Rami's Readings #32

The latest on Morocco, Apéro & Intellect, Apple AI, AI Adoption in Canada, Blancpain X Swatch Collaboration, Messaging Encryption, US Immigration & India, Congratulations Coco, Blue Zones, and more.

Welcome to Rami’s Readings #32 - 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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Please Consider Donating to Help in Morocco.

My heart goes out to all those affected by the earthquake in Morocco. At least 2,000 people were killed. The images and videos are tear-inducing. Earthquakes have devastated multiple countries this year (Turkey & Syria). If you need help understanding the challenges faced by search and rescue, read this article from the Turkey earthquake. Rescuers are in a race against time.

Please donate to the relief efforts. If you are based in the US, the NYTimes has a roundup on how to help.

Apéro & Intellect #1 - Recap

I hosted the first Apéro & Intellect in New York City yesterday. Apéro & Intellect is a series of intimate gatherings discussing Artificial Intelligence over coffee, tea, or cocktails designed to stimulate your mind and palate.

Attendees asked for actionable tips for applying LLMs/ML daily. These are the top 3 tips that resonated the most:

1. Use Git & GitHub to collaborate on “prompt templates”. Git will help you version your prompts. You should also separate different sections of your templates and make the sections swappable. You should have a formatting section to instruct LLMs on how to format the output and have prewritten sections for your most commonly used formats (JSON, Markdown, CSV, etc.).

2. I recommended reading DAIR.AI’s prompt engineering guide on GitHub (previously shared in #1).

3. Most people tend to write in the passive voice. ChatGPT is fantastic at helping you rewrite sentences from passive to active. It is a great way to practice until you form a habit and avoid the passive voice entirely.

Thank you for attending! The next one will be announced in this newsletter.

🤖 AI Reads

Apple is reportedly spending ‘millions of dollars a day’ training AI

Notes: Millions a day sounds about right.

Automation Nation? AI Adoption in Canadian Businesses

Notes: Fantastic report on the state of AI adoption in Canada. My highlights from the report:

Canada has a long way to go before we have integrated AI into our economy. By 2021, only 3.7 percent of Canadian firms had deployed AI in their business in any capacity. When compared to other similar countries, Canada lags in AI adoption. Global leaders like Denmark have so far had more than double the rate of adoption of AI as Canada.

Adoption has also been leaving some equity-seeking groups behind: businesses owned by women, Indigenous peoples, and people living with disabilities are far less likely than other businesses to currently be using AI.

This next quote further reinforces the need for innovation teams at all companies:

We find that firms that report any spending on R&D are nearly seven percent more likely to have adopted AI than similar firms with no R&D spending.

Quebec is the adoption leader in Canada but nowhere near where it should be given the heavy AI R&D spend in the province.

While Québec is acknowledged as a leader in the research and development of new AI technologies, its success in the adoption and commercialization of those tools has been more sluggish. The SDTIU shows that Québec does have the highest rate of AI adoption in Canada, but not by a wide margin and still within the margin of error. This means that just as adoption in Canada has been weak compared to peer countries, adoption in Québec is similarly lagging behind.

Anthropic’s Claude AI chatbot gets a paid plan for heavy users

Notes: A competitor to ChatGPT Plus.

💼 Business Reads

Blancpain X Swatch Collaboration Sparks Another Sales Surge

Notes: The collaboration is the brainchild of Nick Hayek (son of the late Nicholas Hayek). This collaboration is even better - you get an automatic movement! For those curious, Nicholas Hayek is of Lebanese origin and was instrumental in saving the Swiss watch industry during the Quartz crisis. I recommend reading this book Mister Swatch. The book is hard to find in North America, but Amazon has a few listings from overseas sellers. Read this HBR article book teaser.

Microsoft Will Use Carbon-Absorbing Rocks to Meet Climate Goals

Notes: Shared by a subscriber.

The deal will help Microsoft neutralize its carbon emissions and is one of the largest ever purchases of carbon-removal credits.

A Mysterious Lab In NYC Is Shutting Down. It’s the End of an Era for Biosecurity

The IT Boom and Other Unintended Consequences of Chasing the American Dream

Notes: Interesting read about the impact of the US Immigration system (H1B specifically) on India’s economy.

🛡️CyberSecurity Reads

UK Pulls Back from Clash with Big Tech Over Private Messaging

Notes: Another attempt to outlaw end-to-end encryption halted.

✈️ Travel Reads

How To Travel in India

Notes: Tyler Cowen has excellent tips on how to travel in India. I would add the following:

1. Don’t hesitate to take public transit, especially the mass rapid transit options (e.g., New Delhi). The MRT is super convenient to travel medium-length distances around the city without getting stuck in traffic. 

2. Pack KN95s to keep you going, as air pollution (especially in northern India) is sneakily tiresome.

3. Visit co-working spaces and chat with local entrepreneurs. It's a great way to learn about local economic and business challenges.

Only Plane Flying to Hong Kong Lands in Middle of Super Typhoon

Notes: Impressive pilot skills regardless of the modernity of the aircraft.

The Real Secret of Blue Zones

Notes: Netflix has a documentary on Blue Zones around the world. Interesting alternative perspective.

Thus, in Blue Zones, people aren’t necessarily living longer lives; they’re just experiencing a ‘senior moment’ with their date of birth.

🔀 Other Reads

Congratulations Coco!

Notes: I was able to watch the game live on ESPN and it was fantastic!

Man, 86, accused of assuming dead brother’s identity in 1965 is convicted of several charges

That is all for this week. Signing off from Redmond.