Tag Archives: Ai

AI, Database, open source, Technology

A Good Database BUG

People generally do not think of cockroaches positively, but I have nothing but good feelings about CockroachDB. At its core, CockroachDB is resilient and reliable.

Cockroach Labs, a software company known for its cloud-native SQL databases, has found a home in Bengaluru, India. With a rapidly growing team of over 55 engineers specializing in database and cloud engineering, the company’s journey in India is as much about emotional ties as it is about strategic growth.

Bengaluru’s choice is strategic. It offers unparalleled time zone advantages and access to a rich talent pool. With a population of 1.4 billion and a digitizing economy, India is ideal for testing CockroachDB’s resilience and scalability.

The company plans to expand its Bengaluru office into a first-class R&D hub. Teams are working on innovations like vector data integration for AI, enabling operational databases to evolve into systems capable of real-time intelligence.

Building Blocks of CockroachDB

The founders’ lack of a transactional distributed database forced them to use DynamoDB, leading to inefficiencies in their early startup years. This frustration led to the birth of Cockroach Labs in 2014, with a vision to create an open-source, cloud-native distributed database.


I am a HUGE advocate of open-source databases, so this journey is intriguing. Not sitting with inefficiencies but finding a way to grow beyond them is a significant step for any startup.

True to its name, CockroachDB has built a reputation for resilience. It can run seamlessly across cloud providers, private data centers, and hybrid setups, making it a standout choice. Cockroach Labs focuses on eliminating vendor lock-in and ensuring businesses can operate uninterrupted, even during cloud or data center outages. I can’t say enough how important it is not to be locked into one cloud provider. This is a serious flex for an open-source database NOT to be “vendor dependent.” Staying in the driver’s seat and not becoming a passenger or going along for a ride with a service provider is ideal. Retaining the power of “choice” as a customer is priceless. This adaptability has made Cockroach Labs the operational backbone for global giants like Netflix and ambitious startups like Fi.

Sharing some notes on my explorer experience:

Getting Started

Install CockroachDB on Ubuntu (using Bash Shell):

1. Update Your System: First, update your system packages to the latest version:
   
   sudo apt update -y
   sudo apt upgrade -y
   

2. Install Dependencies: Install the required dependencies:
   
   sudo apt install -y apt-transport-https ca-certificates curl software-properties-common
  

3. Download CockroachDB: Download the latest version of CockroachDB:
   
   wget -qO- https://binaries.cockroachdb.com/cockroach-latest.linux-amd64.tgz | tar xvz
   

4. Move CockroachDB Binary: Move the binary to a directory in your PATH:

      sudo cp -i cockroach-latest.linux-amd64/cockroach /usr/local/bin/
   

5. Verify Installation: Verify the installation by checking the CockroachDB version:
   
   cockroach version
   

6. Initialize CockroachDB Cluster: Create a directory for CockroachDB data and initialize the cluster:
   
   sudo mkdir -p /var/lib/cockroach
   sudo chown $(whoami) /var/lib/cockroach
   cockroach start-single-node --insecure --store=/var/lib/cockroach --listen-addr=localhost:26257 --http-addr=localhost:8080
   

7. Connect to CockroachDB SQL Shell: Connect to the CockroachDB SQL shell:
   
   cockroach sql --insecure --host=localhost:26257
   

8. Run CockroachDB as a Background Service: Create a systemd service file to run CockroachDB as a background service:
   
   sudo nano /etc/systemd/system/cockroach.service
   
   Add the following configuration:
   ini
   [Unit]
   Description=CockroachDB
   Documentation=https://www.cockroachlabs.com/docs/

   [Service]
   Type=notify
   ExecStart=/usr/local/bin/cockroach start-single-node --insecure --store=/var/lib/cockroach --listen-addr=localhost:26257 --http-addr=localhost:8080
   TimeoutStartSec=0
   Restart=always
   RestartSec=10

   [Install]
   WantedBy=multi-user.target
   

9. Enable and Start the Service: Reload the systemd manager configuration, start the CockroachDB service, and enable it to run on system startup:
   
   sudo systemctl daemon-reload
   sudo systemctl start cockroach
   sudo systemctl enable cockroach
   sudo systemctl status cockroach
   
CockroachDB is now installed and running on your Ubuntu system.

Cockroach Labs is continuing to invests heavily in AI-specific features, including support for vector similarity searches and operationalizing AI workflows.

