How I Manage to Stay Up-to-Date in AI

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Many people have asked me how I stay up-to-date with all the innovations in the fast-paced artificial intelligence (AI) world. In this article, I'll share my strategies—from regularly attending webinars to participating in AI communities—that help me keep informed and ahead in this ever-evolving field.

Today, I’ll cover:

• Podcasts I Listen to Weekly

• Social Media Accounts I Follow

• Newsletters I Am Subscribed To

• Companies I Track

• My Biggest Secret to Absorbing All the Information

Let’s Dive In! 🤿

Podcasts I Listen to Weekly

There are only three podcasts that I listen to weekly; even though I would love to listen to more, I don’t have time.

• All In Podcast: podcast not solely focused on AI; it covers a wide range of topics including economics, technology, politics, social issues, and poker. The hosts—Chamath, Jason, Sacks, and Friedberg—are successful tech veterans, executives, and investors. Given that AI frequently makes headlines, they also discuss this market's latest innovations and opportunities very engagingly.

• The AI Podcast is produced by Nvidia. Each episode focuses on one person, one interview, and one story. I like it because it emphasizes AI's impact on our world and covers a wide range of use cases.

• Latent Space: the most technical, from AI Engineers to AI Engineers. It covers in-depth new AI technology with a big focus on Open Source and how to cover all topics from chips to training LLMs to cost-effectively building scalable Generative AI systems.

I also watch all the videos on YouTube from Matthew Berman. He conducts technical deep dives into new models, gives a first test of their performance, and tests new tools that come to market. I enjoy his technical videos and the way he communicates his first impressions of new technology.

Social Media Accounts I Follow

I primarily use X to stay updated on all the latest AI news. X is a hub where industry experts share real-time updates and insights. It's difficult to list everyone I follow, but my feed is focused entirely on AI content. Below are my top picks who consistently post high-quality updates.

On X:

• Bindu Reddy: CEO of Abacus AI, using Gen AI to build Applied AI and LLM agents and systems at scale, ex-AWS / Google. Her tweets are technical, provocative, and fun.

• Jerry Liu, CEO and Founder of LlamaIndex, will provide many updates on their project and examples of famous use cases with engaging videos and links to tutorials.

• Andrew Ng: Stanford professor and AI luminary, co-founder of Google Brain and Coursera, shares insights on AI research and applications through his active X presence.

• Yann LeCun: French computer scientist known for his pioneering work in deep learning and convolutional neural networks, and he is the founding Director of Facebook AI Research (FAIR).

• Rowan Cheung: founder of the rundown AI newsletter, shares the latest developments in artificial intelligence.

• Jim Fan: Researcher at Nvidia, he explains advanced AI innovations and is now focused on Foundation Models for Humanoid Robots.

On Linkedin:

• Philipp Schmid: Technical Lead at HuggingFace, publishes a lot about new Open Source releases and innovations.

• Allie Miller: we worked together at IBM; she previously worked as Head of Business Development for Startups at Amazon. She shares a lot of updates and tips on how to apply AI for Business.

• Aishwarya Srinivasan: I am a great friend and ex-colleague of IBM. She worked at Google and is now an AI Advisor at Microsoft AI. She posts a lot of educational content about AI to help you get the right skills.

• Bojan Tunguz: senior Systems Software Engineer at Nvidia. He posts insightful content about AI (and xgboost!).

Newsletters I Am Subscribed To

There are many newsletters out there, but I decided to trim it down to just four right now. I like to get the latest news and trends directly in my inbox.

• The Algorithm: by MIT Technology Review, great to explore and clarify AI breakthroughs weekly and discuss unexpected impacts.

• The Rundown AI: My favorite one to get the latest news in AI every day.

• The Augmented Advantage: I enjoyed Tobias’ newsletter because it explained the practical application of AI in business.

• Alpha Signal: too many papers, too little time to read them all. Get a weekly summary of the top innovations from the researcher community.

Companies I Track

Follow innovative companies' frequent demos, blogs, presentations, events, and publications on social media to stay updated.

Big Tech companies:

• IBM

• Meta 

• Nvidia

• Google

• Microsoft

• Salesforce

Startups:

• OpenAI

• Mistral AI

• Cohere

• HuggingFace

• Anthropic

• Databricks

• Runway

I also like to track startups that are part of YCombinator. I usually end up following them on X and connecting with the founders of those that interest me.

My Biggest Secret to Absorbing All the Information

My biggest secret to effectively absorbing information is diligent note-taking. Whenever I encounter exciting insights, I make sure to jot them down. Additionally, I distill these ideas into posts and newsletters. This practice helps me simplify complex information and enhances my understanding and retention, allowing me to internalize everything I learn more deeply.

The list above is a good starting point; I'm sure I forgot many. None of the links are sponsored.

For me, AI is both my passion and obsession. While it may seem like a lot of content, I consume it in bits and pieces throughout the day. Staying up-to-date is also a crucial part of my job.

Enjoy the weekend, folks!

Armand

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