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STOP ACTING LIKE YOU'RE FAMOUS

Focus on what makes you enjoy your leisure activities and stop optimizing for a non-existent audience.

MISTRAL SEEKING FUNDING AT $5B VALUATION

There have been reports of the open source pioneer Mistral seeking several hundred million dollars of funding to train more models.

STABILITY AI MAKES THE STABLE DIFFUSION API AVAILABLE

Stability AI has made its latest text-to-image AI model, Stable Diffusion 3, available to some developers via API and its new content creation platform called Stable Assistant Beta. The model is still in preview and not yet available to the general public.

EUROPEAN CAR MANUFACTURER WILL PILOT SANCTUARY AI'S HUMANOID ROBOT

Sanctuary AI will deliver its humanoid robot, Phoenix, to a Magna auto manufacturing facility, following Magna's 2021 investment in the company. Phoenix is notable for its walking capability and dexterous hands aimed at enhancing manufacturing efficiency. The specifics of the pilot, including the number of robots and deployment details, remain undisclosed.

MISTRAL 8X22B REPORT AND INSTRUCTION MODEL

The new base Mistral report was released today. Additionally, their own instruction tuned model was released under a similar permissive license. They report a strong MMLU and HumanEval performance along with incredible multilingual English, French, Italian, German, and Spanish performance, function calling, and 64k native context length.

HOW TO IMPROVE 24 POINTS IN MMLU WITH OLMO

The latest completely open 7B language model had an upgrade with a much-improved reasoning score on MMLU. Its development team found that changing the data mixture had a substantial effect on performance. They have provided the exact statistics of new data sources and percentages that led to this improvement.

STABLE AUDIO PAPER

This paper describes Stability AI's diffusion transformer model for audio synthesis.

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THE CHALLENGES OF GETTING ML MODELS TO PRODUCTION

A deep dive interview from industry experts on the challenges and solutions of getting AI models into production and where MLOps differs from traditional engineering. They discuss why so few ML projects make it to production and how to focus as an organization to actually launch.

EFFORT

The Effort library allows for real-time adjustment of the number of calculations performed during inference of an LLM model, resulting in significant speed improvements while retaining most of the quality. Despite some implementation overhead, initial results suggest that the Effort library has the potential to significantly improve LLM inference speed while maintaining quality. The author encourages others to test the 0.0.1B version and provide feedback to further improve the library.

IMAGE CAPTIONING WITH DIFFUSION MODELS

This study revisits using diffusion models for image-to-text generation. It introduces the LaDiC architecture, which enhances diffusion models' performance in image captioning tasks.

DRIVING WITH NATURAL LANGUAGE

Wayve's Lingo-2 is a VLM train in simulation for autonomous driving tasks. It performs driving actions based on video input. Lingo-2 includes descriptions of reasoning for the driving actions it takes based on the scene.

IS ATTENTION ALL YOU NEED?

Researchers are developing alternative architectures to address the limitations of Transformers in long-context learning, generation, and inference speed, showing competitive quality at smaller scales but uncertain scalability. The rapid progress in this subfield suggests that the Pareto frontier will continue to expand, enabling longer context modeling and greater inference throughput, ultimately increasing the number of use cases for AI.

THE SHIFTING DYNAMICS AND META-MOATS OF AI

Building a successful AI company requires navigating complex short, mid, and long-term dynamics and maintaining elite speed and execution, owning more of the stack, gathering unique data, and leveraging synthetic data generation. As the AI industry matures, companies must adapt to shifting talent dynamics and understand the machine they are building and the axes of competition they are predicated on to create lasting moats and stand out amidst the noise.

VERIFY WEIGHTS DDP PYTORCH (GITHUB GIST)

Verifying training when sharding across devices can be challenging - this handy snippet verifies that things have been done and updated properly.

LUMINAL

Luminal is a deep learning library that uses composable compilers to achieve high performance.

GOOGLE MAPS WILL USE AI TO HELP YOU FIND OUT-OF-THE-WAY EV CHARGERS

Google Maps will use AI to summarize directions to EV chargers as well as provide reliability and wait times.

LUMMIS, GILLIBRAND INTRODUCE BILL PROHIBITING UNBACKED ALGORITHMIC STABLECOINS AMONG OTHER REGULATORY FRAMEWORKS

Senators Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) and pro-crypto Cynthia Lummis (R-WY) released the Lummis-Gillibrand Payment Stablecoin Act to regulate the stablecoin industry. The act would require stablecoin issuers to hold one-to-one cash or cash-equivalent assets and prohibit unbacked algorithmic stablecoins. If an issuer experiences insolvency, there would be an FDIC conservatorship and resolution. There are some concerns that the bill is too strict with its definition of cash equivalents and that it could prohibit innovation with new stablecoin designs.

