AI Summer 2024

Welcome to AI Summer with Vanderbilt Data Science!

AI Summer is happening now!

Join Us

All information regarding the sessions can be found on GitHub repository at https://github.com/vanderbilt-data-science/ai_summer. You’ll find the outline, course materials and more. Recordings will be posted there each day when they become available. Note that the repository will be updated throughout the summer, so you’ll want to check back for new information regularly.

Here’s an outline of the summer topics:

Week 1, 5/6 - 5/8: Introduction to Generative AI Models, Transformers, and Prompt Engineering (No class Friday for Vanderbilt Commencement)

Weeks 2, 5/13 - 5/17: Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG), Assistants, Agents, and Intro to Diffusion Models

Week 3, 5/20 - 5/24: Building AI Solutions, Running AI Securely Locally or in the Cloud, Introduction to Training Models

Week 4, 5/29 - 5/31: Fine-tuning Models, Multi-modal Models, Applied AI (No class Monday for Memorial Day)

AI Summer is a free course that begins with a week-long introduction to AI models and prompt engineering for generative models. Week two will look at AI-assisted programming for AI applications. And finally, weeks three and four will focus on training and fine-tuning AI models.

All sessions will be held remotely, on Zoom. The workshop, which has limited capacity, aims to generate new research on the Vanderbilt University campus using deep learning techniques. Recordings and resources from the workshops will be made available to everyone on our YouTube channel.

Date: May 6 2024 - May 31 2024

Location: Virtual via Zoom

Join us for our AI Summer workshop, which offers a unique opportunity to immerse yourself in the technology.

Data Science Institute AI Summer 2024 (May 6-31, MWF 9a-12p Central Time)
With the release of power, transformer-based Large Language Models such as ChatGPT it's become of paramount importance to understand how to best use AI models in our teaching, research, and other pursuits. In this Summer Institute we'll cover model fundamentals all the way to training your own model. The emphasis for the Intensive will be how to use them, how to train them, and how to deploy them to solve a variety of problems. The goal is that participants who come to the workshop with data for a project in-hand will end the workshop with an initial model upon which to build further work.

All sessions will be remote, on Zoom.

The Summer course, while free, has limited capacity. The goal of the workshop is to generate new research and new teaching resources on the Vanderbilt University campus using AI techniques. Recordings and resources from the workshops will be made available to everyone. Priority for participation in the live workshop will be given to 1) researchers and educators that have a research goal in mind (and, ideally, some preliminary data in hand) and 2) students who are interested in joining the researchers and educators on projects that arise from these workshops, then 3) all others interested in AI. Even if you don't have a particular project defined, but are interested in using the techniques, please do apply. Feel free to reach out to discuss possible projects if you don't already have one in mind (https://calendly.com/dsi-data-science-team/research-consultation)!

All information regarding the sessions can be found on GitHub repository at https://github.com/vanderbilt-data-science/ai_summer. You’ll find the outline, course materials and more. Recordings will be posted there each day when they become available. Note that the repository will be updated throughout the summer, so you’ll want to check back for new information regularly.

If you haven’t already, please complete the following:

Sign up for a Google Collaboratory account. The free account should be sufficient, but you will get more compute (and longer running times) if you sign up for Colab Pro at ~$5/month.
Sign up for a Hugginface.co account. Again, the free account should be sufficient.
Preview the AI Summer repository--it will be under development throughout the summer. We update material as new developments dictate which is quite frequently!
If you are new to Python, see the “Learn or Improve Your Python” section on the repository. With the assistance of AI’s for programming, you won’t need as much experience to fully participate, but if you are new or very new to programming or to Python, you’ll want to take some time to get ready.
Think about any data you might want to bring to the workshop. Also begin thinking about any projects you might want to accomplish during our month. We’ll have office hours for you to work with us to get your first project off the ground!

J