Rami's Readings #108 - Vibes ✨
The latest on AI, LLMs, Vibe-Coding, Serious Canadian Vibes, Nostalgia Vibes, and more.
Welcome to Rami’s Readings #108 - a weekly digest of interesting articles, papers, videos, and X 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.
👋🏼 Welcome New Subscribers
Hello! A hearty thank you for subscribing to Rami's Readings! There are quite a few new subscribers this week, thanks to a recommendation from The AI Ethics Brief. I am thrilled to have you on board! In this newsletter, I curate the best papers, tweets, and articles I have read during the week focusing on LLMs, AI, economics, business, and technology news. You can learn more about me on my website.
📈 Top Recent Editions According to Substack
🤖 AI Reads
Apple, Anthropic Team Up to Build AI-Powered ‘Vibe-Coding’ Platform
Notes: I am not sure how Mark Gurman keeps getting all the Apple scoops. This is big if true as it puts further pressure on the vibe coding tools that are killing it on annual recurring revenue. I did not expect Apple & Anthropic to team up considering the deal Apple made with OpenAI to offer ChatGPT as an option on the iPhone.
I-Con: A Unifying Framework for Representation Learning
Notes: The “Periodic” Table is cool! From MIT 🦫.
The Adoption of Artificial Intelligence in Firms
Notes: The OECD, BCG and INSEAD studied approximately a thousand firms in the G7 and Brazil. The conclusions of the report are particularly relevant for national policy writers.
Why Vector Databases Are a Scam
Notes: A provocative article… but if I was starting a project from scratch, I would use pgvector or the extension for sqlite. It’s hard to justify using anything other than PostgreSQL today.
Underreporting of AI Use: The Role of Social Desirability Bias
Notes: I wonder how much headwind companies will have getting their employees to adopt and publicly admit they are using AI given the gap in social desirability. I wonder how much of this gap is culture-specific and if it will repeat in other contexts, countries, or settings.
💼 Business Reads
Congratulations to Prime Minister Mark Carney 🇨🇦
Notes: As a Canadian expat in the US, I was closely watching this election and voted as an international elector (register to vote my fellow expats). I sincerely hope to see policies that prioritize improving productivity (PM Carney provided remarks on declining Canadian productivity in 2010 so I have reason to be hopeful this issue will be taken seriously), the commercialization and use of AI by Canadian businesses (not just banks), fixing internal trade (a stated goal of PM Carney), and encouraging startup entrepreneurship. Serious vibes so far.
Buffett to Step Down Following Six-Decade Run Atop Berkshire
Notes: In a surprise announcement, Buffet announced he is stepping down. What surprised me is that the board of Berkshire didn’t know (or at least that is what the news reporting is saying). Buffet is a strong influence on many investors in the financial sector (and on my own investment philosophy). We also studied a few of his deals at Sloan. While he was famous for his folksy sayings, per friends who’ve been in rooms with him, he is extremely sharp. He isn’t a grandfatherly figure when it came to his business negotiations, despite the impression one might have from his famous quotes. The Bloomberg article shared a few good ones.
[On Wells Fargo] “There’s never just one cockroach in the kitchen.” And of over-leveraged financial firms during the worldwide crisis in 2008 he had this to say: “You only learn who has been swimming naked when the tide goes out.”
❤️🔥 Here’s How Much I Have(n't) Made Angel Investing
Notes: I was an Angel Investor a few years ago. I stopped for different reasons than Halle Tecco. This is worth a read for folks interested in Angel Investing. Don’t do it for the money, do it for the startup community.
The Economic Impact of Oman’s Rose Season
Notes: My close friends know of my love for rose water in coffee, deserts, cake, cottage cheese, it really goes with everything. I didn’t know that Oman had serious production of rose water and rose perfumes.
Don’t Watermark Your Legal PDFs With Purple Dragons in Suits
Notes: Will this problem get worse with AI art? 😂
🔀 Other Reads
MathML with Pandoc
Notes: MathML support has improved across most major browsers, at least enough that you can ship apps that use it.
New York’s Game-Changing Indian Restaurant Adda Reopens With a Surprising Specialty
Notes: Who’s been? Should I go next time I’m in NYC?
These Wireless Headphones Have ‘80s Sony Walkman Vibes
Notes: These headphones make me nostalgic for the Walkman era. They also support lossless audio via USB-C, similar to the Apple AirPods Max which enabled lossless support via a firmware update.
Signing off from Redmond, WA.