AI – Zoe Nolan

Recommendations on AI or Blockachain

Zoe on 2025-02-05

The target audience is adults with limited technical knowledge working in the business/financial sector.

A few general recommendations that cover both fairly regularly: patio11‘s Complex Systems and Bits about Money and Patrick Boyle

Artificial Intelligence

Advances in Financial Machine Learning (summary) is the go-to book for finance, but it is technical and will require a background in Artificial Intelligence. I’d start by Learning how AI works from a real LLM implemented entirely in Excel, maybe following up with Artificial Intelligence for Beginners. AI is a large subject. You can start by looking at Generative AI, Deep Learning for Finance and AI for time series.

The State of AI Report is worth a look for an overview of where things are, as is The Gradient for some current work being done.

Blockchain

I made a post about blockchain years ago aimed more at software engineers. Last Week Tonight with John Oliver is still my go-to link for anyone new to blockchain. They have since made a follow-up episode.

I’d start with Money in the Twenty-First Century. It is a short and easy read that gives a good overview of the landscape. A couple of other takes on the same area Web3 in Financial Services and From Hoodies to Suits. Two different views of blockchain: The Politics of Bitcoin and Check Your Financial Privilege. Central banks are also looking at this area. The Bank of England is looking at a digital pound and BIS has some notes on cryptoasset.

Combining an LLM and a Rules-based Chatbot

Zoe on 2023-08-30

A rules-based chatbot allows for rapid development. Adding rules as you go, some of which can contain complex logic. Rules-based systems do not use large amounts of computation and especially don’t require GPUs, cheaper running costs and more responsive replies. As powerful as rules-based chatbots are, they also come with downsides. Creating rules is time-consuming and challenging to cover all the scenarios. The rules files quickly become quite large and cumbersome. Workarounds such as having a final catch-all rule can somewhat mitigate this.

Chatbots

Zoe on 2023-08-29

I’ve been working on chatbots on and off for a while now. The other day, I received a question about how I built the latest Chatbot.

“I love the Chatbot, and it has been something I’ve been trying to replicate. There is so much noise. I’m finding it hard to find a good solution. I’d be grateful if you could point me in any direction, tools or what to search for.”

I had always intended to write about it. The scope may have expanded a little since then into a short series. This post covers some background on chatbots, a few principles for conversational interfaces and building a basic chatbot.