Generative AI Hits The Commodore 64

May 15, 2024 by Lewin Day 5 Comments

Image-generating AIs are typically trained on huge arrays of GPUs and require great wads of processing power to run. Meanwhile, [Nick Bild] has managed to get something similar running on a Commodore 64. (via Tom’s Hardware).

A figure generated by [Nick]’s C64. We shall name him… “Sword Guy”!

As you might imagine, [Nick’s] AI image generator isn’t churning out 4K cyberpunk stills dripping in neon. Instead, he aimed at a smaller target, more befitting the Commodore 64 itself. His image generator creates 8×8 game sprites instead.

[Nick’s] model was trained on 100 retro-inspired sprites that he created himself. He did the training phase on a modern computer, so that the Commodore 64 didn’t have to sweat this difficult task on its feeble 6502 CPU. However, it’s more than capable of generating sprites using the model, thanks to some BASIC code that runs off of the training data. Right now, it takes the C64 about 20 minutes to run through 94 iterations to generate a decent sprite.

8×8 sprites are generally simple enough that you don’t need to be an artist to create them. Nonetheless, [Nick] has shown that modern machine learning techniques can be run on slow archaic hardware, even if there is limited utility in doing so. Video after the break.

Continue reading “Generative AI Hits The Commodore 64” →

How AI Large Language Models Work, Explained Without Math

May 15, 2024 by Donald Papp 24 Comments

Large Language Models (LLMs ) are everywhere, but how exactly do they work under the hood? [Miguel Grinberg] provides a great explanation of the inner workings of LLMs in simple (but not simplistic) terms that eschews the low-level mathematics of how they work in favor of laying bare what it is they do.

At their heart, LLMs are prediction machines that work on tokens (small groups of letters and punctuation) and are as a result capable of great feats of human-seeming communication. Most technical-minded people understand that LLMs have no idea what they are saying, and this peek at their inner workings will make that abundantly clear.

Be sure to also review an illustrated guide to how image-generating AIs work. And if a peek under the hood of LLMs left you hungry for more low-level details, check out our coverage of training a GPT-2 LLM using pure C code.

The Perfect Desktop Kit For Experimenting With Self Driving Cars

May 14, 2024 by Lewin Day 1 Comment

When we think about self-driving cars, we normally think about big projects measured in billions of dollars, all funded by major automakers. But you can still dive into this world on a smaller scale, as [jmoreno555] demonstrates.

The build consists of a small RC car—an HSP 94123, in fact. It’s got a simple brushed motor inside, driven by a conventional speed controller, and servo-driven steering. A Raspberry Pi 4 is charged with driving the car, but it’s not alone. It’s outfitted with a Google Coral USB stick, which is a machine learning accelerator card capable of 4 trillion operations per second. The car also has a Wemos D1 onboard, charged with interfacing distance sensors to give the car a sense of its environment. Vision is courtesy of a 1.2-megapixel camera with a 160-degree lens, and a stereoscopic camera with twin 75-degree lenses. Software-wise, it’s early days yet. [jmoreno555] is exploring the use of Python and OpenCV to implement basic lane detection and other self driving routines, while using Blender as a simulator.

The real magic idea, though, is the treadmill. [jmoreno555] realized that one of the frustrations of working in this space is in having to chase a car around a test track. Instead, the use of a desktop treadmill allows the car to be programmed and debugged with less fuss in the early stages of development.

If you’re looking for a platform to experiment with AI and self-driving, this could be an project to dive in to. We’ve covered some other great builds in this space, too. Meanwhile, if you’ve cracked driving autonomy and want to let us know, our tipsline is always standing by!

$1 TinyML Board For Your “AI” Sensor Swarm

May 2, 2024 by Arya Voronova 23 Comments

You might be under the impression that machine learning costs thousands of dollars to work with. That might be true in many cases, but there’s more to machine learning than you might think. For instance, what if you could shower anything with a network of cheap machine-learning-enabled sensors? The 1 dollar TinyML project by [Jon Nordby] allows you to do just that. These tiny boards host an STM32-like MCU, a BLE module, lithium ion power circuitry, and some nice sensor options — an accelerometer, a pair of microphones, and a light sensor.

What could you do with these sensors? [Jon] has talked a bit about a few commercial and non-commercial applications he’s worked on in his ML career, and tells us that the accelerometer alone lets you do human presence detection, sleep tracking, personal activity monitoring, or vibration pattern sensing, for a start. As for the sound input, there’s tasks ranging from gunshot or clapping detection, to coffee roasting process tracking, voice and speech detection, and surely much more. Just a few years ago, we’ve seen machine learning used to comfort a barking dog while its owner is away.

Bottom line is, you ought to get a few of these in your hands and start playing with ML. You still might need a bit of beefier hardware to train your code, but it gets that much easier once you have a network of sensors waiting for your command. Plus, since it’s an open source project, you’ll have a much easier time adding on any additional capabilities your particular application might need.

