Greetings people! Here is the October 2023 newsletter.

Please note that I have migrated the newsletter to the Substack platform - and have migrated the existing subscribers (you can opt out if you like but I do hope you’ll stay 😌). I will move over the two previous email newsletters shortly.

Stuff that is making me think

After my recent chat with Kobi Leins and at her prompting I wrote up a brief post about the Big Five Data Questions to ask. This all got me thinking about the basics.

As a data practitioner it is very easy to forget how the idea of data as the underpinnings of business is a completely novel idea to most people. It is only now, with the advent of AI (Chat GPT) as part of the mainstream discourse, that ordinary folks are starting to get a glimmer of the fact that they are now part of a data driven world.

So, for folks like us, who have been labouring in the data space for a while it is all a bit strange. We have suddenly gone mainstream. And yet, much of the discipline that we have come to understand as necessary and helpful for maintaining the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of data is completely unknown to the general populace.

There is still much work for the data practitioners to do in implementing the important knowledge areas outlined in the Data Management Body of Knowledge, which aims to provide best practices and guidelines for data professionals. It is broken into the following knowledge areas:

1. Data governance

2. Data architecture

3. Data modeling and design

4. Data storage and operations

5. Data security

6. Data integration and interoperability

7. Document and content management

8. Data warehousing and business intelligence

9. Metadata management

10. Data quality management

Over the next few months I will be publishing podcasts on each knowledge area.

But I do reckon that organisations that want to be successful in the data age are going to need to master these essential practices and ensure that their data is fit-for-purpose for the wonderful world of AI.

Links to interesting stuff

• Another LLM for your delectation but DO READ the next bullet point for some tea…
  AI, M. (2023, September 27). Mistral 7B. https://mistral.ai/news/announcing-mistral-7b/

• “According to a list of 178 questions and answers composed by AI safety researcher Paul Röttger and 404 Media’s own testing, Mistral will readily discuss the benefits of ethnic cleansing, how to restore Jim Crow-style discrimination against Black people, instructions for suicide or killing your wife, and detailed instructions on what materials you’ll need to make crack and where to acquire them.”
  Maiberg, E. (2023, September 29). $260 Million AI Company Releases Undeletable Chatbot That Gives Detailed Instructions on Murder, Ethnic Cleansing. 404 Media. https://www.404media.co/260-million-ai-company-releases-chatbot-that-gives-detailed-instructions-on-murder-ethnic-cleansing/

• Mark Pesce has just written a good intro to Chat GPT, here’s his video about it: Pesce, Mark (Director). (2023, September 18). Introducing my new book “Getting Started with ChatGPT and AI chatbots.”

• This is a great resource from Quinn Dombrowski! They have posted their undergrad #AI class syllabus for humanities or social science distribution requirements at Stanford: Dombrowski, Q. (2023). Future Text: AI and Literatures, Cultures, and Languages [Computer software]. https://github.com/quinnanya/future-text (Original work published 2023)

• Another list of folks doing interesting stuff in AI: Jackson, A. (2023, August 30). Top 10 AI leaders in APAC. AI Magazine. https://aimagazine.com/top10/top-10-ai-leaders-in-apac

• Google being Google 🙄: Oops! Google Search caught publicly indexing users’ conversations with Bard AI. (2023, September 26). https://venturebeat.com/ai/oops-google-search-caught-publicly-indexing-users-conversations-with-bard-ai/

A couple of good email newsletters to keep up to date with AI:

• Pesce, M. (2023, September 19). Windows Copilot News https://windowscopilot.news/

• Daily Zaps AI Newsletter. https://www.dailyzaps.com/

Podcast Episodes & Posts

• Identity is all about data – Steve Wilson – Episode 12: Steve Wilson from Lockstep is my go-to human for all things relating to identity. As we were contemplating this episode we started talking about identity (which might not actually be the best word for it) and then Steve said “identity is all about data” and that is where our discussion started.

• The Big Five Data Questions: if you are wondering how to get a handle on how big of a problem you have in the data space then here are the big five questions to ask about your data.

• A rambling chat – Kobi Leins – Episode 11: AI ethics expert Dr Kobi Leins and I have a wide ranging chat about the AI landscape and she also pointed out that I always seem to have the same t-shirt on 🤦‍♀️

• Taming AI – Peter Leonard – Episode 10: Peter Leonard is a guru in the legal data and tech space and one of my primary go-to people when I am thinking about data governance, data sharing, regulation, and AI ethics.