Issue 87

Highlights

Global AI bootcamp update

Great start of the #GlobalAIBootcamp25. In the first weekend, 15 bootcamps took place worldwide, from Spain to Taiwan and from Houston to India.

Check out this LinkedIn post highlighting some of these bootcamp updates and find one near you. There are still over 130 bootcamps scheduled for the months of March and April.

Meta AI arrives in the Middle East and Africa with support for Arabic

Meta has formally expanded Meta AI to the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), opening the AI-enabled chatbot to millions more people.

Back in October, Meta announced it was launching Meta AI in six additional markets, including Brazil and the U.K. At the same time, the company teased gradual rollout plans for additional markets around the world, including MENA.

SymbyAI raises $2.1M seed to make science research easier

SymbyAI, a SaaS platform that uses AI to streamline scientific research, announced a $2.1 million seed round with participation from Drive Capital and CharacterVC, among others.

Launched just last year by Ashia Livaudais and Michael House, the platform provides organized workspaces for researchers to access papers, code, data, and experiences within one place. It helps track progress and has an AI-feature that assists with peer review and replication.

Research

Mitigating Covariate Shift in Imitation Learning for Autonomous Vehicles Using Latent Space Generative World Models

This paper proposes the use of latent space generative world models to address the covariate shift problem in autonomous driving. A world model is a neural network capable of predicting an agent's next state given past states and actions. By leveraging a world model during training, the driving policy effectively mitigates covariate shift without requiring an excessive amount of training data.

Magma: A foundation model for multimodal AI agents across digital and physical worlds

Explore Magma, a foundation model that can empower AI assistants to interpret environments, plan actions, and execute tasks across digital and physical spaces. Now available, learn how it advances the field of agentic AI.

Video

Deep Dive into LLMs like ChatGPT

This is a general audience deep dive into the Large Language Model (LLM) AI technology that powers ChatGPT and related products. It is covers the full training stack of how the models are developed, along with mental models of how to think about their "psychology", and how to get the best use them in practical applications.

Silicon minds, Human Hearts - Mehrnoosh Sameki

In this episode of Silicon Minds Human Hearts, we're thrilled to chat with Mehrnoosh Sameki, the product lead at the responsible AI team at Microsoft. Mehrnoosh dives into the details of her role, discussing how she empowers AI developers and ensures the safety and quality of generative AI applications.

Articles

Introducing the MIT Generative AI Impact Consortium

The consortium will bring researchers and industry together to focus on impact. From crafting complex code to revolutionizing the hiring process, generative artificial intelligence is reshaping industries faster than ever before — pushing the boundaries of creativity, productivity, and collaboration across countless domains.

Optimize LLMs for Efficiency & Sustainability

The rapid growth of large language model (LLM) applications is linked to rapid growth in energy demand. According to the International Energy Agency (IEA), data center electricity consumption is projected to roughly double by 2026 primarily driven by AI. This is due to the energy-intensive training requirements for massive LLMs – however, the increase in AI Inferencing workloads also plays a role. For example, compared with traditional search queries, a single AI inference can consume about 10x more energy.

Is AI tech’s Oppenheimer moment

If the best defence against AI is more AI, this could be tech’s Oppenheimer moment.

An unsettling new book advocates a closer relationship between Silicon Valley and the US government to harness artificial intelligence in the name of national security

Upcoming events

Global AI Bootcamp 2025

The Global AI Bootcamps are now in full swing and provide a space where developers and AI enthusiasts can learn about AI through workshops, sessions, and discussions. Local chapters of the Global AI community organize local in-person, hybrid or virtual events.

Find one near you and be inspired, learn new things, connect with peers and have a lot of fun along the way.

Code

GitHub - microsoft/rag-time

RAG Time: a 5-week AI learning series where Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) meets innovation! This repository is your companion to the video series, containing code samples, step-by-step guides, and resources to help you master RAG concepts.

Podcast

AI and I

Learn how the smartest people in the world are using AI to think, create, and relate. Each week Dan Shipper interviews founders, filmmakers, writers, investors, and others about how they use AI tools like ChatGPT, Claude, and Midjourney in their work and in their lives.