Issue 29

Highlights

I'm on the Newsroom Robots podcast, with thoughts on the OpenAI board

Newsroom Robots is a weekly podcast exploring the intersection of AI and journalism, hosted by Nikita Roy. This first episode covers the recent huge news around OpenAI's board dispute, plus an exploration of the new features they released at DevDay and other topics such as applications for Large Language Models in data journalism, prompt injection and LLM security and the exciting potential of smaller models that journalists can run on their own hardware.

Where are all the ‘godmothers’ of AI? Women’s voices are not being heard

Amid the coverage of Sam Altman returning to the helm of OpenAI, women are being written out of the future of AI ‘We are heading toward the best world ever,” said Sam Altman in an interview earlier this month, just before the saga of his firing and rehiring as OpenAI’s chief executive. As an expert on gender equity in news, this statement made me wonder: whose world was heading towards being the best ever?

Microsoft Ignite 2023: AI transformation and the technology driving change

As we reach the end of 2023, nearly every industry is undergoing a collective transformation – discovering entirely new ways of working due to AI advancements. Microsoft Ignite is a showcase of the…

Video

Simplifying Data Analysis with GitHub Codespaces, Jupyter Notebooks & Open AI - Global AI Notes

In this talk, I'll share my journey into creating a consistent development and runtime environment with GitHub Codespaces and Jupyter Notebooks, then activating it with Open AI to support an interactive "learn by exploring" process that helped me (as a JavaScript developer) skill up on Python and data analysis techniques in actionable ways. As web developers, we create large quantities of data (e.g., from test reports and analytics) that require insights for iterative optimization.

Best retrieval strategies for Generative AI applications: Semantic Search Benchmarking

🚀 Get ready for a search revolution! 🕵️‍♂️ In this episode, we'll review findings of an extensive assessment of retrieval modes in Azure Cognitive Search and other leading search providers. 🌐📊 Discover how these findings lay the foundation for adopting a hybrid retrieval and reranking strategy, especially designed for out-of-the-box Generative AI scenarios. 🔄🧠 But that's not all! The insights derived from this cutting-edge research extend far beyond AI, offering invaluable benefits to various general search use cases. 📈🌍

Articles

OpenAI, emerging from the ashes, has a lot to prove even with Sam Altman’s return

The OpenAI power struggle that captivated the tech world after co-founder Sam Altman was fired has finally reached its end — at least for the time being. But what to make of it? It feels almost as though some eulogizing is called for — like OpenAI died and a new, but not necessarily improved, startup

Synthetic imagery sets new bar in AI training efficiency

MIT CSAIL researchers innovate with synthetic imagery to train AI, paving the way for more efficient and bias-reduced machine learning.

Using language to give robots a better grasp of an open-ended world

By blending 2D images with foundation models to build 3D feature fields, a new MIT method helps robots understand and manipulate nearby objects with open-ended language prompts.

Getting Started with Orca-2-13B

The Orca-2-13B, part of Microsoft's Orca 2 series, comes in 7B and 13B parameter versions, fine-tuned from the LLAMA 2 base models. This model excels in reasoning, text summarization, math problem-solving and comprehension tasks, building upon the original 13B Orca model. It imitates the reasoning process of advanced AI systems step by step, aiming to enhance smaller models’ capabilities in complex tasks.

Generative AI startup AI21 Labs raises cash in the midst of OpenAI chaos

One AI startup’s undoing is another’s opportunity. Case in point: today, AI21 Labs, a company developing generative AI products along the lines of OpenAI’s GPT-4 and ChatGPT, closed a $53 million extension to its previously-announced Series C funding round. The new tranche, which had participation from new investors Intel Capital and Comcast Ventures, brings AI21’s

Upcoming events

12 December 2023 - Global AI Conference 23

The Global AI Conference is an event that brings together AI fans from all over the world. It's put together by the Global AI Community. You can jump into the worldwide livestream, check out a local conference in person, or chat and connect with experts on our Discord Channel. It's a great opportunity to dive deep into the world of AI, so don't miss out!