Happy Monday and welcome to your weekly dose of opinionated insights about AI.
Like so many of us, I have been exploring different approaches for both learning and applying cutting-edge AI practices in all aspects of my life. One example is a Masterclass that I’ve been tinkering with a while, containing what I think are foundational skills to understand the current moment in time and probable future trajectories.
The hardest thing about designing learning material for such a broad & fast-moving field is living up to the promise of delivering the right level of insight to the right audience (at the right time). Everyone has a different level of familiarity, interest and needs when it comes to learning about AI, so striking that balance seems key.
To help me frame the question better, I use the slide below in the presentation. The ideal audience has some degree of technical knowledge as well as strategic understanding about the field, and ideally some skin in the game as well. People who are experimenting and stand to gain something from succeeding with these skills.
If this is you, perfect. We soon launching and scaling up this learning material. You will obviously be the first to find out when the Masterclass starts going live later this year.
Until next week,
MZ
Adaptable Agents (12 min)
Excellent primer by IBM, a didactic explainer by Maya Murad exploring the evolution of AI agents and their importance in future systems. Love the writing-on-board approach.
Shapeshifting Machines
Brilliant short presentation by Silicon Jungle outlining the many ways AI systems are fundamentally unlike previous technologies and how difficult it will be to wrap our heads around their capabilities. Don’t miss the article below.
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AI Interfaces
When we first invent a new technology, we’re really only just beginning to grasp how the technology works. This usually leads to really low-level implementations that aren’t super intuitive and require a lot of manual labour in order to be able to do anything with it…
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2 years ago · 24 likes · Silicon Jungle
Friend in Need
Maybe I’m showing my age, but I can’t think of a single reason to develop a friendship with an AI. Avi Schiffman thinks otherwise and is betting a $99 necklace with a microphone and accompanying smartphone app to receive “messages” from your AI, might help combat the loneliness crisis. IDK. Interesting take on X.
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Friendship On Demand
Summary: A new AI device went viral last week, Friend’s $99 necklace. Friend’s pitch is that its a wearable designed to combat loneliness, but the internet wasn’t having it. Silicon Valley seems increasingly out of touch with the people they say they are building for and cracks are beginning to show…
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2 years ago · Jurgen Gravestein
Losing Sales
Using "AI" in product descriptions reduces purchase intentions.
When AI is mentioned, it tends to lower emotional trust, which in turn decreases purchase intentions,” he said. “We found emotional trust plays a critical role in how consumers perceive AI-powered products.
Compressing LLMs
Making AI models smallers through training is called quantization. This visual guide by Maarten Grootendorst does an excellent job representing the mechanisms and techniques used to solve the “problem” of Large Language Models.
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A Visual Guide to Quantization
As their name suggests, Large Language Models (LLMs) are often too large to run on consumer hardware. These models may exceed billions of parameters and generally need GPUs with large amounts of VRAM to speed up inference…
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2 years ago · 143 likes · 7 comments · Maarten Grootendorst
Gods of Logic (25 min)
If you are looking for a long, sweeping and profound essay about the changes AI might cause, The Gods of Logic by Benjamín Labatut in Harper's Magazine might satisfy. Beautiful generative artwork by Phillip Toledano, too.
Riding the Hype Cycle
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