's expertise in natural language processing and machine learning algorithms formed the foundation for a virtual assistant that could understand context and user intent at unprecedented levels.

Throughout his career, Aaron has established himself as a serial inventor of proprietary machine learning algorithms spanning diverse approaches including deep learning, genetic programming, reinforcement learning, learning classifier systems, and hyperdimensional computing. His work at Ericsson demonstrated his ability to translate theoretical concepts into practical business applications, where he designed and built multiple automated predictive analytics and decision-making tools for the multi-billion-dollar telecommunications company. Earlier in his career, Aaron's business process automation software directly facilitated over $50 million in new and existing customer financial transactions, highlighting his ability to create solutions with substantial real-world impact.

When Ian Hamilton reached out to Aaron in February 2024 about co-founding Transparent AI, the partnership immediately clicked as their complementary skills aligned around a shared vision. While Ian brought his entrepreneurial experience and deep concerns about the "black box" nature of AI in regulated industries, Aaron contributed his extensive technical expertise in designing novel algorithms that could make AI systems fully interpretable without sacrificing performance. Together, they recognized that creating truly transparent AI systems would require not just incremental improvements to existing approaches, but fundamentally rethinking how machine learning algorithms operate and make decisions. Aaron's role as Chief Science Officer puts him at the helm of this technical challenge, where he leads our research and development efforts to create the next generation of auditable AI tools.