Rami's Readings #27

The latest on LLMs, AI Grant, Foundation Models, Japanese Convenience Stores, Technology Diffusion, and more.

Jul 02, 2023

Welcome to Rami’s Readings #27 - a weekly digest of interesting articles, videos, Twitter threads from my various sources across the Internet. Expect a list of reads covering technology, business, culture, fashion, travel and more. Learn about what I do at ramisayar.com/about.

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🤖 AI Reads

Inside OpenAI, the Architect of ChatGPT | The Circuit

Notes: Two weeks old but worth a watch: interview with Mira Murati, OpenAI’s Chief Technology Officer.

Hope, fear, and AI

Notes: Interesting survey results from The Verge.

AI Grant 2023 is Open!

Notes: $250,000 uncapped SAFE for your AI startup. No credentials needed. Apply by July 10th, 2023.

Long Sequence Modeling with XGen: A 7B LLM Trained on 8K Input Sequence Length

Notes: New LLM model from Salesforce with a 8192 context window and can generate code.

Extending Context Window of Large Language Models via Positional Interpolation

Notes: New paper on extending context windows of LLMs.

A Very Gentle Introduction to Large Language Models without the Hype

Notes: Great introduction!

OptimalScale/LMFlow

Notes: Paper on arXiv.

An extensible, convenient, and efficient toolbox for finetuning large machine learning models, designed to be user-friendly, speedy and reliable, and accessible to the entire community.

Another open-source foundation model: MPT-30B

Notes: Another open-source commercially licensed foundation model from MosaicML which was recently acquired by Databricks. Competitive with the TII Falcon-40B model.

💼 Business Reads

A Peek into Japan's Convenience Stores

Notes: Great read on the economics and logistics behinds amazing Japan’s convenience stores. 7-Eleven was a highlight from my trip to Tokyo, an incredible selection of goods and services at every corner.

Self-Proclaimed ‘Wolf of Airbnb’ Admits to Defrauding NYC Landlords

Notes: I hope this will lead to fewer “rent arbitrage” à la TikTok easy money schemes moving forward.

The Diffusion Deficit in Scientific and Technological Power: Re-assessing China’s Rise

Notes: Interesting working paper from Jeffrey Ding around technology diffusion in China. One thing America does exceptionally well is diffuse technology from universities, corporate laboratories, and research centers to the broader economy extremely quickly.

Law Change Makes Everyone a Year or Two Younger in South Korea

Notes: Respect for your elders is embedded in South Korean culture. A law changing people’s age is notable with that context in mind.