Legal
AI’s copyright problem will soon slow adoption, Gartner says
WARNING: Gut Response To Follow. I hate to trust my gut, but my gut tells me the copyright issue is not going to be a big issue. I feel like this is the same as the hand wringing that occurred before GDPR was announced. That all turned out to be a lot about nothing. Between vendor indemnification of customers, on-prem training, and what I feel to be an inevitable fair use ruling by courts, I believe this to be a non-issue. That said, CIOs need to be aware of this problem.
Language Models
Anthropic releases Claude 3 Haiku, an AI model built for speed and affordability
I believe the biggest impediment to the adoption of large language models is the cost of running them. Running open-source models is the preferred vector for cost sensitive CIOs. Vendors, like Anthropic, are searching for the sweet spot between utility and cost. Their latest model, Haiku, promises to do find that spot for enterprise customers. Time will tell whether there’s value there.
Security
Open source is not insecure
Speaking of open source language models, a lingering concern is about security of these open source models in particular, and open source tech in general. One of the most notorious security vulnerabilities of recent memory, Log4Shell, was in an open source Apache library. The lesson of Log4Shell is not that open source is bad for security, it’s that it’s good for security. It was found and patched quickly precisely because it was visible and not hidden behind some proprietary fire-wall. A bigger concern these days is the software supply chain and vulnerabilities in how technology gets packaged and distributed. This article is a nice break down of the trust non-issue in open source.
Technology
GraphRAG: Unlocking LLM discovery on narrative private data
This is a good read for non-technical folks trying to understand how Retrieval Augmented Generation (RAG) and a relatively newer technique, GraphRAG, work to improve Large Language Model (LLM) responses.
Shameless Plug
B2B Wins #27: Shadow IT is Real IT
Shadow IT has been a pejorative for some time but it’s time for it to come out of the shadows. Interesting innovation is happening at the edges of IT spend. Also, individual utility, often diminished when centralized technology is deployed to the average work, soars when someone finds the right app to make their work easier. Shadow IT is Real IT.