LMMS are the new LLMs (News)
The Changelog: Software Development, Open Source
6min 28sec Oct 16, 2023
Chip Huyen documents the shifting sand of large data models, Herman Õunapuu reviews the Zimaboard, Bryan Braun shares 4 of his most recent VSCode configuration discoveries & Swizec Teller wrote a great summary of the inaugural AI Engineer Summit.
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- Neo4j – NODES 2023 is coming in October!
Featuring:
Jerod Santo
What up, nerds?! I'm Jerod and this is Changelog News for the week of Monday, October 16th, 2023.
Except I'm recording it on the afternoon of Friday, October 13th because we'll be at All Things Open on Monday. So, if some big software news drops over the weekend and you're wondering why I gapped it... that's why.
Ok let's get into the news.
Chip Huyen documents (in spectacular depth) the shifting sand of large data models: from LLMs to LMMs... She says:
"For a long time, each ML model operated in one data mode – text, image, or audio. However, natural intelligence is not limited to just a single modality. Humans can read and write text. We can see images and watch videos. We listen to music to relax and watch out for strange noises to detect danger. Being able to work with multimodal data is essential for us or any AI to operate in the real world."
Incorporating additional modalities to LLMs produces Large Multimodal Models... and everyone's doing it: DeepMind, Salesforce, Microsoft, Tencent, and, of course, OpenAI. (ChatGPT is already an LMM)
Not all multimodal systems are LMMs, though. Chip says Midjourney, Stable Diffusion, and Dall-E don't qualify because they don't have a language model component. Her (very long) post consists of 3 parts and worth studying to keep up with the latest.
Herman Õunapuu calls Zimaboard "the closest thing to my dream home server setup". What's a Zimaboard? "A small single-board computer that is relatively affordable and comes with an interesting selection of ports, which includes an exposed PCI Express port."
Herman wrote up a full review. It starts with: "What sets the Zimaboard apart from other single board computers is how polished the product feels. Unlike a board like the Raspberry Pi, this one comes with a case and a cooling setup already attached to it. I suspect that a similarily configured Raspberry Pi 4/5 with all the accessories added on top would result in a price that’s quite similar to the cost of a top-of-the-line Zimaboard."
He goes into its storage, power consumption, performance & caveats, which is always nice to see in an otherwise glowing review. His conclusion: "Overall, I’m very happy with this purchase. The performance is just enough for my services to work reasonably fast, the board uses very little power and it’s silent, and it looks good on my wall."
If Zimaboard is news to you and you have a dream home server setup, give it a look.
It's now time for Sponsored News!
There’s so much going on in the data and ML space – it’s hard to keep up! Example: did you know that graph technology lets you connect the dots across your data and ground your LLM in actual knowledge?
To learn about this new approach, don’t miss Neo4j's NODES online conference on October 26th.
At this free online conference, developers and data scientists from around the world share how they use graph technology for everything from building intelligent apps and APIs to enhancing machine learning and improving data visualizations.
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Bryan Braun has been using VSCode for 5 years now, but he still learns new things about it all the time. In the linked post, he shares 4 of his most recent discoveries that he wishes he'd known from the get-go.
1. Use .gitignore_global to ignore the .vscode folder
2. Formatters and linter extensions should always be enabled at the workspace level
3. The built-in terminal is really great
4. You might not need GitLens
There's some dissension in the comments, but it's always interesting to hear how other hackers hack, whether or not you agree with them.
The inaugural AI Engineer Summit took place last week. Swizec Teller attended and wrote up a great summary of the event. His takeaway: everyone's dealing with the same 3 problems.
1. Good old fashioned data engineering
2. Evals and non-determinism
3. Product development
Swizec says AI is the "easy part". Turning your demo into an actual product... _That's_ the challenge! The Summit itself sounds like it was a hit. Up next for the organizers: a World's Fair!
That's the news for now, but it's time once again for some Changelog++ shout outs! SHOUT OUT to our newest members: Nathan P, Aaron Y, Christopher W, Johann H, Maurice H, Brian M, Adam G, Anthony B, Jan K, Michael P & Bob P! _We appreciate you_ for supporting our work with your hard-earned cash.
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Have a great week, **hook us up with a 5-start review** if you dig it, and I'll talk to you again real soon. 💚
