Orchestrate all the Things

08/12/2023

What is the right balance between innovation and regulation in AI?

What AI model maker would take the risk to make any powerful model if they could be responsible for anything someone might possibly do with it?

This question is posed by Daniel Jeffries – author, futurist, engineer, and systems architect. I’ve had the pleasure of conversing with him a couple of times, and noticed some of his recent shares about OpenAI, AI doomers and upcoming regulation, most notably the EU AI Act.

In a recent post, Jeffries makes some good points about fearmongering and innovation. He also lays out a simple framework for regulation, which looks reasonable.

It certainly made me think long and hard about finding the right balance between innovation and regulation in AI.

Here's Dan Jeffries' original post: https://danieljeffries.substack.com/p/effectively-altruistic-techno-panic

And here's what i came up with: https://linkeddataorchestration.com/2023/12/07/what-is-the-right-balance-between-innovation-and-regulation-in-ai-long-views-on-ai-part-1/

This is the first in series of short posts about important questions posed by people who think deep and far about technology and its impact, focusing on AI in particular.

The idea is to introduce a question, and tease some answers as provided and/or inspired by the person who posed the question.

Join the conversation in the comments.

29/11/2023

Amazon Neptune, the managed graph database service by AWS, makes analytics faster and more agile while introducing a vision aiming to simplify graph databases.

It's not every day that you hear product leads questioning the utility of their own products. Brad Beebe, the general manager of Amazon Neptune, was all serious when he said that most customers don't actually want a graph database. However, that statement needs contextualization.

If Bebee had meant that in the literal sense, the team himself and Amazon Neptune Principal Product Manager Denise Gosnell lead would not have bothered developing and releasing a brand new analytics engine for their customers. We caught up with Bebee and Gosnell to discuss Amazon Neptune new features and the broader vision.

We cover where Amazon Neptune fits in the AWS vision of data management, and how the new analytics engine provides a single service for graph workloads, high performance for graph analytic queries and graph algorithms, and vector store and search capabilities for Generative AI applications. We also share insights on the One Graph vision, the road from serverless to One Graph via HPC, as well as vectors and Graph AI.

Read the story here: https://linkeddataorchestration.com/2023/11/29/amazon-neptune-introduces-a-new-analytics-engine-and-the-one-graph-vision/

Check the podcast here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hSq_ux926dY

09/11/2023

What we learned on AI Chips in 2024 by keeping track of NVIDIA’s latest announcements, talking to industry experts, and scanning news and analyses

https://linkeddataorchestration.com/2023/11/09/ai-chips-in-2024-nvidia-mlperf-benchmarks-huangs-law-and-competition/

06/11/2023

“Graph database growth is going strong through the Trough of Disillusionment”

But also “Graph Analytics go big and real-time”

These were two of the headlines of the Spring 2023 update of the Year of the Graph newsletter. In combination, they seem like an appropriate summary of the reasoning behind a new entry in the graph database market: Aerospike Graph, which Aerospike officially unveiled in June 2023.

We caught up with the company’s Chief Product Officer Lenley Hensarling to discuss this long journey that started about three years ago, as well as Aerospike's differentiation in a very densely populated market



https://linkeddataorchestration.com/2023/11/06/entering-the-graph-database-market/

27/09/2023

How would you like to have your own, private and secure in a box?

All the apps, none of the creepiness - that's what Useful Sensors promises



https://linkeddataorchestration.com/2023/09/21/useful-sensors-launches-ai-in-a-box-aiming-to-establish-a-different-paradigm-for-edge-computing-and-tinyml/

23/08/2023

To keep content engaging and relevant, LinkedIn is working on improving its embeddings to accommodate more parameters

In the process, it upgraded its infrastructure. Here's how they did it



https://engineering.linkedin.com/blog/2023/enhancing-homepage-feed-relevance-by-harnessing-the-power-of-lar

06/07/2023

. recently announced new product features in collaboration with Google, as well as a new CPO from Google - Sudhir Hasbe

We caught up to discuss what the future holds for Neo4j & the broader space

and are the new elements in the roadmap, Graph and remain in focus

https://linkeddataorchestration.com/2023/07/06/neo4js-roadmap-in-2023-cloud-graph-data-science-large-language-models-and-knowledge-graphs/

27/06/2023

In an era of dried-up funding and Data Lakehouse vendor supremacy, Redpanda is going against the grain

The company just secured a $100 million Series C funding round to execute on an unconventional strategy

