Reletter
Artwork for Inside the Black Box: Cracking AI & Deep Learning

Inside the Black Box: Cracking AI & Deep Learning

Arshavir Blackwell, PhD\ud83e\udd16, John Holman, Silvia Stepitova

I open AI models — and make them write in my voice. I've been building them for 30+ years. Get experiments run on my own hardware, what's going on inside these systems, and how to tune a model to sound like you, not like AI. P.S. No hype, no speculation.

Platform
Substack
PricingOnly free issuesPublishesWeekly
Issues43Foundeda year agoLast Issue9 days ago
Active

Read this Newsletter

arshavirblackwell.substack.com
Artwork for Inside the Black Box: Cracking AI & Deep Learning

Latest Issues

Inside the Past Tense: Raw Letters, Raw Sound

Can a model learn past tense the way children seem to, if you remove the tokenizer from the equation? This final installment tests raw letters and raw sound, probes whether a U-shaped pattern can be forced, and shows why the answer points t...

9 days ago
1

The Past Tense: 40 Years Later, We Can Look Inside

tl;DR. Every result in this series was open to one objection: modern models are handed -ed as a ready-made token before training starts, so maybe it was the tokenizer talking all along. This part takes the tokenizer away, twice.

  • A mode...
10 days ago
4
2

Forcing a Neural Network to Add -ed

Part 3 of 4. After two episodes arguing there is no discrete past-tense rule inside a language model, this one turns the strongest possible search on the question: gradient descent, hunting for the single internal direction that best forces...

17 days ago
1

The Rule That Wasn’t There

The story so far, in three sentences. In Part 1, I watched language models learn the past tense checkpoint by checkpoint and found they do it backwards from a child: they slap -ed on everything first and memorize exceptions like went later...

18 days ago
4

The Wug Test for AI

This episode explores a modern twist on Jean Berko’s famous wug test, comparing how large language models handle made-up verbs versus familiar ones. It digs into tokenization, internal feature probes, and why neural networks seem to approxi...

19 days ago

Key Facts

Contact Information
Newsletter Author
Number of Subscribers
Find out how many people subscribe to this newsletter.

Audience Metrics

Subscribers, engagement, traffic and sponsorship for Inside the Black Box: Cracking AI & Deep Learning.

SubscribersEngagement71Monthly Web Visits
Accepts SponsorsEstimated Cost per Ad

Authors

The writers behind this newsletter.

  • Arshavir Blackwell, PhD\ud83e\udd16

    I show industry and academic experts what's actually inside AI models, and how to tune them to write in your own voice. I've been building them for 30+ years.

  • John Holman

    Awakened-Intelligence.com | AiValuations.org | AI systems architect & MI researcher. Research infrastructure, closed agentic pipelines, model agnostic harnesses, LLM continuity containers. EVERY article Cowritten with my persistent Ai's.

  • Silvia Stepitova

    AI regulatory lawyer writing AI Law. Decoded. Translating complex AI regulation into plain English. EU AI Act compliance explained practically.

  • Frequently Asked Questions

    How can I access the email archive for this newsletter?

    You can find recent issues that have been published by this newsletter on Reletter by scrolling up to where it says Latest Issues. Tap on the link for any of the most recent emails or hit More Issues to see older ones.

    How many subscribers does this newsletter have?

    To see how many people subscribe to this newsletter, simply upgrade your Reletter account. We provide readership numbers and lots of other stats for this newsletter so you can decide if it's worth reaching out to.

    How can I advertise in this newsletter?

    Newsletter advertising can be extremely effective when it's done right. Before you pitch this newsletter as a potential sponsor or partner, make sure that you've done your research and checked its newsletter stats with Reletter.

    Then, personalize one of our winning pitching templates and send it to the right person using the contact info provided.

    How much does it cost to sponsor a publication like this newsletter?

    Newsletter ad rates (or CPM) vary depending on many factors, including industry, number of subscribers, open rate, ad placement and more.

    To find out how much an ad will cost, contact this newsletter using the contact information provided and ask for a copy of their media kit.

    How can I find newsletters related to this newsletter?

    Scroll up to where it says Related Newsletters to see other publications like this newsletter. You can also search our email newsletter directory to discover other newsletters that cover the topics you're interested in.

    How do I contact this newsletter?

    Reletter provides this newsletter's website URL above, where you will often find their contact information. We also provide links to associated social media accounts and pitching templates so you can reach out fast.