Rami's Readings #51 - Announcing Apéro & Intellect #5 🍹 in Boston
Announcing Apéro & Intellect #5 and the latest on AI, LLMs, EdgeAI, Stable Diffusion, Adobe GenAI, Raffles Singapore, Canadian Car Thefts, and more.
Welcome to Rami’s Readings #51 - a weekly digest of interesting articles, papers, videos, and X (formerly known as Twitter) threads from my various sources across the Internet. Expect a list of reads covering AI, technology, business, culture, fashion, travel, and more. Learn about what I do at ramisayar.com/about.
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Apéro & Intellect is Expanding!
Apéro & Intellect is a curated series of intimate gatherings discussing Artificial Intelligence designed to stimulate both your mind and your palate. After receiving great feedback from the three pilots last year, I am expanding the event series this year to gather a slightly larger group of people (maximum 16 to keep the intimacy). Many of you desired more time among each other, the event will now include fantastic food (FREE) to match the beverages.
I am pleased to announce the next Apéro and Intellect #5 will take place in 🏙Cambridge, MA on Sunday, March 10th starting at 11:30am at a brunch spot steps from Harvard and MIT. This event is taking place on the heels of the MIT AI Conference, so make it a twofer. If you would like to attend, please apply before March 1st for priority consideration.
This weekend, I had the pleasure to spend time in the chemical research labs of the Swager group at #MIT, as part of my program’s lab visits. Thank you Dr. Georgios Toupalas and Collette Gordon for the tour! I am blown away by their polymer research.
Sadly, I was surprised to see machines still running Windows XP. Apparently, some industrial equipment software only works on Windows XP. Is there potential for a virtualization solution or a code LLM to update this software to modern standards? If this old desktop fails or gets infected by a virus, the research stops.
🤖 AI Reads
Gemma: Introducing New State-of-the-Art Open Models
Notes: More open-source local AI models. #EdgeAI is continuing to grow. DAIR’s Prompt Engineering Guide is updated already.
Introducing Phind-70B – Closing the Code Quality Gap with GPT-4 Turbo While Running 4x Faster
Notes: I am excited to try the Phind-34B and the 70B model once they are open-sourced. Will report back once they are available and I run them locally.
Stable Diffusion 3
Notes: Waitlist is now open.
China’s Rush to Dominate A.I. Comes With a Twist: It Depends on U.S. Technology
Notes: I don’t agree with much of this article. It is seriously underestimating machine learning talent in China.
Spark Mail: My Writing Style drafts +AI Emails in Your Unique Voice
Notes: Great UX implementation, but sends your draft emails to the cloud.
Adobe’s Very Cautious Gambit to Inject AI Into Everything
Notes: I got access to Adobe Acrobat’s AI Assistant last week. Still a bit clunky.
AI Futures Grants
Notes: For UK-based startups & SMEs. Your opportunity for funding relocations to the UK.
Large Language Models for Data Annotation: A Survey
Notes: Recent survey for LLMs & Data Annotation.
Become a Wikipedian in 30 Minutes
Notes: From the great Molly White.
💼 Business Reads
Eight Secrets of Fancy Hotels I Learned After Becoming a Butler
Notes: I would love to stay at the Raffles and grab a Singapore Sling one day.
Job Cuts Are Sending a Chill Through the Remote Work World
Notes: Disappointing trend.
For Car Thieves, Toronto Is a ‘Candy Store,’ and Drivers Are Fed Up
Notes: My mom’s car was stolen in the same way in Montreal. Parking your car in a locked garage does not help either. At what point do some cars become uninsurable in Canada (like Range Rovers in London)?
FinTech Sandbox
Notes: A great resource for financial data. FinTech Sandbox is a non-profit.
WhatsApp Adds New Text Formatting Options to Improve Messaging
Notes: Possibly the biggest quality of life upgrade in the past month. 😂 Read the FAQ.
That is all for this week. Signing off mid-flight somewhere over the continental US.
