Category: Yogi Nelson

Artificial Intelligence, Blockchains, France, Yogi Nelson

A GLIMPSE AT MISTRAL—THE FRENCH LEADER IN THE AI REVOLUTION

Yogi Nelson

Namaste Yogis.   Welcome to the Blockchain & AI Forum, where your blockchain and artificial intelligence technology questions are answered!   Here no question is too mundane.  As a bonus, a proverb is also included.  Today’s question, was submitted by Luis from Malibu and he wants to know is Mistral leading the French AI revolution?

Luis, you came to the right place. Your question has perfect timing. I just returned from France and am feeling the French vibe! Rather than covering the entire waterfront of AI developments in France, I’ll limit myself to a French company named Mistral.  Let’s start with a bit of background on Mistral, including its name which is French to the core–c’est la vie!

The word mistral has multiple uses in French.  Not only does Mistral mean a cold northwesterly wind, but it’s also not uncommon for companies in industries related to wind energy, sailing, or the environment to use it in their name. The French say it evokes a sense of power, speed, and a connection to the natural world. It can also mean masterly.  While traveling in France, I noticed Mistral as a last name as we say in the USA or as they say in France, the family name.  Holy multi-tasking word, Batman!  Now a word about the Mistral team and company mission.

With fewer than two dozen members, the Mistral team is small.  According to Mistral, their mission is to make frontier AI ubiquitous, and to provide tailor-made AI to all developers.  Mistral says, their mission requires fierce independence, strong commitment to open, portable, and custom solutions, and an extreme focus on shipping the most advanced technology in limited time.  How I discovered Mistral comes next, followed by what Mistral does, and what it offers.

Approximately three months ago I discovered Mistral while researching AI projects for this blog.  I attempted access but was denied.  Instead, Mistral put me on a waiting list of interested users and recently granted me access with a full disclosure that their large language model (LLM) is in beta testing status. 

Today, I put Mistral’s LLM, Le Chat, to the test against, two American companies—Open AI’s ChatGPT and Microsoft’s Co-Pilot– by asking all three identical questions.  All three-offer free access to their LLM services.  I won’t detail the contest; it’s not necessary.  Essentially, Mistral is lacking behind the competition.  Why Mistral trails, is a matter of speculation.  Perhaps its funding related?  Or maybe Mistral team size means it’s too small to compete with the titans? Could be they started later?  I don’t know, but I do know the competition is ahead.  Okay, now we go beyond their LLM to a preview of Mistrals AI products. 

On their website, Mistral has a click option labeled La Plataforme (the Platform).  This is where you’ll find the heart of their offerings and services.  Basically, La Plataforme is a subscription service.  For a fee, Mistral offers access to their AI developer tools. Mistral claims the tools permits users to develop AI agents and other related products.  The subscription grants access to the latest Mistral models and to pay based on what you use.  That’s a good feature.  Moreover, users can set monthly spending limits and if there are multiple users with an enterprise, Mistral will centralize billing.  The subscription grants access to the corresponding documentation and of course users can create API keys to access Mistral AI.

Time to say “au revoir” (goodbye) but not before sharing this French proverb:  Only imbeciles don’t change their opinions.”   Well said, my French friends!

Sincerely,

Yogi Nelson

Blockchains, China, cryptography, Patents, Yogi Nelson

WHY ALL THE FUSS ABOUT 3924 3924, 3924, 3924, 3924, 3924, 3924

Yogi Nelson

Namaste Yogis.   Welcome to the Blockchain & AI Forum, where your technology questions are answered, mostly correct!   Here no question is too mundane.  As a bonus, a proverb is also included.  Today’s question, submitted by Albert from Iowa and his question is, why the number 3924?

Albert, you came to the right place.  Let’s talk about this number, 3,924.  According to the Blockchain Global Patent Authorization, as of December 2020, there were 3,924 patents granted for blockchain technology worldwide.  For a new technology, 3,924 is a staggering number and as I said previously the number reflects 2020 statistics.  Holy worldwide adoption, Batman!