These boards are pretty cost-optimized, which makes it possible for you to order a couple dozen without breaking the bank. The $1 target is BOM cost, especially if you opt to not include one of the pricier sensors. You can assemble these boards yourself, or get them assembled at a fab of your choice for barely a cost increase. As for software, they will work with the emlearn framework.

Everything is on GitHub — from KiCad sources to Jupyter notebooks. As for Hackaday.io, there are five worklogs of impressive insight — the microphone worklog alone will teach you about microphone amplification in low-power conditions while keeping the cost low. Not as price-constrained and want to try on some image processing tasks? Here’s a beautiful Pi Pico ArduCam board with a camera and a TFT screen.

Train A GPT-2 LLM, Using Only Pure C Code

April 28, 2024 by Donald Papp 7 Comments

[Andrej Karpathy] recently released llm.c, a project that focuses on LLM training in pure C, once again showing that working with these tools isn’t necessarily reliant on sprawling development environments. GPT-2 may be older but is perfectly relevant, being the granddaddy of modern LLMs (large language models) with a clear heritage to more modern offerings.

LLMs are fantastically good at communicating despite not actually knowing what they are saying, and training them usually relies on PyTorch deep learning library, itself written in Python. llm.c takes a simpler approach by implementing the neural network training algorithm for GPT-2 directly. The result is highly focused and surprisingly short: about a thousand lines of C in a single file. It is a highly elegant process that does the same thing the bigger, clunkier methods accomplish. It can run entirely on a CPU, or it can take advantage of GPU acceleration, where available.

This isn’t the first time [Andrej Karpathy] has bent his considerable skills and understanding towards boiling down these sorts of concepts into bare-bones implementations. We previously covered a project of his that is the “hello world” of GPT, a tiny model that predicts the next bit in a given sequence and offers low-level insight into just how GPT (generative pre-trained transformer) models work.

Australian Library Uses Chatbot To Imitate Veteran With Predictable Results

April 26, 2024 by Lewin Day 16 Comments

The educational sector is usually the first to decry large language models and AI, due to worries about cheating. The State Library of Queensland, however, has embraced the technology in controversial fashion. In the lead-up to Anzac Day, the primarily Australian war memorial holiday, the library released a chatbot intended to imitate a World War One veteran. It went as well as you’d expect.

*The highlighted line was apparently added to the chatbot’s instructions later on to help shut down tomfoolery.*

Twitter users immediately chimed in with dismay at the very concept. Others showed how easy it was to “jailbreak” the AI, convincing Charlie he was actually supposed to teach Python, imitate Frasier Crane, or explain laws like Elle from Legally Blonde. One person figured out how to get Charlie to spit out his initial instructions; these were patched later in the day to try and stop some of the shenanigans.

From those instructions, it’s clear that this was supposed to be educational, rather than some sort of macabre experiment. However, Charlie didn’t do a great job here, either. As with any Large Language Model, Charlie had no sense of objective truth. He routinely spat out incorrect facts regarding the war, and regularly contradicted himself.

Generally, any plan that includes the words “impersonate a veteran” is a foolhardy one at best. Throwing a machine-generated portrait and a largely uncontrolled AI into the mix didn’t help things. Regardless, the State Library has left the “Virtual Veterans” experience up at the time of writing.

The problem with AI is that it’s not a magic box that gets things right all the time. It never has been. As long as organizations keep putting AI to use in ways like this, the same story will keep playing out.

AI System Drops A Dime On Noisy Neighbors

April 25, 2024 by Dan Maloney 4 Comments

“There goes the neighborhood” isn’t a phrase to be thrown about lightly, but when they build a police station next door to your house, you know things are about to get noisy. Just how bad it’ll be is perhaps a bit subjective, with pleas for relief likely to fall on deaf ears unless you’ve got firm documentation like that provided by this automated noise detection system.

OK, let’s face it — even with objective proof there’s likely nothing that [Christopher Cooper] is going to do about the new crop of sirens going off in his neighborhood. Emergencies require a speedy response, after all, and sirens are perhaps just the price that we pay to live close to each other. That doesn’t mean there’s no reason to monitor the neighborhood noise, though, so [Christopher] got to work. The system uses an Arduino BLE Sense module to detect neighborhood noises and Edge Impulse to classify the sounds. An ESP32 does most of the heavy lifting, including running the UI on a nice little TFT touchscreen.

When a siren-like sound is detected, the sensor records the event and tries to classify the type of siren — fire, police, or ambulance. You can also manually classify sounds the system fails to understand, and export a summary of events to an SD card. If your neighborhood noise problems tend more to barking dogs or early-morning leaf blowers, no problem — you can easily train different models.

While we can’t say that this will help keep the peace in his neighborhood, we really like the way this one came out. We’ve seen the BLE Sense and Edge Impulse team up before, too, for everything from tuning a bike suspension to calming a nervous dog. Continue reading “AI System Drops A Dime On Noisy Neighbors” →