Here's an example of how you can use CockroachDB with AI, specifically leveraging vector search for similarity searches:

1. Install CockroachDB: Follow the steps I provided earlier to install CockroachDB on your system.

2. Create a Database and Table: Connect to CockroachDB and create a database and table to store your data:
 
   cockroach sql --insecure --host=localhost:26257
   CREATE DATABASE ai_example;
   USE ai_example;
   CREATE TABLE vectors (id INT PRIMARY KEY, vector FLOAT[] NOT NULL);
 

3. Insert Data: Insert some sample data into the table:(at sql prompt) Steps 3 -5

   INSERT INTO vectors (id, vector) VALUES (1, ARRAY[1.0, 2.0, 3.0]), (2, ARRAY[4.0, 5.0, 6.0]);


4. Enable pgvector Extension**: Enable the `pgvector` extension for vector similarity searches:
sql>
   CREATE EXTENSION IF NOT EXISTS pgvector;


5. Perform Similarity Search**: Use the `pgvector` extension to perform a similarity search:
sql>
   SELECT id, vector, similarity(vector, ARRAY[2.0, 3.0, 4.0]) AS similarity_score
   FROM vectors
   ORDER BY similarity_score DESC;
 

Create a table to store vectors, and perform similarity searches using the `pgvector` extension.

 "pgvector" enables similarity searches by comparing high-dimensional vectors, making it useful for tasks like finding similar items in recommendation systems, which is an AI tool. 

Yes. CockroachDB is compatible with PostgreSQL, which means you can use many PostgreSQL tools, libraries, and client applications. This can be a bridge in learning about this database, which is also a plus.

I am looking forward to testing these new developments from Cockroach Labs. There is a wealth information contained in their repository (linked-below) as well as number of repos from the open-source database community. Their investment in AI is key to the company’ sustainable growth.

https://github.com/cockroachlabs

https://www.cockroachlabs.com

Learn more about pgvector in this repo

AI, LLM, Technology

What’s Cooking in the AI Test Kitchen – RAG

Cooking is one of my favorite hobbies, so I took the opportunity to combine my interest in technology and cooking to discuss this innovative chapter on Generative AI, RAG. First, let’s get the basics out of the way.

What is Generative AI? How is it different from the AI?

Artificial Intelligence (AI)

AI refers to computer systems performing tasks that typically require intelligence. It includes machine learning (ML) and deep learning (DL) methods. AI systems learn from data, identify patterns, and make decisions autonomously. Examples of AI applications include speech recognition and self-driving cars. While AI can simulate thinking processes, it does not have human consciousness.

Generative AI

Generative AI is a subset of AI that focuses on generating content. In contrast to AI, which leads by rules, generative AI employs self-learning models to produce innovative outputs. Examples of AI encompass text generation models like GPT 4 and image creation models like DALL E. This branch of AI merges creativity with innovation, empowering machines to create art, music, and literature. Nonetheless, it encounters challenges related to considerations, bias mitigation, and control over the generated content.

Generally speaking, AI techniques encompass applications, while generative AI stands out for its emphasis on creativity and original content creation. 

Now, back to our test kitchen. Let’s put on our virtual aprons to travel on a flavor-filled journey to understand how RAG (Retrieval-Augmented Generation) works in the realm of Generative AI. Imagine we’re in a busy kitchen, aprons on, ready to cook some insights. Let’s use a basic roasted chicken recipe for this analogy.

The Recipe

Ingredients:

  • Chicken is our base ingredient, representing the raw text or prompt. I recommend cleaned chicken (unbiased).
  • Seasonings: These are the retrieval documents, like a well-stocked spice rack. Each seasoning (document) adds depth and context to our chicken (prompt).

Preparation:

  • Marinating the Chicken: We start by marinating our chicken with the prompt. This is where RAG comes into play. It retrieves relevant documents (seasonings) from its vast knowledge base (like a library pantry).
  • Selecting the Right Spices: RAG carefully selects the most relevant documents (spices) based on the prompt. These could be scientific papers, blog posts, or historical texts. This is my favorite part.

Cooking Process:

  • Simmering and flavor injecting: Just as we simmer our chicken with spices, RAG injects the prompt with context from the retrieved documents. It absorbs the flavors of knowledge, understanding nuances, and connections.
  • Balancing Flavors: RAG balances the richness of retrieved information. Too much spice (document) overwhelms the dish (response), while too little leaves it bland.

Generative Magic:

  • The Cooking Alchemy: Now, the magic happens. RAG combines the marinated prompt with the seasoned context. It’s like a chef creating a new recipe, drawing inspiration from old cookbooks of classic dishes.
  • Creating the Dish: RAG generates an informed and creative response. It’s not just recycling facts; it’s crafting a unique flavor profile.

Serving the Dish:

  • Plating and Garnishing: Our dish is ready! RAG delivers a rich, layered, and tailored response to the prompt—like presenting a beautifully plated meal.
  • Bon Appétit!: The user enjoys the response, savoring the blend of retrieval and generation. Just as a well-seasoned chicken satisfies the palate, RAG satisfies the hunger for knowledge and creativity.

