Rami's Readings #76 - Successor 抓娃娃
The latest on AI, LLMs, the Successor Movie, Mamba, NL2SQL, the T, Rolex, and more.
Welcome to Rami’s Readings #76 - 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.
This weekend, I had the chance to watch Successor (with English subtitles). The movie is a worldwide comedic blockbuster from China. I found the movie fantastic - the funeral scene had my wife and I dying of laughter. 💀 Read Sixth Tone’s review.
In my view, national blockbusters often mirror societal undercurrents, and Successor is no exception. It is not surprising a movie criticizing Tiger Parenting resonated everywhere. Across both the West and in China, young people face a general malaise stemming from the immense pressures and perceived futility of life (read about the Gaokao, Gen Z anxiety and depression, 躺平 the lying flat movement, etc.) This is vividly portrayed in the movie, where college entrance exams, the importance of studying, and the fulfillment of parental wishes engulfs all other joy in a young person’s life. The movie captures the essence of this struggle familiar to many, including myself. I suspect we will see more movies exploring themes of existential dread and anxiety in the near future - especially as climate anxiety becomes more prevalent. Try to see Successor while it is still in theaters in North America.
🤖 AI Reads
FalconMamba: The First Strong Attention-Free 7B Model
Notes: This is an incredible model development providing evidence that Mamba (not a Transformer) model architecture scales up and performs strongly. TII from Abu Dhabi showed they can scale sequence generation to infinity* (theoretically) without a loss in performance. Context: TII generated attention on May 2023 when they released Falcon-40B completely free for commercial use. See #22.
Introduction to ggml
Notes: Explanation of GGML used by llama.cpp (same developers) and Ollama.
Grok-2
Notes: X has released the next version of their model. Performs well.
A Survey of NL2SQL with Large Language Models: Where are we, and where are we going?
Notes: A good survey of natural language queries to SQL queries research.
Pierre Boivin Takes Office as McGill’s New Chancellor
Notes: Pierre is the founding chairman of Mila. AI has completed its takeover of my alma mater.
💼 Business Reads
Boston’s Broke and Broken Transit System Hurts Downtown Recovery
Notes: In my experience with the T, if I really need to be on time, I opt for a cab instead. Disappointingly never on time.
Are You a Good Employee? Let’s Check With the Team
Notes: Interesting take on the rise of credentialism and LLMs from Tyler Cowen.
Reminder: Rolex is owned by a Swiss charitable trust (The Hans Wilsdorf Foundation). See Rolex.org.
Kim Dotcom Vows to Continue Legal Fight Against Extradition
Notes: A name I haven’t heard in a long time.
EQT to Buy Online Property Firm PropertyGuru for $1.1 Billion
Notes: Interesting private equity buyout of the Singaporean PropTech firm.
Signing off from Redmond.