BLACKROCK'S “WHAT IS BITCOIN” VIDEO

BlackRock recently released a video about its Bitcoin ETFs, calling Bitcoin “the most widely adopted digital asset in the world.” The asset management firm's US Head of Thematics and Alternative ETFs, Jay Jacobs, noted the cryptocurrency's immense status and promise in a video published this week.

KRAKEN LAUNCHES SELF-CUSTODIAL WALLET

Kraken has launched a self-custodial wallet, allowing users to manage NFTs and tokens and conduct DeFi transactions across 8 blockchain networks. The Kraken team published the app's open-source code on GitHub for enhanced security through third-party review. The wallet is considered a hot wallet due to current iOS limitations. Kraken is committed to security and transparency.

WORLDCOIN TO LAUNCH LAYER 2

Worldcoin is set to launch its own Ethereum Layer 2 blockchain, "World Chain", to improve its ability to onboard new users. The Layer 2 is designed to prioritize human-verified users, with benefits like priority block space and free gas. World Chain is expected to be released this Summer.

WHAT ARE RUNES? A GUIDE TO THE NEW FUNGIBLE TOKEN PROTOCOL ON BITCOIN

The Runes protocol, set to launch in April 2024, is a new fungible token standard on Bitcoin that aims to improve upon the shortcomings of its predecessor, BRC-20. By integrating with Bitcoin's existing UTXO model and utilizing OP_RETURN for data storage, Runes minimizes on-chain footprint and network congestion while offering a more user-friendly and accessible token creation process.

2024: THE YEAR OF CRYPTO'S MODULAR EXPANSION

Modularity breaks up blockchain functionality into three parts — data availability and consensus, settlement, and execution — each of which gets its own chain or environment. Prominent projects exist in each sector, along with interoperability to unite liquidity, with the goal of integrating together to make something greater than the sum of their parts. The commoditization of block space and execution will enable applications to operate at much larger scales with grander visions.

FARAWAY ACQUIRES SOME YUGA LABS IP

Faraway, a gaming studio, has acquired the Legends Of The Mara and HV-MTL brands from Yuga Labs. It plans to integrate them into Faraway gaming products while maintaining close ties to Yuga and Otherside. Spencer Tucker, Yuga's Chief Gaming Officer, will move to Faraway as Chief Product Officer to ensure a seamless transition.

PRIVACY BY DEFAULT ON L1S?

Legendary cryptographer Wei Dai weighs in on the pros and cons of whether a base layer like Ethereum should offer privacy by default. On one hand, it is technically feasible for privacy to be implemented, and having it as the default option makes it much more normalized, especially for users from traditional finance. On the other hand, this would be incredibly complex to implement, remove some level of neutrality, and not align with the rollup-centric roadmap's idea of end users never interacting with the base chain. Dai leans towards a transparent base layer with L2s and apps leading the experimentation with privacy based on their goals.

VENOM BLOCKCHAIN – A THREADED VIRTUAL MACHINE

Venom is a Threaded Virtual Machine (TVM) with features like account abstraction and dynamic sharding to improve transaction speed and reliability.

RAGNAROK ONLINE COMING TO RONIN BLOCKCHAIN

The game integrates tower defense and monster collection gameplay and is a collaboration between Gravity and Ronin's developer Sky Mavis.

“X TO EARN”

Crypto adoption will shift from buying tokens to stake and trade to earning them through new user experiences like gaming.

HOW TO RESEARCH A TOKEN USING ONCHAIN DATA

Nansen explains how to use its onchain data to analyze tokens, using PENDLE as an example.

VIRGIN WINES CELEBRATES THE 'JOY OF WINE' IN ITS FIRST MAJOR REBRAND IN 20 YEARS

Virgin Wines partnered with Norwich agency Borne for its first major rebrand in 20 years, unveiling a new logo and color palette aimed at highlighting the joy of wine and enhancing perceptions of expertise and quality. The swirling logo, inspired by wine in a glass, features gradient colors representing various wine types and reflects Virgin Wines' commitment to authenticity and premium experiences.