RAG reminds me of a beautiful meal that can satisfy the desires of the most discerning taste. A traveled chef who searches for the best ingredients from around the globe and retrieves them to generate tasteful dishes. So, next time you encounter RAG, think of yourself as a chef creating delightful technology-based feasts.

A curated list of retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) in large language models.

Roasted Garlic Chicken

AI, Technology

It’s a Family Affair with Claude 3

Anthropic announced the Claude 3 model family last month, which sets new industry benchmarks across various cognitive tasks. I am always excited to see what comes from Anthropic, so I was eager to see this group arrive.

The family includes three state-of-the-art models in ascending order of capability: Claude 3 Haiku, Claude 3 Sonnet, and Claude 3 Opus. Each successive model offers increasingly powerful performance, allowing users to select the optimal balance of intelligence, speed, and cost for their specific application.

Opus, Haiku, and Sonnet are now available in claude.ai, and the Claude API is generally available in 159 countries. All Claude 3 models show increased capabilities in analysis and forecasting, nuanced content creation, code generation, and conversing in non-English languages like Spanish, Japanese, and French.

Let’s take a look at each member of the Claude 3 family:

Opus

Opus is considered the most intelligent model. It outperforms its peers on most of the standard evaluation benchmarks for AI systems, including undergraduate-level expert knowledge (MMLU), graduate-level expert reasoning (GPQA), basic mathematics (GSM8K), and more. It exhibits near-human comprehension and fluency levels on complex tasks, leading the frontier of general intelligence. It can navigate open-ended prompts and sight-unseen scenarios with remarkable fluency and human-like understanding. Opus shows us the outer limits of what’s possible with generative AI.

Haiku

Claude 3 Haiku is the fastest, most compact model for near-instant responsiveness. With state-of-the-art vision capabilities, it caters to various enterprise applications, excelling in analyzing large volumes of documents. Its affordability, security features, and availability on platforms like Amazon Bedrock and Google Cloud Vertex AI make it transformative for developers and users alike.

Sonnet

Sonnet balances intelligence, speed, and cost, making it well-suited for various applications. Notably, it is approximately twice as fast as its predecessor, Claude 2.1. Sonnet excels in tasks requiring rapid responses, such as knowledge retrieval and sales automation. Additionally, it demonstrates a unique understanding of requests and is significantly less likely to refuse answers that push system boundaries. With sophisticated vision capabilities, including the ability to process visual formats like photos, charts, and technical diagrams, Claude 3 Sonnet represents a significant advancement in AI language models.

Let’s Talk Capabilities

Near-instant results

The Claude 3 models can power live customer chats, auto-completions, and data extraction tasks where responses must be immediate and real-time.

Haiku is the fastest and most cost-effective model in its intelligence category. It can read an information- and data-dense research paper on arXiv (~10k tokens) with charts and graphs in less than three seconds. Following its launch, Anthropic is expected to improve performance even further.

For the vast majority of workloads, Sonnet is 2x faster than Claude 2 and Claude 2.1 and has higher levels of intelligence. It excels at tasks demanding rapid responses, like knowledge retrieval or sales automation. Opus delivers similar speeds to Claude 2 and 2.1 but with much higher levels of intelligence.

Strong vision capabilities

The Claude 3 models have sophisticated vision capabilities that are on par with other leading models. They can process various visual formats, including photos, charts, graphs, and technical diagrams. Anthropic is providing this new modality to enterprise customers, some of whom have up to 50% of their knowledge bases encoded in PDFs, flowcharts, or presentation slides.

Fewer refusals

Previous Claude models often made unnecessary refusals that suggested a need for more contextual understanding. Anthropic has made substantial progress in this area: Opus, Sonnet, and Haiku are significantly less likely to refuse to answer prompts that border on the system’s guardrails than previous generations of models. The Claude 3 models show a more nuanced understanding of requests, recognize actual harm, and refuse to answer harmless prompts much less often.

Improved accuracy

Businesses of all sizes rely on models to serve their customers, making it imperative for model outputs to maintain high accuracy at scale. To assess this, Anthropic uses many complex, factual questions that target known weaknesses in current models. Anthropic categorizes the responses into correct answers, incorrect answers (or hallucinations), and admissions of uncertainty, where the model says it doesn’t know the answer instead of providing inaccurate information. Compared to Claude 2.1, Opus demonstrates a twofold improvement in accuracy (or correct answers) on these challenging open-ended questions while exhibiting reduced incorrect answers.

