Wed, Jan 10th: "Fine Tuning and Optimizing LLMs," 6 PM, CU Boulder

The Rocky Mountain AI Interest Group (RMAIIG) will host an in-person meeting on Wednesday, January 10th at 6 PM MDT in Boulder on "Fine Tuning and Optimizing Large Language Models."

Launching a Large Language Model (LLM) like GPT-4 which powers ChatGPT can involve at least three distinct processes: training, fine-tuning, and optimizing. Each of these has its own purpose and methodology in the development of AI models.

At a high level, training establishes the foundational knowledge of the LLM, fine-tuning adapts it to specific tasks or domains, and optimizing enhances its performance and efficiency for practical use. Each process is crucial in developing an LLM that is both powerful and applicable to real-world tasks. This meeting will focus on steps 2 and 3: fine-tuning and optimizing LLMs.

(Note: This meeting will delve a little deeper into technical topics than we normally do, but will still be suitable for a general AI-curious audience. Let's lift the hood and peer a little deeper into preparing these powerful models.)

"Fine Tuning and Optimizing Large Language Models"
CU Boulder
ATLAS building (Room 100)
1125 18th St, Boulder, CO 80309
Wed, Jan 10th
6 - 8 PM MDT

Our speaker, Mark Hennings, will cover what fine-tuning is (and isn’t), when to use it, its benefits, and limitations. Mark will also cover how to optimize LLM performance from a broader perspective. See how fine-tuning, prompt engineering, and Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) can all work together to improve LLM performance.

Mark is the founder of Entry Point AI, a modern platform for fine-tuning large language models. He's a serial entrepreneur, Inc 500 alumni, and self-taught developer who is passionate about UX and democratizing AI.

Entry Point AI has agreed to be our pizza sponsor, yay!
Entry Point AI is the modern fine-tuning platform for large language models. Train custom models across top LLM providers without a single line of code. Learn more at https://www.entrypointai.com

We want to thank the following for generously arranging and providing an awesome meeting space for RMAIIG: Grace Wilson, John Bacus, Mark D. Gross, the University of Colorado and the Roser ATLAS Center at CU Boulder.

Image credit: DALL-E3 via ChatGPT Plus