WHAT WE LAUNCHED AT FRAMEWORK

Figma announced Code Connect for developers, typography and gradient variables, and the Library Analytics API during its Framework event, which focused on design systems. Code Connect, a Dev Mode tool, imports production-ready code snippets directly into the platform. Typography and gradient variables give designers new levels of control, scalability, and accessibility. The Library Analytics API enables enterprise customers to store and analyze library data outside of Figma.

ENHANCE VISUAL STORYTELLING IN DEMAND GEN WITH GENERATIVE AI

Last year, Google launched Demand Gen campaigns to help advertisers increase demand using visual storytelling. New generative image tools make it easy for creatives and advertisers to create stunning, high-quality images in a few steps using prompts. The new capabilities will optimize the testing of creative concepts, whether you're experimenting with different types of images or building your own from scratch.

WHAT'S THE RECIPE FOR A SUCCESSFUL HANDOFF?

Lack of communication, inadequate documentation, and an outdated mindset are common design handoff problems. To avoid developer frustration, work with them on the best documentation format, align to the development framework, give them more context, and provide onboarding for navigating your files. Maintain open communication channels, don't over-rely on tools, and structure your handover process in line with your reality.

THE ART & SCIENCE OF TYPOGRAPHY IN 100 PRINCIPLES

DON'T MAKE “DATA-DRIVEN PRODUCT DECISIONS”—BUILD A DATA-DRIVEN SEMANTIC ENVIRONMENT

Quality decision-making requires building a shared mental model among those who make those decisions. An organization's semantic environment is determined by its beliefs, experiences, and preferences. However, these should be checked against users' reality, or your company will decide based on partially selected data to support a particular viewpoint.

SHAPE OF AI

A collection and documentation of what AI looks like in UI, its core interactions, and patterns.

CONTRIBUTE TO YOUR TEAM'S UI CODEBASE

Onlook empowers designers to streamline the product development process while saving countless hours for their team.

VISUAL IDE OPTIMIZED FOR DESIGN

Henosia connects directly to your team's code repository to visually edit and preview code for designers.

HOW COLOR MAKES THESE KOBO E-READERS WAY MORE USEFUL

Kobo's new color e-readers, the Libra Colour and Clara Colour, feature E INK Kaleido 3 screens, which offer 16 grayscale levels and 4,096 colors, enhancing reading experiences. Retaining traditional e-reader benefits like long battery life and lightweight design, color e-readers are ideal for reading textbooks, highlighting text, making notes, and creating illustrations, making them more versatile than traditional e-readers.

THE EVOLUTIONARY DESIGN OF UP

Up is an Australian mobile-only digital bank with a mission to reinvent banking while making it more fun. Up revolutionizes banking by challenging traditional design assumptions and adopting a user-centric approach to design inspired by popular apps. It promotes better financial literacy through streamlined onboarding and accessible, modern security measures.

HOW TO BECOME A MORE STRATEGICALLY MINDED DESIGNER?

Designing strategically is usually about considering the big picture, understanding overarching goals, conducting tests, and learning as you go. The broader scenario requires empathy, which can be developed by talking to stakeholders and department leads about the project objectives and context. If you are hired for a high-level strategic project, you must make trade-off decisions related to business strategy.

SURFACE AREA VS. DEPTH IN PRODUCT DESIGN

You can improve product value without adding unnecessary complexity.

4 QUESTIONS I ASK MYSELF WHEN DESIGNING

Are we answering the right question? What's the simplest version of this? What's the most magical version of this? What would get somebody to talk about this?

ETHICS IN TIMES OF GROWTH DESIGN

Even in tough times like these, growth design projects can and should still be ethical and provide users with real value.

Passage by 1Password. See you there!

IS THE ‘DEAD INTERNET' THEORY SUDDENLY COMING TRUE?

The “Dead Internet” theory not only suggests that AI-generated content is replacing human-created content online, but that this was purposely orchestrated by governments and corporations to control public perception. It was once dismissed as a conspiracy, but the theory has been gaining credibility again as AI advances. AI has been flooding social media platforms with what's referred to as “AI slime”. This influx of AI-generated content poses challenges for users and advertisers, who may struggle to discern authenticity and engagement.

YOUTUBE INTRODUCES MORE AD TARGETING OPTIONS FOR SHORTS

YouTube has introduced targeted ad options for Shorts, empowering advertisers to reach audiences interested in specific topics like sports, gaming, food, and fashion. This move enhances ad customization and provides advertisers with greater control over their campaigns.