In addition to producing more trustworthy responses, Anthropic will soon enable citations in their Claude 3 models so they can point to precise sentences in reference material to verify their answers. This is a plus for any AI tool.

Extended context and near-perfect recall

The Claude 3 family of models initially offered a 200K context window upon launch. However, all three models can accept inputs exceeding 1 million tokens and may make this available to select customers who need enhanced processing power.

To process long context prompts effectively, models require robust recall capabilities. The ‘Needle In A Haystack’ (NIAH) evaluation measures a model’s ability to recall information from a vast corpus of data accurately. Anthropic enhanced the robustness of this benchmark by using one of 30 random needle/question pairs per prompt and testing on a diverse crowdsourced corpus of documents. Claude 3 Opus not only achieved near-perfect recall, surpassing 99% accuracy, but in some cases, it even identified the limitations of the evaluation itself by recognizing that the “needle” sentence appeared to be artificially inserted into the original text by a human.

Responsible design

Anthropologists developed the Claude 3 family of models to be as trustworthy as they are capable. They have several dedicated teams that track and mitigate various risks, ranging from misinformation and CSAM to biological misuse, election interference, and autonomous replication skills. These efforts are much appreciated in a space where misinformation is often overlooked. Anthropologists continue to develop methods such as constitutional AI that improve the safety and transparency of their models, and they have tuned their models to mitigate privacy issues that could be raised by new modalities.

Addressing biases in increasingly sophisticated models is an ongoing effort, and Anthropic has made strides with this new release. They remain committed to advancing techniques that reduce biases and promote greater neutrality in their models.

Easier to use

The Claude 3 models are better at following complex, multi-step instructions. They are particularly adept at adhering to brand voice and response guidelines and developing customer-facing experiences. This is a plus for UX developers. In addition, the Claude 3 models are better at producing popular structured output in formats like JSON, making it more straightforward to instruct Claude on use cases like natural language classification and sentiment analysis.

Claude 3

Now that you’ve been introduced to the Claude 3 model family, the next question is, where do you begin to explore? Haiku, Sonnet, Opus—there isn’t a wrong choice with Claude 3. Each is like a polished gem with different characteristics, intelligence, speed, and versatility. I envision long hours pondering documentation and building with each one of them.

I’m looking forward to the upcoming feature, citations. It’s like adding footnotes to the grand library of AI. Imagine these models pointing to precise sentences in reference material, like scholars citing ancient scrolls. Seriously, I can’t wait for this feature to come out! Claude 3 creates trust and transparency, a solid foundation for AI innovations. The Claude family is a welcome addition to this space. I looked forward to the next chapter with Anthropic. 

Claude 3

Google Cloud and Claude 3

AI, open source, SQL, Technology

Simplifying SQL Generation with Vanna: An Open-Source Python RAG Framework


Handling databases often involves crafting complex SQL queries, which can be daunting for those who aren’t SQL experts. The need for a user-friendly solution to streamline SQL generation has led to the development of Vanna, an open-source Python framework.

The Challenge


Crafting complex SQL queries can be time-consuming and requires a deep understanding of the database structure. Existing methods might assist but often lack adaptability to various databases or compromise privacy and security.

Introducing Vanna


Vanna uses a Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) model to take a unique two-step approach.

How it Works – In Two Steps (clicks)

First, users train the model on their data, and then they can pose questions to obtain SQL queries tailored to their specific database.

Key Features


Simplicity and Versatility: Vanna stands out for its simplicity and adaptability. Users can train the model using Data Definition Language (DDL) statements, documentation, or existing SQL queries, allowing for a customized and user-friendly training process.

Direct Execution:

Vanna processes user queries and returns SQL queries that are ready to be executed on the database. This eliminates the need for intricate manual query construction, providing a more accessible way to interact with databases.

High Accuracy

Vanna excels in accuracy, particularly on complex datasets. Its adaptability to different databases and portability across Language Model Models (LLMs) make it a cost-effective and future-proof solution.

Security Measures

Operating securely, Vanna ensures that database contents stay within the local environment, prioritizing privacy.

Continuous Improvement


Vanna supports a self-learning mechanism. In Jupyter Notebooks, it can be set to “auto-train” based on successfully executed queries. Other interfaces prompt users for feedback and store correct question-to-SQL pairs for continual improvement and enhanced accuracy.

Flexible Front-End Experience


Whether working in Jupyter Notebooks or extending functionality to end-users through platforms like Slackbot, web apps, or Streamlit apps, Vanna provides a flexible and user-friendly front-end experience.

Vanna addresses the common pain point of SQL query generation by offering a straightforward and adaptable solution. Its metrics underscore its accuracy and efficiency, making it a valuable tool for working with databases, regardless of SQL expertise. With Vanna, querying databases becomes more accessible and user-friendly.

