AI Weekly Insights #7

Tides of Change: Corporate Twists and Educational Leaps in the Digital Age

Author

Kharee Smith
November 24, 2023

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