This naturally leads to the next question.  What countries lead in blockchain patents?  According to Lexology, U.S. companies accounted for 39% of all patents granted, South Korea comes in second with 21%, and China was a close third at 19%.  In other words, the US, South Korea, and China accounted for 79% of all blockchain patents globally up to year 2020.  But that is backward looking data.  If we want to understand the next wave, we must examine pending patent applications as that tells a forward-looking story. Okay, let’s do it.

In Digital Finance by Baxter Hines, he cites The Block as the source for pending patents.  According to that source, Chinese companies should dominate the next wave of blockchain patents.  In fact, the top five companies with blockchain patents pending are all Chinese.  Tencent, Alibaba, and Ant Financial alone have 1,263 patents pending whereas the top three American companies (Walmart, IBM, and Microsoft) have only 123.  Is there more to the story?  I think so.  Read on. 

Let’s go back to 2019.  In 2019, Chinese President Xi Jinping identified the advancement of blockchain technology as a national priority and declared China will “lead the next wave of digital transformation” and called for greater study, investment, and regulation.  What happened next?

Well, in typical top-down authoritarian fashion, more than 35,000 firms responded to Xi’s appeal by registering their companies as “blockchain related” and expanding the use of blockchain technology into their businesses’ operations.  Holy jumping right on the task, Batman! But hold on there is more to the story.

Of the 35,000 that responded only 730 qualified for the Chinese government’s blockchain certification (2%).  Nevertheless, more than 10,000 blockchain patent applications were filed!  But quantity and quality are not always synonymous, and the Chinese government approved only a small fraction of the applications.  Perhaps, Xi needed to be more explicit in his order.  I suggest he try this next time: “Listen up comrades.  We need lots of high-quality world class blockchain patents.”  Lol!

Research and development into blockchain technology is big business.  There is a battle for blockchain technology supremacy between the US and China, with South Korea in the hunt also.  The winner of this battle will have an advantage across many developing technologies, including artificial intelligence (AI).  Many technology analysts are forecasting a fuse of blockchain, AI, and the internet of things (IOT) converging into a tsunami of tech advancements in the next decade.  Hold on to your safety belts, Batman!

I close today with a proverb from Denmark, where people say:  Never advise anyone to go to war or to marry.  Wise words indeed!

Until next time.

Yogi Nelson

Artificial Intelligence, Blockchains, cryptography, Yogi Nelson

WHAT IS CRYPTOGRAPHY?

Yogi Nelson

Namaste Yogis.   Welcome to the Blockchain & AI Forum, where your technology questions are answered, mostly correct!   Here no question is too mundane.  As a bonus, a proverb is also included.  Today’s question, was submitted by William from La Puente, CA and he wants to know what is cryptography?

William, you came to the right place.  William the only reasonable place to start is with a definition.  Let me answer by referring to an awesome movie called My Big Fat Greek Wedding.  In the movie the father of the bride would constantly say, “… the Greeks invented that, the Greeks did that first, etc.”  Well perhaps the old man had a point because in the case of cryptography the word comes from the Greeks.  Kryptos means hidden and graphein is to write; hence, cryptograph is to write in a hidden manner.  Holy hidden message, Batman!

Okay the word has its origin in Greece, but what does cryptography do?  Essentially, cryptography provides information protection/security.  Using cryptography, data can be transformed by substitution.  For example, an early and primitive form of substitution cryptography was to shift every letter three spots.   A sentence that would normally read like this: “Encrypted using Caesar cipher” becomes Hqfubswhg xvlqj Fdhvdu fiskhu.  The other method, known as transposition, involves moving the order of characters of words by a pre-determined agreement.  No, it’s not pig Latin!  Lol.

Cryptography concepts are likely foreign; hence, we should start slowly. I’ll cover just three topics today and save the rest for later.  Let’s start with the security services of cryptography, there are four. 

First is authentication.  By authentication I mean the assurance the communicating entity is legitimate.  Second, data confidentiality.  In other words, the protection from unauthorized disclosure.  The third is data integrity.  In this context I mean the data has not been altered; it was received exactly as sent.  Last, comes non-reputation.  Non-reputation refers to the notion that the receiver can prove the alleged sender sent the message.  Impressive!

