Nils Durner's Blog Ahas, Breadcrumbs, Coding Epiphanies

Replit's AI Agent: Promising, but not there yet

Peter Gostev, Head of AI at Moonpig, shared his excitement about Replit’s new AI coding Agent. He highlighted three key features: Cloud-based IDE with managed environments An AI agent that not only generates code but also installs packages and manages files Easy deployment of apps from Replit While this sounds promising for streamlinin... Read more

[UPDATED] Podcast transcription: MLX Whisper vs. Gemini

(TLDR; I tried device-local Whisper and ended up using Google Gemini instead.) Several pain points with Apple Podcasts in particular got me interested in using Frontier Models to create a more personalized experience: Rather low audio quality for some episodes: poor (if any) post-processing without noise cancelling, lack of gain normalizatio... Read more

[UPDATED] AI Deployment in Germany: Practical Considerations

The recent news about Aleph Alpha’s strategic shift away from developing large language models (LLMs) to focus on AI integration services has sparked discussions about the state of AI deployment in Germany. While this change might seem discouraging for those hoping for a strong European contender in the AI race, it’s worth examining the practica... Read more

Privacy Concerns in ChatGPT's GPT Ecosystem

A recent study has shed light on significant privacy and data protection issues within ChatGPT’s GPT ecosystem. Key Findings The study reveals several alarming practices: Widespread Data Collection: GPTs and their associated Actions (external services) collect extensive user data, often without proper disclosure or consent. ... Read more

Pharia-1-LLM: A Closer Look at Aleph Alpha's Latest Release

Aleph Alpha recently announced the launch of Pharia-1-LLM, a new language model series with two 7B foundation models. After reviewing the available materials, including the Model Card, I’ve been able to answer some questions about this release in online discussions. Here’s a breakdown of key points and considerations: Model Characteristics and ... Read more