As an Engineer who loves working with data, I am looking forward to trying Vanna to level up my SQL development.

GitHub

Documentation

Image Credit: Vanna AI

AI, LLM, open source, Technology

Claude 2.1 Lets Go!

One of the things I appreciate and respect about Anthropic, the creators of Claude, is the transparency of their messaging and content. The content is easy to understand, and that’s a plus in this space. Whenever I visit their site, I have a clear picture of where they are and the plans for moving forward. OpenAI’s recent shenanigans have piqued my curiosity to revisit other chatbot tools. Over a month ago, I wrote a comparative discussion about a few AI tools. One of the tools I discussed was Claude 2.0. Now that Claude 2.1 has been released, I wanted to share a few highlights based on my research. Note most of these features are by invitation only (API Console)or fee-based (Pro Access only) and are not generally available now in the free tier. There is a robust documentation library for Claude to review.

The Basics

  • Claude 2.1 is a chatbot tool developed by Anthropic. The company builds large language models (LLM) as a cornerstone of its development initiatives and its flagship chatbot, Claude.
  • Claude 2.1 manages the API console in Anthropics’s latest release. This AI machine powers the claude.ai chat experience.
  • In the previous version, Claude 2.0 could handle 100,000 tokens that translated to inputs of around 75,000 words.
  • A token is a unit measurement of text AI models use to represent and process natural language. The unit can be code, text, or characters, depending on the method of tokenization used. The unit of text is assigned a numeric value fed into the model.
  • Claude 2.1 delivers an industry-leading 200K token context window, translating to around 150,000 words, or about 500 pages.
  • A significant reduction in rates of model hallucination and system prompts in version 2.1 means more consistent and accurate responses.

200k Tokens Oh My!

Why the increase in the number of tokens? Anthropic is listening to their growing community of users. Based on use cases, Claude was used for application development and analyzing complex plans and documents. Users wanted more tokens to review large data sets. Claude aims to produce more accurate outputs when working with larger data sets and longer documents.

With this increase in tokens, users can now upload technical documentation like entire codebases, technical documentation, or financial reports. By analyzing detailed content or data, Claude can summarize, conduct Q&A, forecast trends, spot variations across several revisions of the same content, and more.

Processing large datasets and leveraging the benefits of AI by pushing the limit up to 200,000 tokens is a complex feat and an industry first. Although AI cannot replace humans altogether, it can allow humans to use time more efficiently. Tasks typically requiring hours of human effort to complete may take Claude a few minutes. Latency should decrease substantially as this type of technology progresses.

Decrease in Hallucination Rates

Although I am interested in the hallucination aspects of AI, for most this is not ideal in business. Claude 2.1 has also made significant gains in credibility, with a decrease in false statements compared to the previous Claude 2.0 model. Companies can build high-performing AI applications that solve concrete business problems and deploy AI with the goal of greater trust and reliability.

Claude 2.1 has also made meaningful improvements in comprehension and summarization, particularly for long, complex documents that demand high accuracy, such as legal documents, financial reports, and technical specifications. Use cases have shown that Claude 2.1 demonstrated more than a 25% reduction in incorrect answers and a 2x or lower rate of mistakenly concluding a document supports a particular claim. Claude continues to focus on enhancing their outputs’ precision and dependability.

API Tool Use

I am excited to hear about the beta feature that allows Claude to integrate with users’ existing processes, products, and APIs. This expanded interoperability aims to make Claude more useful. Claude can now orchestrate across developer-defined functions or APIs, search over web sources, and retrieve information from private knowledge bases. Users can define a set of tools for Claude and specify a request. The model will then decide which device is required to achieve the task and execute an action on its behalf.

The Console

New consoles can often be overwhelming, but Claude made the commendable choice to simplify their developer Console experience for Claude API users while making it easier to test new prompts for faster learning. The new Workbench product will enable developers to iterate on prompts in a playground-style experience and access new model settings to optimize Claude’s behavior. The user can create multiple prompts and navigate between them for different projects, and revisions are saved as they go to retain historical context. Developers can also generate code snippets to use their prompts directly in one of our SDKs. Access to the console is by invitation only based on when this content was published.

Anthropic will empower developers by adding system prompts, allowing users to provide custom instructions to Claude to improve performance. System prompts set helpful context that enhances Claude’s ability to assume specified personalities and roles or structure responses in a more customizable, consistent way that aligns with user needs.

Claude 2.1 is available in their API and powers the chat interface at claude.ai for both the free and Pro tiers. This advantage is for those who want to test drive before committing to Pro. Usage of the 200K token context window is reserved for Claude Pro users, who can now upload larger files.

