Amazon Offers Free AI Training to 2 Million
Plus: Microsoft research drops Orca 2, Runway's new features and updates.
Hello Engineering Leaders and AI Enthusiasts!
Welcome to the 151st edition of The AI Edge newsletter. This edition brings you Amazon’s new AI initiatives to address the AI skills gap.
And a huge shoutout to our amazing readers. We appreciate you😊
In today’s edition:
🌐 Amazon to offer free AI training to 2 million people
🧠 Microsoft research drops Orca 2 with stronger reasoning
🚀 Runway released new features and updates
📚 Knowledge Nugget: Mastering Claude AI by
Let’s go!
Amazon to offer free AI training to 2 million people
Amazon is announcing “AI Ready,” a new commitment designed to provide free AI skills training to 2 million people globally by 2025. It is launching new initiatives to achieve this goal:
8 new, free AI and generative AI courses open to anyone and aligned to in-demand jobs. It includes courses for business and nontechnical audiences as well as developer and technical audiences.
Through the AWS Generative AI Scholarship, AWS will provide Udacity scholarships, valued at more than $12 million, to more than 50,000 high school and university students from underserved and underrepresented communities globally.
New collaboration with Code.org designed to help students learn about generative AI.
Amazon’s AI Ready initiative comes as new AWS study finds strong demand for AI talent and the potential for workers with AI skills to earn up to 47% more in salaries.
Why does this matter?
These initiatives remove cost as a barrier for many to access these critical skills, which can help address the growing AI skills gap.
It is also worth noting that other notable players like Google, Nvidia, IBM, and Microsoft are also offering courses and resources for Generative AI. While this highlights the competitive nature in the industry, it will contribute to the collective advancement of AI.
(Source)
Microsoft research drops Orca 2 with stronger reasoning
A few months ago, it introduced Orca, a 13B language model that demonstrated strong reasoning abilities by imitating the step-by-step reasoning traces of more capable LLMs.
Orca 2 continues to show that improved training signals and methods can empower smaller language models to achieve enhanced reasoning abilities, which are typically found only in much larger language models. Orca 2 models match or surpass other models, including models 5-10 times larger, as assessed on complex tasks that test advanced reasoning abilities in zero-shot settings.
Results comparing Orca 2 (7B and 13B) to LLaMA-2-Chat (13B and 70B) and WizardLM (13B and 70B) on variety of benchmarks.
Why does this matter?
These findings underscore the value of smaller models in scenarios where efficiency and capability need to be balanced. As larger models continue to excel, options like Orca 2 and Mistral 7B marks a significant step in diversifying the applications and deployment options of language models.
Runway released new features and updates
The updates aim to provide more control, greater fidelity and even more expressiveness when using Runway.
Gen-2 Style Presets: They allow you to generate content using curated styles without the need for complicated prompting, from glossy animations to grainy retro film stock and everything in between, Style Presets bring more styles to your stories.
Director Mode Updates: Director Mode’s advanced camera controls have been updated to allow for a more granular level of control. Now you can adjust camera moves using fractional numbers for greater precision and intention.
New Image Model Update: Improved fidelity, greater consistency and higher resolution generations are now available in Text to Image, Image to Image and Image Variation.
Add these tools to your Image to Video workflow for more storytelling control than ever before. These updates are now available to all users.
Why does this matter?
After the Motion Brush update, these updates mark another major stepping stone towards Runway’s goal of unlocking an unprecedented level of creative control and storytelling capabilities for everyone.
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Knowledge Nugget: Mastering Claude AI- A Comprehensive Guide on How to Use It Like a Pro
While GPT-4 stands tall with a rich array of features and advanced functionalities, Anthropic’s Claude has also carved out a niche where it excels. It is maximized for for helpfulness, honesty, and most importantly harmlessness. Plus, it is trained on latest data.
This article by
delves into the groundbreaking features of Claude and equips you with exclusive tips and insights to leverage its full potential. It gives a step-by-step process to explore the specific capabilities of Claude, how to effectively prompt it, and its limitations.Why does this matter?
Why should one's expertise be limited solely to using ChatGPT or any singular AI tool? Claude is probably the best after GPT-4. Embracing diversity of AI tools/platforms not only expands individual skill sets but is useful adapt to the changing technological landscape. (What if enterprises switch to Anthropic due to OpenAI’s ongoing crisis? Just something to think about)
What Else Is Happening❗
📰The OpenAI debacle continues; here are (some) more updates that followed.
Microsoft is eyeing a seat on OpenAI’s revamped board (if Sam Altman returns). OpenAI customers are looking for exits– 100+ customers contacted Anthropic over the weekend, others reached out to Google Cloud and Cohere, some are considering Microsoft’s Azure service. When OpenAI’s board approached Anthropic about a merger, it was quickly turned down. Salesforce wants to hire OpenAI researchers OpenAI research with matching compensation. Looks like resolving this crisis is crucial for OpenAI’s survival and relevance.
🔌Dell, HP and Lenovo will be the first to integrate NVIDIA Spectrum-X Ethernet.
Integrating the new Ethernet networking technologies for AI into their server lineups will help enterprise customers speed up generative AI workloads. Purpose-built for generative AI, Spectrum-X can achieve 1.6x higher networking performance for AI communication versus traditional Ethernet offerings. (Link)
🇨🇦Canadian Chamber of Commerce forms AI council with tech giants.
The 30-member Future of AI Council will be co-chaired by Amazon and SAP Canada. Other members include Meta, Google, BlackBerry, Cohere, Scotiabank, and Microsoft. It will advocate for government policies to be centred on the responsible development, deployment, and ethical use of AI in business. (Link)
💬WhatsApp’s new AI assistant answers your questions and helps plan your trips.
WhatsApp beta for Android now has a new shortcut button that lets users quickly access its AI-powered chatbot without having to navigate through the conversation list. The new AI chatbot button is located in WhatsApp’s ‘Chats’ section and placed on top of the ‘New Chat’ button. However, it seems to be limited to a handful of users. (Link)
🤝L&T and NVIDIA to develop software-defined architectures for medical devices with AI.
L&T Technology Services Limited has announced a collaboration with NVIDIA to develop software-defined architectures for medical devices focused on endoscopy, which will enhance the image quality and scalability of products. (Link)
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