Practical AI

Daniel & Chris engage in an impromptu discussion of the state of AI in the enterprise. Then they dive into the recent Apple Intelligence announcement to explore its implications. Finally, Daniel leads a deep dive into a new topic - Advanced RAG - covering everything you need to know to be practical & productive.

Sponsors:

• Neo4j – Is your code getting dragged down by JOINs and long query times? The problem might be your database…Try simplifying the complex with graphs. Stop asking relational databases to do more than they were made for. Graphs work well for use cases with lots of data connections like supply chain, fraud detection, real-time analytics, and genAI. With Neo4j, you can code in your favorite programming language and against any driver. Plus, it’s easy to integrate into your tech stack. 
• Plumb – Low-code AI pipeline builder that helps you build complex AI pipelines fast. Easily create AI pipelines using their node-based editor. Iterate and deploy faster and more reliably than coding by hand, without sacrificing control. 
• Backblaze – Unlimited cloud backup for Macs, PCs, and businesses for just $99/year. Easily protect business data through a centrally managed admin. Protect all the data on your machines automatically. Easy to deploy across multiple workstations with various deployment options. 

Featuring:

• Chris Benson – Website, GitHub, LinkedIn, X
• Daniel Whitenack – Website, GitHub, X

Show Notes:

• Apple Intelligence
• Introducing Apple Intelligence, the personal intelligence system that puts powerful generative models at the core of iPhone, iPad, and Mac
• The top AI features Apple announced at WWDC 2024
• Hybrid Search: Combining BM25 and Semantic Search for Better Results with Langchain
• Advanced RAG: Precise Zero-Shot Dense Retrieval with HyDE

Upcoming Events: 

• Register for upcoming webinars here!

Daniel & Chris sit down with Denis Yarats, Co-founder & CTO at Perplexity, to discuss Perplexity’s sophisticated AI-driven answer engine. Denis outlines some of the deficiencies in search engines, and how Perplexity’s approach to information retrieval improves on traditional search engine systems, with a focus on accuracy and validation of the information provided.

Sponsors:

• Neo4j – Is your code getting dragged down by JOINs and long query times? The problem might be your database…Try simplifying the complex with graphs. Stop asking relational databases to do more than they were made for. Graphs work well for use cases with lots of data connections like supply chain, fraud detection, real-time analytics, and genAI. With Neo4j, you can code in your favorite programming language and against any driver. Plus, it’s easy to integrate into your tech stack. 
• Backblaze – Unlimited cloud backup for Macs, PCs, and businesses for just $99/year. Easily protect business data through a centrally managed admin. Protect all the data on your machines automatically. Easy to deploy across multiple workstations with various deployment options. 
• NordVPN – Get NordVPN 2Y plan + 4 months extra at nordvpn.com/practicalai It’s risk-free with Nord’s 30-day money-back guarantee. 

Featuring:

• Denis Yarats – LinkedIn, X
• Chris Benson – Website, GitHub, LinkedIn, X
• Daniel Whitenack – Website, GitHub, X

Show Notes:

• Perplexity
• Perplexity | Blog
• Perplexity | Getting Started

Upcoming Events: 

• Register for upcoming webinars here!

We’ve all heard about breaches of privacy and leaks of private health information (PHI). For healthcare providers and those storing this data, knowing where all the sensitive data is stored is non-trivial. Ramin, from Tausight, joins us to discuss how they have deploy edge AI models to help company search through billions of records for PHI.

Sponsors:

• Neo4j – Is your code getting dragged down by JOINs and long query times? The problem might be your database…Try simplifying the complex with graphs. Stop asking relational databases to do more than they were made for. Graphs work well for use cases with lots of data connections like supply chain, fraud detection, real-time analytics, and genAI. With Neo4j, you can code in your favorite programming language and against any driver. Plus, it’s easy to integrate into your tech stack. 
• Backblaze – Unlimited cloud backup for Macs, PCs, and businesses for just $99/year. Easily protect business data through a centrally managed admin. Protect all the data on your machines automatically. Easy to deploy across multiple workstations with various deployment options. 

Featuring:

• Ramin Mohammadi – GitHub, LinkedIn
• Daniel Whitenack – Website, GitHub, X

Show Notes:

• Tausight

Upcoming Events: 

• Register for upcoming webinars here!

We’ve seen a rise in interest recently and a number of major announcements related to local LLMs and AI PCs. NVIDIA, Apple, and Intel are getting into this along with models like the Phi family from Microsoft. In this episode, we dig into local AI tooling, frameworks, and optimizations to help you navigate this AI niche, and we talk about how this might impact AI adoption in the longer term.