Overall, I am happy to see these improvements with Claude 2.1. I like having choices in this space and more opportunities to learn about LLM in AI as a technology person interested in large data sets. Claude is on my shortlist.

Originally published at https://mstechdiva.com on November 23, 2023.

AI, LLM, open source, Technology

Open Source AI Gets the Bird

Open source creates opportunities for developers worldwide to work together on projects, share knowledge and collectively enhance software solutions. This inclusive approach not speeds up advancements but also ensures that cutting edge tools and technologies are available to everyone. So it always warms my heart when I see any innovations in this space.

Open source software drives innovation by reducing development costs and ensuring transparency and security. To me it embodies the essence of intelligence, by bringing developers together to learn from each other and shape the future of technology as a united community.

The artificial intelligence community has reached a significant milestone with the introduction of Falcon 180B, an open-source large language model (LLM) that boasts an astonishing 180 billion parameters, trained on an unprecedented volume of data. This groundbreaking release, announced by the Hugging Face AI community in a recent blog post, has already profoundly impacted the field. Falcon 180B builds upon the success of its predecessors in the Falcon series, introducing innovations such as multi-query attention to achieve its impressive scale, trained on a staggering 3.5 trillion tokens, representing the longest single-epoch pretraining for any open-source model to date.

Scaling Unleashed

Achieving this goal was no small endeavor. Falcon 180B required the coordinated power of 4,096 GPUs working simultaneously for approximately 7 million GPU hours, with the training and refinement process orchestrated through Amazon SageMaker. Considering this regarding the size of the LLM, the model’s parameters measure 2.5 times larger than Meta’s LLaMA 2, which had previously been considered the most capable open-source LLM with 70 billion parameters trained on 2 trillion tokens. The numbers and data involved are staggering, its like an analyst dream.

Performance Breakthrough

Falcon 180B isn’t just about scale; it excels in benchmark performance across various natural language processing (NLP) tasks. On the leaderboard for open-access models, it impressively scores 68.74 points, coming close to commercial giants like Google’s PaLM-2 on the HellaSwag benchmark. It matches or exceeds PaLM-2 Medium on commonly used benchmarks like HellaSwag, LAMBADA, WebQuestions, Winogrande, and more and performs on par with Google’s PaLM-2 Large. This level of performance is a testament to the capabilities of open-source models, even when compared to industry giants.

Comparing with ChatGPT

When measured against ChatGPT, Falcon 180B sits comfortably between GPT 3.5 and GPT4, depending on the evaluation benchmark. While it may not surpass the capabilities of the paid “plus” version of ChatGPT, it certainly gives the free version a run. I am always happy to see this type of healthy competition in this space.

The Huggingface community is strong so there is potential for further fine-tuning by the community, which is expected to yield even more impressive results. Falcon 180 B’s open release marks a significant step forward in the rapid evolution of large language models, showcasing advanced natural language processing capabilities right from the outset.

A New Chapter in Efficiency

Beyond its sheer scale, Falcon 180B embodies the progress in training large AI models more efficiently. Techniques such as LoRAs, weight randomization, and Nvidia’s Perfusion have played pivotal roles in achieving this efficiency, heralding a new era in AI model development.

With Falcon 180B now freely available on Hugging Face, the AI research community eagerly anticipates further enhancements and refinements. This release marks a huge advancement for open-source AI, setting the stage for exciting developments and breakthroughs. Falcon 180B has already demonstrated its potential to redefine the boundaries of what’s possible in the world of artificial intelligence, and its journey is just beginning. It’s the numbers for me. I am always happy to see this growth in this space. Yes, “the bird” was always about technology. Shared references give you a great headstart in understanding all about Falcon.

References:

huggingface on GitHub

huggingface Falcon documentation

Falcon Models from Technlogy Innovation Institute

AI, LLM, Technology

The Engineering Mechanics of AI

A new hobby I discovered last year is traditional tabletop puzzles. Building puzzles is a form of Engineering. To illustrate, prompting could be like looking for a puzzle piece. The LLM is trained to search the box for the right puzzle and piece. Let’s shake the box to see what pieces make up an LLM.

What’s in the Box

LLMs, or Large Language Models, are advanced machine learning constructs proficient in handling massive volumes of textual data and producing precise outcomes. Constructed through intricate algorithms, they dissect and comprehend data patterns at the granular level of individual words. This empowers LLMs to grasp the subtleties inherent to human language and its contextual usage. Their virtually boundless capacity to process and create text has fueled their rising prominence across diverse applications, ranging from language translation and chatbots to text categorization.