Redpanda Founder and CEO Alex Gallego explains how things work for the company



https://linkeddataorchestration.com/2023/06/27/redpandas-power-to-the-data-engineer-strategy-lands-a-100m-series-c-funding-round/

26/06/2023

It's time for our next session with O'Reilly in the What’s New in AI series

This time tomorrow, join us with Nazneen Rajani as we explore Evaluation, Robustness, and Interpretability

We'll talk about the most recent LLMs, try to approach their capabilities and limitations, develop an understanding of the criteria used to evaluate them, and learn how they can be tailored to specific needs



https://www.oreilly.com/live-events/whats-new-in-ai-large-language-model-evaluation-robustness-and-interpretability-with-nazneen-rajani/0636920090129/

19/06/2023

If GDPR is anything to go by, the EU AI Act is a big deal

Here’s what and how it’s likely to effect, its blind spots, what happens next, and how you can prepare for it based on what we know



https://linkeddataorchestration.com/2023/06/19/the-eu-ai-act-effect-background-blind-spots-opportunities-and-roadmap/

12/06/2023

What’s new in AI, Part 1: Generative AI with Dan Jeffries

On Stability AI and Stable Diffusion’s rise to prominence, , business models, use cases, and how to use and fine-tune Stable Diffusion



https://linkeddataorchestration.com/2023/06/08/whats-new-in-ai-part-1-generative-ai/

19/05/2023

Compare and contrast :

Meta announces AI chip for fast inference, AI-focused data centers, Super Cluster for research

https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7065030312069591040/

UK pledges £1B over 10 years to secure semiconductor supplies, boost chip design sector

https://www.politico.eu/article/uk-plays-catch-up-in-chips-war-with-1b-semiconductor-strategy/

16/05/2023

The hero’s journey is a common template of stories

They involve a hero who goes on an adventure, is victorious in a decisive crisis, and comes home transformed

Writing a book is like a journey too

Writing the first Personal book involved more than one hero and a few crises

The PKG book is open for pre-order on

Here's how we got here



https://linkeddataorchestration.com/2023/05/16/heroes-journey-notes-towards-a-personal-knowledge-graphs-book/

11/05/2023

Foursquare moves to the future with a Geospatial Knowledge Graph

From a consumer-oriented application, has evolved to a data and product provider for the

The next steps in its evolution will be powered by the Foursquare Graph



https://linkeddataorchestration.com/2023/05/11/foursquare-moves-to-the-future-with-a-geospatial-knowledge-graph/

28/04/2023

AI politics is wild, and it's only getting started

I tried to take a snapshot here, including:
* Why Public Enemy may be relevant in this conversation
* Funding, goals, motives and harms
* Media influence, research and monopolies
* People and organizations such as The Future of Life Institute, Elon Musk, DAIR, Timnit Gebru, Gary Marcus, Andrew Ng, Yann LeCun, Margaret Mitchell, and Google
* A modest proposal

25/04/2023

.NVIDIA today announced NeMo Guardrails:

An toolkit that developers can use to add topical, safety & security features to chatbots & other built with

A much welcome contribution for

https://blogs.nvidia.com/blog/2023/04/25/ai-chatbot-guardrails-nemo/

22/04/2023

serves as a reminder of the strain our planet is under.

Could & help get a better understanding of the big picture, determine desirable outcomes, and steer toward them?

Planet Analytics is a very complex task. The only actor that could, in theory, pull this task off would be the UN. But there are many roadblocks to overcome on the way to getting results.



https://linkeddataorchestration.com/2018/04/20/planet-analytics-1-0-from-the-un-lab-to-the-globe/

20/04/2023

What's your take on AI-generated content?

As a writer, i've been ambivalent on this. I maintain that “content” and “writing” are different things.

I think using AI is fair game for things such as transcription, summarization and generating audio or video narration from text.

I understand why some people use AI to generate ideas, and also why others shy away from AI-generated images, but I digress.

I also sympathize with writers who feel threatened and are increasingly being displaced. Should i be concerned too? I think not.

But you know what's a typical reaction for concerned writers: they start a Newsletter.

Like everyone else, i like to think i'm not a typical writer..but i just started a Newsletter 😐

If you just want mid-to-long form Analysis, Essays, Interviews and News on how Technology, Data, AI and Media flow into each other shaping our lives in your inbox 1-3 times per month...