Sponsors:

• Ladder Life Insurance – 100% digital — no doctors, no needles, no paperwork. Don’t put it off until the very last minute to get term coverage life insurance through Ladder. Find out if you’re instantly approved. They’re rated A and A plus. Life insurance costs more as you age, now’s the time to cross it off your list. 
• Neo4j – Is your code getting dragged down by JOINs and long query times? The problem might be your database…Try simplifying the complex with graphs. Stop asking relational databases to do more than they were made for. Graphs work well for use cases with lots of data connections like supply chain, fraud detection, real-time analytics, and genAI. With Neo4j, you can code in your favorite programming language and against any driver. Plus, it’s easy to integrate into your tech stack. 
• Fly.io – The home of Changelog.com — Deploy your apps and databases close to your users. In minutes you can run your Ruby, Go, Node, Deno, Python, or Elixir app (and databases!) all over the world. No ops required. Learn more at fly.io/changelog and check out the speedrun in their docs. 

Featuring:

• Chris Benson – Website, GitHub, LinkedIn, X
• Daniel Whitenack – Website, GitHub, X

Show Notes:

• Ollama
• LM Studio
• llama.cpp
• OpenVINO
• MLPerf client working group
• Article - 5 top small language models
• GPTQ article
• Article - Which quantization method is right for you

Upcoming Events: 

• Register for upcoming webinars here!

At the age of 72, U.S. Representative Don Beyer of Virginia enrolled at GMU to pursue a Master’s degree in C.S. with a concentration in Machine Learning.

Rep. Beyer is Vice Chair of the bipartisan Artificial Intelligence Caucus & Vice Chair of the NDC’s AI Working Group. He is the author of the AI Foundation Model Transparency Act & a lead cosponsor of the CREATE AI Act, the Federal Artificial Intelligence Risk Management Act & the Artificial Intelligence Environmental Impacts Act.

We hope you tune into this inspiring, nonpartisan conversation with Rep. Beyer about his decision to dive into the deep end of the AI pool & his leadership in bringing that expertise to Capitol Hill.

Sponsors:

• Fly.io – The home of Changelog.com — Deploy your apps and databases close to your users. In minutes you can run your Ruby, Go, Node, Deno, Python, or Elixir app (and databases!) all over the world. No ops required. Learn more at fly.io/changelog and check out the speedrun in their docs. 

Featuring:

• Don Beyer – LinkedIn, X
• Chris Benson – Website, GitHub, LinkedIn, X
• Daniel Whitenack – Website, GitHub, X

Show Notes:

• U.S. Representative Don Beyer
• Congressman Don Beyer, Mason student and lifelong learner
• Beyer Statement On President Biden’s AI Executive Order
• Beyer Appointed To Bipartisan Task Force On Artificial Intelligence

Upcoming Events: 

• Register for upcoming webinars here!

Daniel & Chris share their first impressions of OpenAI’s newest LLM: GPT-4o and Daniel tries to bring the model into the conversation with humorously mixed results. Together, they explore the implications of Omni’s new feature set - the speed, the voice interface, and the new multimodal capabilities.

Sponsors:

• Ladder Life Insurance – 100% digital — no doctors, no needles, no paperwork. Don’t put it off until the very last minute to get term coverage life insurance through Ladder. Find out if you’re instantly approved. They’re rated A and A plus. Life insurance costs more as you age, now’s the time to cross it off your list. 
• Neo4j – Is your code getting dragged down by JOINs and long query times? The problem might be your database…Try simplifying the complex with graphs. Stop asking relational databases to do more than they were made for. Graphs work well for use cases with lots of data connections like supply chain, fraud detection, real-time analytics, and genAI. With Neo4j, you can code in your favorite programming language and against any driver. Plus, it’s easy to integrate into your tech stack. 

Featuring:

• Daniel Whitenack – Website, GitHub, X
• Chris Benson – Website, GitHub, LinkedIn, X

Show Notes:

• Hello GPT-4o
• AI Engineer World’s Fair
• AIQCON - the AI Quality Conference
• Brave New Words: How AI Will Revolutionize Education (and Why That’s a Good Thing)

Upcoming Events: 

• Register for upcoming webinars here!

There’s a lot of hype about AI agents right now, but developing robust agents isn’t yet a reality in general. Imbue is leading the way towards more robust agents by taking a full-stack approach; from hardware innovations through to user interface. In this episode, Josh, Imbue’s CTO, tell us more about their approach and some of what they have learned along the way.