At their core, Large Language Models (LLMs) serve as fundamental frameworks leveraging deep learning for tasks in natural language processing (NLP) and natural language generation (NLG). These models are engineered to master the intricacies and interconnections of language by undergoing pre-training on extensive datasets. This preliminary training phase facilitates subsequent fine-tuning of models for specific tasks and applications.

LLM Edge Pieces

In a puzzle, the edge pieces are the ones that frame the entire puzzle and give it its shape. Plainly stated, the edges are the most essential pieces of the puzzle. Let’s consider these vital pieces that give LLM its shape and meaning:

Automation and Productivity

Armed with the ability to process large volumes of data, LLMs have become instrumental in automating tasks that once demanded extensive human intervention. Sentiment analysis, customer service interactions, content generation, and even fraud detection are some of the processes that AI has transformed. By assuming these responsibilities, LLMs save time and free up valuable human resources to focus on more strategic and creative endeavors.

Personalization and Customer Satisfaction

The integration of LLMs into chatbots and virtual assistants has resulted in round-the-clock service availability, catering to customers’ needs and preferences at any time. These language models decode intricate patterns in customer behavior by analyzing vast amounts of data. Consequently, businesses can tailor their services and offerings to match individual preferences, increasing customer satisfaction and loyalty.

Enhancing Accuracy and Insights

Meaningful data through insights is an essential attribute of AI. Their capacity to extract patterns and relationships from extensive datasets refines the quality of outputs. These models have demonstrated their abilities to enhance accuracy across various applications, including sentiment analysis, data grouping, and predictive modeling. Their adeptness at extracting intricate patterns and relationships from extensive datasets directly influences the quality of outputs, leading to more informed decision-making.

Language Models Architecture

Autoregressive Language Models

These models predict the next word in a sequence based on preceding words. They have been instrumental in various natural language processing tasks, particularly those requiring sequential context.

Autoencoding Language Models

Autoencoders, conversely, reconstruct input text from corrupted versions, resulting in valuable vector representations. These representations capture semantic meanings and can be used in various downstream tasks.

Hybrid Models

The hybrid models combine the strengths of both autoregressive and autoencoding models. By fusing their capabilities, these models tackle tasks like text classification, summarization, and translation with remarkable precision.

Text Processing

Tokenization

Tokenization fragments text into meaningful tokens, aiding processing. It boosts efficiency, widens vocabulary coverage, and enhances model understanding. This technique increases efficiency and widens the vocabulary coverage, allowing models to understand complex languages better.

Embedding

Embeddings map words to vectors, capturing their semantic essence. These vector representations form the foundation for various downstream tasks, including sentiment analysis and machine translation.

Attention Mechanisms

Attention mechanisms allow models to focus on pertinent information. The mechanisms enable models to focus on relevant information, mimicking human attention processes and significantly enhancing their ability to extract context from sequences.

Pre-training and Transfer Learning

In the pre-training phase, models are exposed to vast amounts of text data, acquiring fundamental language understanding. This foundation is then transferred to the second phase, where transfer learning adapts the pre-trained model to specialized tasks, leveraging the wealth of prior knowledge amassed during pre-training.

The Untraditional Puzzle

Large Language Models (LLM) have demonstrated their effectiveness in enhancing accuracy across various applications, including sentiment analysis, data grouping, and predictive modeling. Their adeptness at extracting intricate patterns and relationships from extensive datasets directly influences the quality of outputs, leading to more informed decision-making.

LLMs are like a giant puzzle with all the pieces coming together to build the model. The difference between LLMs and the traditional puzzle is that a traditional puzzle stops growing once all the pieces are in place. Unlike a traditional puzzle, technological innovations and data gathering will enable the LLM model to continue learning and growing.

AI, LLM, Technology

Drifting through AI

AI drift refers to a phenomenon in artificial intelligence where sophisticated AI entities, such as chatbots, robots, or digital constructs, deviate from their original programming and directives to exhibit responses and behaviors that their human creators did not intend or anticipate.

The accuracy of data is becoming more and more critical as we move forward in this space. Let’s consider “drift” in AI, why it’s happening, and how to monitor it using Machine Learning.

Factors Leading to AI Drift

  • Loosely Coupled Machine Learning Algorithms: Modern AI systems heavily rely on machine learning algorithms that are more interpretive and adaptable. Unlike traditional technologies focused on rigid computing tasks and quantifiable data, AI now embraces self-correcting and self-evolving tools through machine learning and deep learning strategies. This shift allows AI systems to simulate human thought and intelligence more effectively.
  • Multi-Part Collaborative Technologies: AI drift also stems from collaborative technologies, often called “deep stubborn networks.” These technologies combine generative and discriminative components, allowing them to work together and evolve the AI’s capabilities beyond its original programming. This collaborative approach enables AI systems to produce more accessible results and become less constrained by their initial design.

