Dyaa Albakour

Applied researcher in Information Retrieval and Text Analytics. Watch this space mainly for updates on events I attend or general posts on data science.

[Dyaa Albakour @dyaaa]

@GBNEWS
Astonishing that Israel’s killing 5 journalists today did not make it to the list of headlines anywhere on your main page or your X feed. Respect your audience if you want Britain to take you seriously!

[Dyaa Albakour @dyaaa]

Fantastic location for @ecir2025 in the heart of Tuscany🇮🇹 https://t.co/DCe5bPO3J1
A great opportunity for my fellow IR practitioners to
🌟 Get your brand in front of top researchers, and rising talents in IR/AI
🤝 Network, connect, and shape the future of search #IR #AI #talent

[Craig Macdonald @craig_macdonald]

If you are typically a reviewer for @ecir2025 , then look out for emails from Claudia (@CharlotteHase) or myself to accept the invitation to join this year's PC!

[Robert Mackey @RobertMackey]

It is worth watching this CNN video from the moment Emory Econ Professor @CarolineFohlin came across the violent arrest of a protester on campus and asked the police, with shock, "What are you doing?" That's all that prompted an officer to hurl her to the ground and handcuff her.

[Laura Wendel @Lauramaywendel]

The more I use Llama 3 the more I think that Zuck may have just killed OpenAI and all other large proprietary AI vendors. The gap between latest GPT4 and Llama 70b is virtually non existent. Even if OpenAI releases GPT5 now, 400b Llama 3 is still training and will most likely be in the same ballpark, again closing the gap between open source and proprietary.

OpenAI has $2b in revenue and is most likely very unprofitable. Meta makes over $100b gross profit. They likely can outspend OpenAI by a factor of at least 10 in terms of compute and talent -- speaking of which, a large majority of AI researchers find open source work a lot more appealing than closed for profit; so very likely top talent will end up at Meta. Google is still caught in the issue of AI killing their main revenue line, so most likely can never go as full in as Meta.
I think the biggest winners from all of this will be application developers, because you can choose any API service that hosts Llama 3, or just host it yourself on your own terms.

So far the majority of AI products have just been glorified wrappers around API endpoints. But if you manage to integrate AI deeply into a product, where the user doesn't even have to think they're interacting with an AI (e.g. behind the scenes calls that adapt to user context, combined with RAG, feeding it your internal API format, multi step reasoning / planning etc), you likely have a very sustainable business that only improves the more advanced the base models become.

But vendor risk / dependency should no longer be a concern for AI developers. Added to that the fact that hardware is only going to get faster / cheaper; there really are endless opportunities to disrupt existing software domains, much of which we're probably not even able to conceive now, but that will seem obvious in hindsight.

[Dyaa Albakour @dyaaa]

Reproducibility crisis! At the doctoral consortium at ⁦@ecir2024⁩ #IR #reproducibility #AI

[UofG News @UofGNews]

Hundreds of computing science researchers are gathering in Glasgow for @ecir2024, Europe’s leading conference on information retrieval.

@iadh, @graham_mcdonald and @craig_macdonald of @GlasgowCS organised this year's event!

Read more here: https://t.co/qjk7viz0hv

[Steve Clarke 🎸🎵🎶🍺🍻 @Gaudd]

@BenjAlvarez1 @2ndNewMoon @_HadleyGamble Well that's good enough for me.
🇩🇪: Hey Israel, abide by international law!
🇮🇱: No.
🇩🇪: I'm glad you are now abiding by international law
🇮🇱: Look, a Palestinian kid..💥 ..LOL
🇩🇪: I did not see that.

[Dyaa Albakour @dyaaa]

@craig_macdonald @ir_glasgow @tjaenich @graham_mcdonald @iadh Thanks Craig! Great thread

[Mario Nawfal @MarioNawfal]

This was someone’s home.

A family likely lived there, and may now be dead

Anyone who finds humor in this is sick

[سماح | 🧚🏾‍♀️samah @samah_fadil]

listening to a palestinian turns you into an anti-zionist but listening to a zionist really turns you into an anti-zionist.

[António Guterres @antonioguterres]

I've just invoked Art.99 of the UN Charter - for the 1st time in my tenure as Secretary-General.

Facing a severe risk of collapse of the humanitarian system in Gaza, I urge the Council to help avert a humanitarian catastrophe & appeal for a humanitarian ceasefire to be declared.

[ECIR2024 @ecir2024]

Call for Nominations: The new Keith van Rijsbergen (KvR) 2024 Award at #ecir2024 - to encourage & recognise researchers who significantly contributed to the use of theory in IR.

Deadline: 15 Jan 2024

Details & Nomination Form: https://t.co/aljTk9uE8s.   @ir_glasgow @GlasgowCS

[EzioVoice4Palestine @KentTruth25193]

@EylonALevy You tell us

[Moshe @Mosescreates]

@EylonALevy Ask Israel 🇮🇱

[الکاظمی @abdur_rehman26]

@EylonALevy IDK you tell me

[Guy Verhofstadt @guyverhofstadt]

This happens when right wing nationalists and populists come to power… the opposite of what they promised.

Only a united and unified Europe can tackle these challenges !

[António Guterres @antonioguterres]

I am deeply shocked that 2 @UNRWA schools were struck in less than 24 hours in Gaza.

Dozens of people – many women & children – were killed & injured as they were seeking safety in @UN premises.

I reaffirm that our premises are inviolable.

[Tory Fibs @ToryFibs]

Holy F*ck.

The BBC have just called out Israel’s bullsh*t.

Cherish this.

[Israel Defense Forces (Parody) @IsraelDefenseF]

Breaking: We have found an entrance to a Khamas terror tunnel near the Al Shifa hospital.