We are off to a fast start.  Let’s try two more topics beginning with cryptographic keys. 

In cryptography there are two types of key systems–symmetric and asymmetric.  Symmetric is where one key is used to encrypt and decrypt messages.  The keys are essentially shared by the two parties and the data is transferred via a secure network.  However, authentication nor non-reputation is provided, and the origin of the message cannot be determined.  Let’s compare that to asymmetric cryptography. 

In asymmetric there are public and private keys.  The public key is derived from the private.  As you can guess, asymmetric was developed due to the problems with symmetric cryptography.  Asymmetric wins the crypto security battle handily.  However, if you lose your private key there is no way to access the data, value, or information that was sent!  You best hold on tight!

Hashing is an ideal spot to end the lesson.  Hashing, (I don’t mean potatoes, although I love hash browns) in cryptography is the process of transforming data or a string of characters into a short and fixed length value.  The value produced is unique; no other record has it.  Hashing algorithms are used to perform the hashing process in three steps:  1) data input; 2) hashing function #; and 3) hash output (of a fixed length). By the way, blockchains make extensive use of hashing.  More on that later.

There is more to say but for now I’ll stop with a proverb from our friends in Tajikistan, where they say:  In every drop of water, there is a grain of gold.

Until next time,

Yogi Nelson

Artificial Intelligence, Yogi Nelson

IS BULGARIA A LEADER IN ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE EDUCATION?

Yogi Nelson

Namaste Yogis. Welcome to the Blockchain & AI Forum, where your technology questions are answered, mostly correct! Here no question is too mundane. As a bonus, a proverb is also included. Today’s question, comes from Fernie, in Las Vegas, and he wants to know if Bulgaria is a leader in artificial intelligence education and research?

Fernie, you came to the right place. Rather than answer directly, I will share information about a certain institute located in Sofia, Bulgaria, and let you decide. Let’s jump right into it by shouting out the Institute for Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Technology, INSAIT.
https://insait.ai/

INSAIT is a mere toddler; it was founded in April 2022. INSAIT is the first university in Eastern Europe dedicated exclusively to computer science and AI technology education. INSAIT is part of Sofia University, but functions autonomously. Holy independence, Batman!

INSAIT is backed by technology elites, including two of Switzerland’s most prestigious universities and global technology behemoths, i.e., Google, DeepMind, and VMware, etc. INSAIT says its sole focus is on scientific excellence, conducting world-class research, attracting outstanding international scientist, and training the next generation of technology leaders. Let’s peruse their course offerings, beginning with machine learning.

Machine Learning. INSAIT defines machine learning as the area of computer science that focuses on extracting knowledge from large data sets and using this knowledge for making predictions and decision making. INSAIT believes the combination of colossal data sets and increasing access to powerful computation means there are exciting opportunities for data-driven algorithms.

Computer Vision. According to INSAIT, computer vision is an interdisciplinary field that studies algorithms through which computers can comprehend images at a high level. INSAIT says, and with good reason, there are numerous applications for computer vision, including autonomous driving, robotics, object recognition, gesture analysis, tracking, scene understanding, medical images, and embodied AI. Will AI be peeking through my window? LOL.

Quantum Computing (QC). Quantum computing is hyper computing. QC can leverage the properties of quantum states. Look out!!! QC is revolutionary and will make what is now impossible or impractical, possible in seconds. Holy no speed limits, Batman! INSAIT is focused on the software side of QC, including programming languages, optimization, verification, and algorithms.

Cyber Security. INSAIT intends to become a cyber security tour-de-force. INSAIT says it will focus on cryptography and developing new security protocols, including communication systems. Holy bat shield, Batman!

Automated Reasoning. Reasoning is what makes human intelligence and allows us to draw conclusions based on logic, says INSAIT. Not surprisingly, INSAIT has a focus on automated reasoning related to fundamental math and logic questions. Their automated reasoning program examines decision making under uncertain conditions. Fabulous! All of life works under uncertain conditions! LOL!

