Shalamu 🇮🇶 !

➡️ We're kicking off this edition with a global look at how different countries are handling AI regulations. It's a mixed bag, from England's 🇬🇧 and India's 🇮🇳 hands-off approach, Europe's 🇪🇺 super structured (maybe too much?) stance, to China's 🇨🇳 caution about potential public opinion disruptions. For a quick yet insightful scoop, check out this article from IEEE's Spectrum.

➡️ I never cease to be amazed by AI's role in unlocking history. This week, I couldn't get enough of this article from The Times of Israel 🇮🇱. It's all about building a "Google Translate" for cuneiform, one of the first writing systems. This system, made of nail-like lines 𒋗𒌌𒈬𒌝, was used in ancient Mesopotamia (modern-day Iraq and Syria) to note down Sumerian and Assyrian languages, from 3000 BC to the early Christian era.
While archaeologists have discovered a phenomenal amount of clay tablets covered with these signs (estimated between 500,000 and two million), only a small portion has been decoded due to the scarcity of cuneiform-proficient linguists. Imagine what auto-translation tools could do! We might get to sneak a peek into everyday life from five millennia ago. If you're into official proclamations, ancient laws (like the Code of Hammurabi), prayers, poems, or even math proofs, business contracts, complaint letters, and kingly brags from those times, you'll love this breakthrough. Hat tip to Gai Gutherz, who started this for his master's thesis! The nitty-gritty details, neural network-based approach, and open-source code are all covered in this paper in PNAS Nexus.

➡️ Lastly, let me share this brilliant Medium post from my old mate at Alan, Hubert Jaouen. Hubert's writing is crisp and punchy ✍️, and he's got a knack for asking the right tech questions 🙋‍. If you're looking to get up to speed on AI and language models like ChatGPT, this post is for you.

Happy reading and have a fantastic week! 🏝️📚