Understanding AI Drift

AI drift, also known as model drift or model decay, refers to the change in distribution over time for model inputs, outputs, and actuals. In simpler terms, the model’s predictions today may differ from what it predicted in the past. There are different types of drift to monitor in production models:

  • Prediction Drift: This type of drift signifies a change in the model’s predictions over time. It can result in discrepancies between the model’s pre-production predictions and its predictions on new data. Detecting prediction drift is crucial in maintaining model quality and performance.
  • Concept Drift: Concept drift, on the other hand, relates to changes in the statistical properties of the target variable or ground truths over time. It indicates a shift in the relationship between current and previous actuals, making it vital to ensure model accuracy and relevance in real-world scenarios.
  • Data Drift: Data drift refers to a distribution change in the model’s input data. Shifts in customer preferences, seasonality, or the introduction of new offerings can cause data drift. Monitoring data drift is essential to ensure the model remains resilient to changing input distributions and maintains its performance.
  • Upstream Drift: Upstream drift, or operational data drift, results from changes in a model’s data pipeline. This type of drift can be challenging to detect, but addressing it is crucial to manage performance issues as the model moves from research to production.

Detecting AI drift: Key factors to consider.

  • Model Performance: Monitoring for drift helps identify when a model’s performance is degrading, allowing timely intervention before it negatively impacts the customer experience or business outcomes.
  • Model Longevity: As AI models transition from research to the real world, predicting how they will perform is difficult. Monitoring for drift ensures that models remain accurate and relevant even as the data and operating environment change.
  • Data Relevance:  Models trained on historical data need to adapt to the changing nature of input data to maintain their relevance in dynamic business environments.

Here’s a front-runner I discovered in my research on this topic:

Evidentlyai, is a game-changing open-source ML observability platform that empowers data scientists and Machine Learning(ML) engineers to assess, test, and monitor machine learning models with unparalleled precision and ease. 

Evidentlyai rises above the conventional notion of a mere monitoring tool or service; it is a comprehensive ecosystem designed to enhance machine learning models’ quality, reliability, and performance throughout their entire lifecycle.

Three Sturdy Pillars

This product stands on three sturdy pillars: Reporting, Testing, and Monitoring. These distinct components offer a diverse range of applications that cater to varying usage scenarios, ensuring that every aspect of model evaluation and testing is covered comprehensively.

  • Reporting: Visualization is paramount in reporting. Love this part. The reporting provides data scientists and ML engineers with a user-friendly interface to delve into the intricacies of their models. By translating complex data into insightful visualizations, Reports empower users to deeply understand their model’s behavior, uncover patterns, and make informed decisions. It’s more than just data analysis; it’s a journey of discovery.
  • Testing: Testing is the cornerstone of model reliability. Evidentlyai’s testing redefines this process by introducing automated pipeline testing. This revolutionary approach allows rigorous model quality assessment, ensuring every tweak and modification is evaluated against a comprehensive set of predefined benchmarks. Evidentlyai streamlines the testing process through automated testing, accelerating model iteration and evolution.
  • Monitoring:  Real-time monitoring is the key to preemptive issue detection and performance optimization. Evidentlyai’s monitoring component is poised to revolutionize model monitoring by providing continuous insights into model behavior. By offering real-time feedback on model performance, Monitoring will empower users to identify anomalies, trends, and deviations, allowing for swift corrective action and continuous improvement.

Evidentlyai

At the heart of Evidentlyai lies its commitment to open-source collaboration. This level of commitment always makes me smile. The platform’s Python library opens up a world of possibilities for data scientists and ML engineers, enabling them to integrate Evidentlyai seamlessly into their workflows. This spirit of openness fosters innovation, accelerates knowledge sharing, and empowers the AI community to collectively elevate model monitoring and evaluation standards.

Evidentlyai is a beacon of innovation, redefining how we approach model monitoring and evaluation. Its comprehensive suite of components, ranging from insightful Reports to pioneering automated Tests and real-time Monitors, showcases a commitment to excellence that is second to none. As industries continue to harness the power of AI, Evidentlyai emerges as a vital companion on the journey to model reliability, performance, and success. Experience the future of model observability today, and embrace a new era of AI confidence with Evidentlyai.

AI drift is an essential aspect of machine learning observability that cannot be overlooked. By understanding and monitoring different types of drift, data scientists and AI practitioners can take proactive measures to maintain the performance and relevance of their AI models over time. As AI advances, staying vigilant about drift will be critical in ensuring the success and longevity of AI applications in various industries. Evidentlyai will play a large part in addressing this issue in the future.

GitHub Test ML Models with Evidentlyai.

image credit – suspensions