Large Language Model’s don’t really have a database to query on. They analyse petabytes of data on a range of topics (as part of “training”), and measure the distance between clusters of words or pixels that are most likely to appear together. They then match the pattern to a given natural language prompt, and generate a remixed output in the form of text or image. It is generally a learnt synthesis of the kind of content or image that has been created before on the subject of the prompt.

The output depends on what you ask (hence prompt engineering), but in most cases a basic human language query is enough for the system to match patterns and return some text or image which looks good and reads ok.

Question though, is novelty aside, what do you ask a system that (apparently) can answer anything? Where does it truly help beyond writing content or creating images?

A single man can break a stone single-handedly. But how can his credo help our self discovery and development ?

We often overemphasise on effort, without equally emphasising on the environment in which this effort can be successful.  The fact however, is that the environment we live in, continuously and gradually shapes us, just like the repeated strikes of a stonecutter eventually weaken the rock. Our chances of success can be gradually increased by positive factors such as supportive work environments, educational opportunities, and nurturing communities. 

From the time of its inception, the best real world use case of Blockchain technology has been in the realm of decentralised finance or DeFi. But for years it failed to gain traction due to three key things

This happens. Every new technology undergoes this curve of adaptation and 2023 was mostly a year for DeFi to shore back and consolidate after the scams and scandals of yesteryears.

But with meaningful and sustainable changes like Real Yield over APY, increasing interest in tokenisation of real assets, and more institutional interest in using the innovation offered by DeFI over blockchain for real world financial systems, the tide is starting to slowly re-shape. 

2024 can turn out to be the surprise year for DeFi if it continues on this path of real world integration. But which DeFi protocols do we start looking at, given there are so many?

The origins of Occam's Razor are in theology. It was named after the medieval philosopher and theologian William of Ockham, who simplified its inference into a basic concept stating that when faced with competing explanations for a phenomenon, the simplest one is more likely to be correct. 
This principle when applied across disciplines can be an invaluable tool for individuals, businesses, and organisations to make better-informed decisions that lead to efficient outcomes. 

But how do mere mortals like us use it in everyday life to make things a bit less complicated?

Let’s find out.

LLMs, such as GPT-4, have emerged as transformative milestones in AI development. They are pre-trained on vast amounts of text data, allowing them to generate human-like text and provide solutions to various tasks, including language translation, text generation, and even coding assistance.

However, the believability of LLMs raises ethical concerns. Their ability to produce coherent and contextually relevant text can be exploited to generate misleading or harmful information. Furthermore, LLMs lack genuine understanding and consciousness, relying on statistical patterns rather than true comprehension.

So how close are the present day LLM agents to simulating human reasoning?

There are a few basic obstacles, according to a study titled: How Far Are We from Believable AI Agents- published by the Shanghai Jiao Tong University, National University of Singapore, and Hong Kong Polytechnic University.

According to it,  LLM-based robots are not yet able to replicate human behaviour with the same level of plausibility, especially when it comes to robustness and consistency. Their research attempts to assess the effectiveness of LLM-based agents and pinpoint possible areas where their development and application could be strengthened. 

Sharding, a database partitioning technique, has been heralded as a solution to blockchain scalability issues. By dividing a blockchain into smaller, parallel segments or "shards", it promises increased transaction throughput.

It is is a pivotal innovation in the realm of Web 3.0 and DeFi, offering a tangible solution to the pressing scalability challenges faced by current blockchain networks. As the digital landscape evolves and the demand for decentralised services grows, sharding will likely play a central role in shaping the future of the decentralised web.

In the fast-evolving realm of artificial intelligence, few innovations have captured the imagination of researchers and entrepreneurs alike like LLMs akin to Chat GPT and what they can do. At its essence, GPT ( Generative Pre Trained Transformer) is a type of machine-learning model designed to understand and generate human-like text.

The "Generative" in its name hints at its ability to create or generate content.

What truly sets GPT apart, however, is its underlying architecture: the Transformer. This allows GPT to pay "attention" to different parts of a sentence, understanding the context and relationships between words, no matter how far apart they are. To keep it simple, GPT is like a linguistic wizard, blending vast knowledge from its training with the magic of the Transformer architecture. The result? An AI model that not only comprehends the intricacies of human language but can also emulate it with astonishing proficiency.

Yield farming, often likened to staking, is a method where users provide or "lock up" their assets in a DeFi protocol to receive rewards. These rewards can be a result of interest from borrowers, fees generated by the platform, or even new tokens minted as incentives. The allure of yield farming is the potential for high returns, especially when compared to traditional financial instruments.

It offers an innovative way for retail investors, to potentially amplify their returns. The technology, rooted in blockchain and smart contracts, provides a transparent and automated way to engage with financial protocol

Conversational search refers to the ability of search engines to understand and respond to user queries in a natural, dialogue-like manner, rather than relying solely on traditional keyword-based searches.

LLMs, with their advanced capabilities in understanding and generating human-like text, will play a pivotal role in enhancing conversational search and while there is no doubt that LLMs are here to stay, how the content , ecommerce and payment ecosystems evolve to leverage them is where monetisation methods will change.

Integration with IoT devices, emotion recognition and multimodal transitions will be some of the key factors to watch out for.

Just like the iPhone created the app industry and that became part of our everyday lives,  LLMs are just the foundational element in how search and online transactions change over the coming years.Unbiased recommendations based on indexing petabytes of data generated everyday is not an easy task , but technology has always evolved.

It’s the timing that will be important.

At its core, a neural network is a system of algorithms that attempts to recognise underlying relationships in a set of data through a process that mimics the way the human brain operates.

Neural networks are inspired by our brain's structure. Just as we have neurons, these networks have artificial neurons or "nodes".

They consist of layers. The input layer (where data enters), one or more hidden layers, and the output layer (where we get the result).

They're computation-intensive, need lots of data, and their 'black box' nature can make results hard to interpret. But for now, they are are powerful tools letting machines approximate any function, detect patterns, and make predictions by mimicking some of the brain's processes.