Sponsors:

• Neo4j – Is your code getting dragged down by JOINs and long query times? The problem might be your database…Try simplifying the complex with graphs. Stop asking relational databases to do more than they were made for. Graphs work well for use cases with lots of data connections like supply chain, fraud detection, real-time analytics, and genAI. With Neo4j, you can code in your favorite programming language and against any driver. Plus, it’s easy to integrate into your tech stack. 
• Fly.io – The home of Changelog.com — Deploy your apps and databases close to your users. In minutes you can run your Ruby, Go, Node, Deno, Python, or Elixir app (and databases!) all over the world. No ops required. Learn more at fly.io/changelog and check out the speedrun in their docs. 

Featuring:

• Josh Albrecht – LinkedIn, X
• Chris Benson – Website, GitHub, LinkedIn, X
• Daniel Whitenack – Website, GitHub, X

Show Notes:

• CARBS (Imbue’s cost-aware hyperparameter optimizer)
• Imbue paper on the stepwise nature of self-supervised learning
• A paper on initialization/feature learning co-authored by Jamie Simon, a member of Imbue’s technical team
• Imbue

Upcoming Events: 

• Register for upcoming webinars here!

Yep, you heard that right. Autonomous fighter jets are in the news. Chris and Daniel discuss a modified F-16 known as the X-62A VISTA and autonomous vehicles/ systems more generally. They also comment on the Linux Foundation’s new Open Platform for Enterprise AI.

Sponsors:

• Ladder Life Insurance – 100% digital — no doctors, no needles, no paperwork. Don’t put it off until the very last minute to get term coverage life insurance through Ladder. Find out if you’re instantly approved. They’re rated A and A plus. Life insurance costs more as you age, now’s the time to cross it off your list. 
• Fly.io – The home of Changelog.com — Deploy your apps and databases close to your users. In minutes you can run your Ruby, Go, Node, Deno, Python, or Elixir app (and databases!) all over the world. No ops required. Learn more at fly.io/changelog and check out the speedrun in their docs. 

Featuring:

• Chris Benson – Website, GitHub, LinkedIn, X
• Daniel Whitenack – Website, GitHub, X

Show Notes:

• Pentagon takes AI dogfighting to next level in real-world flight tests against human F-16 pilot
• Top US Air Force official rides in front seat of autonomous F-16
• Open Platform for Enterprise AI

Upcoming Events: 

• Register for upcoming webinars here!

We recently gathered some Practical AI listeners for a live webinar with Danny from LibreChat to discuss the future of private, open source chat UIs. During the discussion we hear about the motivations behind LibreChat, why enterprise users are hosting their own chat UIs, and how Danny (and the LibreChat community) is creating amazing features (like RAG and plugins).

Sponsors:

• Fly.io – The home of Changelog.com — Deploy your apps and databases close to your users. In minutes you can run your Ruby, Go, Node, Deno, Python, or Elixir app (and databases!) all over the world. No ops required. Learn more at fly.io/changelog and check out the speedrun in their docs. 

Featuring:

• Danny Avila – X
• Chris Benson – Website, GitHub, LinkedIn, X
• Daniel Whitenack – Website, GitHub, X

Show Notes:

• Register for our next webinar (similar to this one) focused on multimodal AI
• LibreChat
• Prediction Guard

Upcoming Events: 

• Register for upcoming webinars here!

First there was Mamba… now there is Jamba from AI21. This is a model that combines the best non-transformer goodness of Mamba with good ‘ol attention layers. This results in a highly performant and efficient model that AI21 has open sourced! We hear all about it (along with a variety of other LLM things) from AI21’s co-founder Yoav.

Sponsors:

• Fly.io – The home of Changelog.com — Deploy your apps and databases close to your users. In minutes you can run your Ruby, Go, Node, Deno, Python, or Elixir app (and databases!) all over the world. No ops required. Learn more at fly.io/changelog and check out the speedrun in their docs. 
• Changelog News – A podcast+newsletter combo that’s brief, entertaining & always on-point. Subscribe today. 

Featuring:

• Yoav Shoham – LinkedIn, X
• Chris Benson – Website, GitHub, LinkedIn, X
• Daniel Whitenack – Website, GitHub, X

Show Notes:

• Jamba - A Groundbreaking SSM - Transformer Open Model
• AI21 Labs

Upcoming Events: 

• Register for upcoming webinars here!