Or if you also want the backstory, some AI-generated art, and insights on Tech, Data, Media, AI, Writing, and Content..

Check this out



https://linkeddataorchestration.com/2023/04/20/orchestrate-all-the-things-owning-tech-data-media-ai-writing-and-content/

21/03/2023

ScyllaDB started out as an re-implementation of the Cassandra API in C++, aiming to offer full compatibility and better performance

Over time ScyllaDB has come into its own.

We caught up with co-founder and CEO Dor Laor to discuss , real-time data processing, techniques for high performance and storage, up-and-coming programming languages and more

The ScyllaDB team works with their garage doors up. A look at what kept the team busy in 2022, plus trends and tradeoffs in high-performance compute and storage.

14/03/2023

Rumor has it that GPT-4 will be released soon, and it's going to be massive. Does it matter?

Unpopular opinion: probably not as much as ChatGPT, probably not for the reasons you think.

I've been covering AI since 2016, initially for ZDNet, then also for VentureBeat. I also happen to have a background and experience in the field.

Some people have been wondering about my take on / the Generative explosion, as i've been kind of silent about it. They're kind of right.

I have not been posting either on ZDNet or VentureBeat as of late. The reasons for that are a different, albeit related story.

Regardless, if you know me or have been following me, my take would probably be not that hard to guess. Here it goes.

https://linkeddataorchestration.com/2023/03/06/chatgpt-is-ais-facebook-moment-dont-fall-for-it-this-time/

21/02/2023

Generative has got everyone talking

's model is and it's good

Do you want to know more about why and how it was built, and how to use it?

Join us as in conversation with on March 20

https://www.oreilly.com/live-events/whats-new-in-ai-generative-ai-with-dan-jeffries/0636920087432/0636920087431/

02/02/2023

What are the scaling laws for Large Language Models and the inverse scaling hypothesis?

How is that related to the Dunning-Kruger effect?

A brief introduction to some arguments for and against scaling as the means towards the goal of better AI models, the Inverse Scaling Prize and its findings



https://linkeddataorchestration.com/2023/02/02/scaling-ai-large-language-models-and-inverse-scaling-hypothesis/

27/01/2023

The last couple of years have been an model arms race

The assumption is that the larger the model the better it will perform. But that may not always be the case.

FAR AI Research Scientist Ian McKenzie is a key member of the team organizing the Inverse Scaling Challenge, an initiative set up to investigate scaling laws. We discuss:
Large Language Models and how they are trained
The scaling laws and how they are being revised as research and development progresses
The Inverse Scaling Challenge and its findings

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ppPUznLDqMY

The last couple of years have been an AI model arms race involving a number of players from industry and research.Google, DeepMind, Meta, Microsoft, in colla...

29/11/2022

could be a disruptive technology

It’s founded on exotic-sounding physics and it bears the promise of solving certain classes of problems with unprecedented speed and efficiency

The problem, however, is that to this day, there has been too much promise and not enough delivery in the field

Perhaps with the exception of

In this exclusive for VentureBeat, CEO Alan Baratz talks about quantum fundamentals as well as the past, present and future of the domain

https://venturebeat.com/ai/quantum-computing-faces-the-ghosts-of-its-past-present-and-future/

10/11/2022

of 5 promises better ease of use & performance through improvements in its query language & engine, as well as automated scale-out & convergence

We discuss this + the bigger picture in the market w for

https://venturebeat.com/data-infrastructure/graph-database-market-maintains-momentum-new-neo4j-5-offers-cloud-and-on-premises-ease-of-use-and-parity/

04/11/2022

With the volume of data in most organizations growing on an ever-growing trajectory and the rise of the data-driven culture, data intelligence is becoming increasingly important and gaining mindshare

According to IDC, the data integration and intelligence software market is valued at more than $7.9 billion and growing toward $11.6 billion over the next four years.

Alation, founded in 2012 and pursuing a strategy of building an ecosystem around data intelligence, announced it has raised $123 million in a series E financing round.

This increases Alation’s valuation by nearly 50% to surpass $1.7 billion and follows five consecutive quarters of accelerated annual growth, including recently surpassing $100 million in annual recurring revenue (ARR).

