Rami's Readings #93 - 🔥 Sora, Gemini, and Phi-4 🎁
The latest on AI, LLMs, Ilya's Talk, Sora, Cohere, Gemini, Phi-4, Coffee, the London Stock Market, South Korea, and more.
Welcome to Rami’s Readings #93 - 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.
Apéro & Intellect Is Coming to Montréal!
Apéro & Intellect is a curated series of intimate gatherings discussing Artificial Intelligence designed to stimulate both your mind and your palate. I am pleased to announce Apéro & Intellect #12 will take place in ⚜️ Montréal on Saturday, December 28th, 2024 at 11:30am. It will be fun!
Vacation Notice: I will be taking time off over the holidays to be with family. This is the last newsletter until 2025, unless there is an emergency announcement or an update for Apéro & Intellect.
As the year winds down, I want to take a moment to thank you for being a part of this community. Your curiosity and engagement have made this journey truly special for me. I love receiving your replies and learning about you. Wishing you all happy holidays! And, I am looking forward to connecting with you in-person at the Apéro & Intellect event series in 2025.
'Tis really the season for new model releases! 🎁
🤖 AI Reads
This week, the most important thing for you to do is watch Ilya’s talk at NeurIPS. I was going to attend this year, but decided against it due my already excessive travel schedule. Admittedly, I am feeling a little regretful right now.
OpenAI Released Sora!
Notes: Much drama, read about the leak. Mostly underwhelming so far… Expectations were admittedly very high, so it’s likely that any release was going to be less exciting.
Introducing Gemini 2.0: Our New AI Model for the Agentic Era
Notes: So many new things to evaluate!
Introducing Command R7B: Fast and Efficient Generative AI
Notes: Go Canada! Another SLM that is competitive with Llama 3.
DeepSeek V2.5: The Grand Finale
Notes: An update for DeepSeek-V2.5. The previous version was notable for the it’s math and code generation.
Bringing Grok to Everyone
Notes: x.AI added two new models. Hard to tell how well they perform.
Introducing Phi-4: Microsoft’s Newest Small Language Model Specializing in Complex Reasoning
Notes: Not my organization. Significantly improved quality generation and complex reasoning for the size. Sadly, 14B is a too big for Edge AI.
💼 Business Reads
Coffee Rises to Record After Trader Cuts Brazil Crop Outlook
Notes: Rising coffee prices is an international concern of utmost importance! This newsletter is mostly powered by ☕.
London Stock Market Shrinks at Fastest Pace in Over a Decade on Takeover Wave
Notes: Fascinating to consider that the London Stock Market isn’t growing.
Google Unveils Mixed-Reality Headset With Samsung, Taking on Apple and Meta
Notes: I am so curious about the internal pitch for this project. I can only imagine these sentences were thrown around: “This time I swear it will be different!”, “Google Glass was a decade ago!”, or “Samsung is paying us a lot of money to do this.”
🖼️ Culture Reads
Are Adults Forgetting How to Read?
Notes: Sadly, I also reached this conclusion after A/B experimentation at work.
Michelin New York Finally Welcomes a Korean Restaurant to the Three-Star Club
Notes: Congratulations to Jungsik! My friend in NYC brought me to a speakeasy in a Korean steakhouse - it was just incredible! Korean food is also dominating Seattle. Personally, I can’t get enough of Gochujang and Kimchi Mac & Cheese.
Powerful Families Who Dominate South Korea Face an Investor Revolt
Notes: While Korean soft power is increasing thanks to Gochujang, Kimchi, and K-dramas, there are serious concerns and lawsuits raised by investors in South Korea of the Chaebols.
Signing off from Redmond.