- AI Weekly Insights
- Posts
- AI Weekly Insights #7
AI Weekly Insights #7
Tides of Change: Corporate Twists and Educational Leaps in the Digital Age
Happy Sunday!
I hope it was a wonderful Thanksgiving for those celebrating around the globe! Gear up for “AI Weekly Insights #7” coming your way. This week, we're diving into the rollercoaster world of AI, from corporate shake-ups to educational leaps forward in the field.
For the week of 11/19/23-11/25/23 (P.S. Click the story’s title for more information 😊):
What’s New: The AI world witnessed a whirlwind of events last week, beginning with the surprising ouster of Greg Altman as CEO of OpenAI. The drama has developed further since.
The Timeline:
Friday, Nov. 17th: Sam Altman is ousted as CEO. Greg Brockman, another co-founder, resigns in reaction. (This was covered last week 😉)
Saturday, Nov. 18th: Investors, blindsided by the developments, push OpenAI's board for Altman's reinstatement. Talks ensue but hit a deadline snag.
Sunday, Nov. 19th: OpenAI names Emmett Shear, Twitch's co-founder, as interim CEO.
Monday, Nov. 20th: Altman, Brockman, and others announce their new venture with Microsoft's AI research team.
Over 650 OpenAI staff threaten to quit unless the board steps down and Altman is reinstated.
OpenAI toys with merging with rival company Anthropic, contemplating their CEO as the new head honcho.
Tuesday, Nov. 21st: OpenAI strikes a deal, welcoming back Altman as CEO, accompanied by a fresh-faced “initial” board.
Why It Matters: So as the dust settles, Altman and Brockman are back in the saddle. There is a lot of speculation online as to what happened in the first place. Was it a breakthrough in AI research at the company? Or possibly a disagreement between the ethics and profitability of the company? Maybe we will have more information in the future, but this was truly a crazy week for the company.

What's New: Amazon is announcing “AI Ready,” a new commitment designed to provide free AI skills training to 2 million people globally by 2025.
The 3 Initiatives:
Eight free AI and generative AI courses, open to all.
An AWS Generative AI Scholarship, offering a new course to 50,000 students globally via Udacity.
A partnership with Code.org to educate students about generative AI.
Why It Matters: A study conducted by the company found that hiring AI-skilled talent is a priority for 73% of employers with 93% of businesses expecting to use AI solutions in the next five years. Amazon already has 80+ free and low-cost AI courses available and these initiatives further their commitment. It will be crucial to have some experience/understanding of the technology as it continues to progress. I will be personally taking a few myself.

What's New: Stability.AI unveils its generative video model, Stable Video Diffusion, an extension of the acclaimed 2022 image model, Stable Diffusion.
Stable Video Diffusion: Stable Diffusion is a deep learning, text-to-image model released in 2022. It was praised for its high-quality image generation and open-source nature. This breakthrough in video generation expands on some of their earlier work while still being open-source.
Why It Matters: Stable Diffusion is one of the early pioneers in this generative AI space and seeing their work on video generation is truly incredible. Its commitment to open-source reflects a democratization of AI technology, inviting widespread innovation. Check out the video of the announcement below:
A.I. Courses and Learning
Interested in learning more about AI? Here are the 8 new courses announced by Amazon, find one that fits your interests!
Introduction to Generative Artificial Intelligence
Introduction to generative AI, its applications, and need-to-know concepts, like foundation models.
Find it on AWS Educate
Generative AI Learning Plan for Decision Makers
Three-course series covering how to plan a generative AI project and build a generative AI–ready organization.
Find it on AWS Skill Builder
Introduction to Amazon CodeWhisperer
Teaches how to use Amazon’s AI code generator, which produces whole lines of code.
Find it on AWS Educate
Foundations of Prompt Engineering
Introduces the basics of prompt engineering, the practice of designing inputs for generative AI tools, all the way through to advanced prompt techniques.
Find it on AWS Skill Builder
Low-Code Machine Learning on AWS
Explores how to prepare data, train machine learning models, and deploy machine learning models, with minimal coding and without deep knowledge of machine learning.
Find it on AWS Skill Builder
Building Language Models on AWS
Covers how to use Amazon SageMaker distributed training libraries to build language models and how to fine-tune open-source models and foundation models.
Find it on AWS Skill Builder
Getting Started with Amazon Transcribe
Explores how to use Amazon Transcribe, a fully managed AI service that converts speech to text using automatic speech recognition technology.
Find it on AWS Skill Builder
Building Generative AI Applications Using Amazon Bedrock
Teaches how to use Amazon Bedrock to build generative AI applications.
Find it on AWS Skill Builder
Your curiosity fuels this exploration into AI's evolving landscape. Share these insights with pals who'd love a weekly AI digest 🔄. Drop a comment or hit reply to share your thoughts. See you next Sunday!
Warm regards,
- Kharee