CEO Satyen Sangani gives the background in my latest for VentureBeat

https://venturebeat.com/data-infrastructure/data-intelligence-platform-alation-bucks-recent-economic-trends-to-raise-123m-and-hit-centaur-status/

01/11/2022

. belongs to the first generation of . He's served as Chief Data Scientist for Databricks, O'Reilly and more

We discuss & trends, as well as new areas for growth, the trouble with unicorns and what to do about it

https://linkeddataorchestration.com/2022/11/01/trends-in-data-and-ai-ben-lorica-on-cloud-platforms-models-and-pegacorns/

25/10/2022

By 2030, the rise in volumes and its resulting increase in adoption will have contributed to a projected $644.96 billion global market size

Now and team up to enhance AIops with Project Wisdom

Read all about it in my latest for VentureBeat, also featuring a podcast conversation with Tom Anderson, VP and GM for Red Hat’s Ansible Business Unit

https://venturebeat.com/ai/red-hat-and-ibm-team-up-to-enhance-aiops-with-an-open-source-project/

13/07/2022

Salesforce's AI Economist research wants to explore the equilibrium between equality and productivity. Featuring Stephan Zheng, Salesforce Lead Research Scientist, Senior Manager, AI Economist Team

Economic theory is known to be constrained by a number of inefficiencies in its modeling. Salesforce researchers claim AI can help address that, leading to more robust economic policies. Article published on ZDNet

11/07/2022

Trends in data and AI: Cloud, platforms, models and Pegacorns. Featuring Gradient Flow Founder Ben Lorica

As Ben Lorica will readily admit, at the risk of dating himself, he belongs to the first generation of data scientists. In addition to having served as Chief Data Scientist for the likes of Databricks and O'Reilly, Lorica advises and works with a number of venture capitals, startups and enterprises,...

30/06/2022

Good enough weather prediction at scale as a big data, internet of things and data science problem. Featuring DTN CTO Lars Ewe

What's a good enough weather prediction? That's a question most people probably don't give much thought to, as the answer seems obvious -- an accurate one. But then again, most people are not CTOs at DTN. Lars Ewe is, and his answer may be different than most people's. With 180 meteorologists on sta...

24/06/2022

Green software is a thing, and this is why you should care about it. Featuring Green Software Foundation Standards Working Group lead Abhishek Gupta

Everything counts in large amounts. You don't have to be Google, or to build large AI models, to benefit from writing efficient code. But how do you measure that? It's complicated, but that does not mean that people are not trying. That's what Abhishek Gupta and the Green Software Foundation (GSF) a...

24/06/2022

Graphs to trees: data, metrics, analytics and regulation for sustainability. Featuring Neural Alpha CEO / Founder James Phare

What does sustainability actually mean for organizations? Can it be measured, and if yes, how? Obvious questions with less than obvious answers, even for sustainability and ESG professionals like James Phare. Phare shares his experience and assessment of sustainability and its relationship with the....

20/06/2022

You.com is taking on Google with AI, apps, privacy, and personalization. Featuring CEO / Founder Richard Socher

Award-winning AI research - check. Startup and enterprise experience - check. Venture capital and Mark Benioff backing - check. Is that enough for Richard Socher's you.com to take on Google? Here is why and how he aims to do that.

07/06/2022

Decision intelligence wants to automate decision making - but how far can you take this? Featuring Aera Technology Founder / CTO Shariq Mansoor

Decision intelligence is one of those terms that sound vaguely familiar, even if you've never come across it before. Like many category-defining terms, it can mean different things to different people. This is a feature category-defining terms either have by design, or acquire through extensive use....

26/05/2022

Managing disaster and disruption with AI, one tree at a time. Featuring AiDash co-founder and CEO Abhishek Singh

It sounds like a contradiction in terms, but disaster and disruption management is a thing. Disaster and disruption is precisely what ensues when catastrophic natural events occur, and unfortunately, the trajectory the world is on seems to be exacerbating the issue. In 2021 alone, the US experienced...

25/05/2022

Could machine learning and operations research lift each other up? Featuring Funartech CEO / Founder Nikolaj van Omme

Is deep learning really going to be able to do everything? Opinions on the potential of this opinion to prove true vary. Geoffrey Hinton, awarded for pioneering deep learning, is not entirely unbiased in so opining. However others, including Hinton's deep learning collaborator Yoshua Bengio, are loo...

24/05/2022

Alation announces Open Data Quality Initiative as part of its data intelligence strategy. Featuring CEO / Co-founder Satyen Sangani

Data quality is part of data intelligence. It's a topic that lot of people are concerned about, and it makes engagement and adoption around data intelligence solutions better. With many data quality solutions with different approaches available in the market, customers need to be able to choose the....