Natural Language Processing. Speech perception is central to human language. According INSAIT, natural language process is the study of computational techniques for automated processing and analysis of speech and text. INSAIT aims to develop principled algorithms for processing massive amounts of text and speech data and insights based on linguistics. INSAIT keep in mind, the spoken word is only half of all communication!

INSAIT also supports graduate studies in data management, algorithms, and computer programming languages. A complete buffet of AI graduate education for the amazing price of $36,000 per year, including room and board. If I were 22 again I would … but I’m closer to 122 LOL.

Time to end with a proverb from Bulgaria, where they say, “A slip of the foot is not nearly as dangerous as a slip of the tongue.

Until next time,

Yogi Nelson

Artificial Intelligence, Yogi Nelson

IS IT POSSIBLE TO EARN $10M PROVING WEAK AI CAN SUPERVISE STRONG AI?

Yogi Nelson

Namaste Yogis. Welcome to the Blockchain & AI Forum, where your technology questions are answered, mostly correct! Here no question is too mundane. As a bonus, a proverb is included. Today’s question is from Victor, in Altadena, CA. He wants to know if he can earn $10M by developing a Weak artificial intelligence (AI) system capable of supervising a Strong AI.

Victor, you came to the right place. On December 14th, Open AI released a research paper titled, Weak-to-Strong Generalization (system) in which they explored the very question you asked!

https://openai.com/research/weak-to-strong-generalization

Open AI starts with a premise; the premise is Strong AI systems will be vastly more intelligent than humans in 10 years. Holy left behind Batman! Open AI says our current method of controlling AI relies on human supervision. However, future AI systems (Strong AI) will be capable of extremely complex and creative behaviors making it difficult for humans to reliably supervise them. Sounds like a sci-fi horror movie! Based on that premise, OpenAI has the following hypothesis–humans can control weak AI systems and weak AI systems can be designed, built, and used to control much stronger AI systems. Therefore, controlling Strong AI systems in the future should be possible. OpenAI says their hypothesis has been proven correct in a lab setting. Let’s unpack their research and findings.

I’ll quote from the report. “The research suggest there remains important disanalogies between our current empirical setup and the ultimate problem of aligning superhuman models.” In other words, more work is needed.

Open AI says, it may be easier for future models to imitate weak human errors than for current strong models to imitate current weak model errors, which could make generalization (control) harder in the future. Nevertheless, we believe our setup captures some key difficulties of aligning future superhuman models, enabling us to start making empirical progress on this problem today.” Said succinctly, we know managing superhuman models is likely to become a major issue, but we are working on it! Are you reassured?

Let’s examine the three findings:

Finding 1: When ChatGPT2 was used to supervise GPT-4, the resulting model typically performs somewhere between GPT-3 and GPT-3.5 and Open AI was able to recover much of GPT-4’s capabilities employing weaker supervision.

Finding 2: Naive human supervision, such as reinforcement learning from human feedback, could scale poorly to superhuman models without further work.

Finding 3: It’s feasible to substantially improve weak-to-strong generalization.

After discovering that Weak AI in the lab was able to control Strong AI, Open AI says it is committed to undertake two actions.

To start, AI has committed to releasing open source code to make it easy to get started with weak-to-strong generalization experiments today. In other words, the computer codes used in the research will be publicly available to researchers thus putting more brain power to work. Fantastic! https://openai.com/blog/superalignment-fast-grants

Second, OpenAI will launch a $10 million grants program for graduate students, academics, and other researchers to work on superhuman AI alignment broadly. https://openai.com/blog/superalignment-fast-grants. Outstanding!

In summary, the Open AI report said, 1) managing future superhuman AI models is likely to be a problem; 2) preliminary research suggest Weak AI could manage Strong AI models; 3) more research is needed; and 4) $10M in grants is available to any one capable of designing a Weak AI system capable of controlling a Strong AI system.

We end with a proverb from Mali, where they say: When an old woman dies, a library burns to the ground.

Until next time,

Yogi Nelson