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A Daily Chronicle of AI Innovations in February 2024.

Welcome to the Daily Chronicle of AI Innovations in February 2024! This month-long blog series will provide you with the latest developments, trends, and breakthroughs in the field of artificial intelligence. From major industry conferences like ‘AI Innovations at Work’ to bold predictions about the future of AI, we will curate and share daily updates to keep you informed about the rapidly evolving world of AI. Join us on this exciting journey as we explore the cutting-edge advancements and potential impact of AI throughout February 2024.

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A Daily Chronicle of AI Innovations in February 2024 – Day 29: AI Daily News – February 29th, 2024

 Alibaba’s EMO makes photos come alive (and lip-sync!)
 Microsoft introduces 1-bit LLM
 Ideogram launches text-to-image model version 1.0

Adobe launches new GenAI music tool 

Morph makes filmmaking easier with Stability AI

 Hugging Face, Nvidia, and ServiceNow release StarCode 2 for code generation.

Meta set to launch Llama 3 in July and could be twice the size

 Apple subtly reveals its AI plans 

 OpenAI to put AI into humanoid robots

 GitHub besieged by millions of malicious repositories in ongoing attack

 Nvidia just released a new code generator that can run on most modern CPUs

 Three more publishers sue OpenAI

Alibaba’s EMO makes photos come alive (and lip-sync!)

Researchers at Alibaba have introduced an AI system called “EMO” (Emote Portrait Alive) that can generate realistic videos of you talking and singing from a single photo and an audio clip. It captures subtle facial nuances without relying on 3D models.

EMO uses a two-stage deep learning approach with audio encoding, facial imagery generation via diffusion models, and reference/audio attention mechanisms.

Experiments show that the system significantly outperforms existing methods in terms of video quality and expressiveness.

Why does this matter?

By combining EMO with OpenAI’s Sora, we could synthesize personalized video content from photos or bring photos from any era to life. This could profoundly expand human expression. We may soon see automated TikTok-like videos.

Source

Microsoft introduces 1-bit LLM

Microsoft has launched a radically efficient AI language model dubbed 1-bit LLM. It uses only 1.58 bits per parameter instead of the typical 16, yet performs on par with traditional models of equal size for understanding and generating text.

Building on research like BitNet, this drastic bit reduction per parameter boosts cost-effectiveness relating to latency, memory, throughput, and energy usage by 10x. Despite using a fraction of the data, 1-bit LLM maintains accuracy.

Why does this matter?

Traditional LLMs often require extensive resources and are expensive to run while their swelling size and power consumption give them massive carbon footprints.

This new 1-bit technique points towards much greener AI models that retain high performance without overusing resources. By enabling specialized hardware and optimized model design, it can drastically improve efficiency and cut computing costs, with the ability to put high-performing AI directly into consumer devices.

Source

Ideogram launches text-to-image model version 1.0

Ideogram has launched a new text-to-picture app called Ideogram 1.0. It’s their most advanced ever. Dubbed a “creative helper,” it generates highly realistic images from text prompts with minimal errors. A built-in “Magic Prompt” feature effortlessly expands basic prompts into detailed scenes.

The Details: 

1. Ideogram 1.0 significantly cuts image generation errors in half compared to other apps. And users can make custom picture sizes and styles. So it can do memes, logos, old-timey portraits, anything.

2. Magic Prompt takes basic prompts like “vegetables orbiting the sun” and turns them into full scenes with backstories. That would take regular people hours to write out word-for-word.

Tests show that Ideogram 1.0 beats DALL-E 3 and Midjourney V6 at matching prompts, making sensible pictures, looking realistic, and handling text.

Why does this matter?

This advancement in AI image generation hints at a future where generative models commonly assist or even substitute human creators across personalized gift items, digital content, art, and more.

Source

What Else Is Happening in AI on February 29th, 2024

Adobe launches new GenAI music tool 

Adobe introduces Project Music GenAI Control, allowing users to create music from text or reference melodies with customizable tempo, intensity, and structure. While still in development, this tool has the potential to democratize music creation for everyone. (Link)

Morph makes filmmaking easier with Stability AI

Morph Studio, a new AI platform, lets you create films simply by describing desired scenes in text prompts. It also enables combining these AI-generated clips into complete movies. Powered by Stability AI, this revolutionary tool could enable anyone to become a filmmaker. (Link)

 Hugging Face, Nvidia, and ServiceNow release StarCode 2 for code generation.

Hugging Face along with Nvidia and Service Now launches StarCoder 2, an open-source code generator available in three GPU-optimized models. With improved performance and less restrictive licensing, it promises efficient code completion and summarization. (Link)

Meta set to launch Llama 3 in July

Meta plans to launch Llama 3 in July to compete with OpenAI’s GPT-4. It promises increased responsiveness, better context handling, and double the size of its predecessor. With added tonality and security training, Llama 3 seeks more nuanced responses. (Link)

 Apple subtly reveals its AI plans 

Apple CEO Tim Cook reveals plans to disclose Apple’s generative AI efforts soon, highlighting opportunities to transform user productivity and problem-solving. This likely indicates exciting new iPhone and device features centered on efficiency. (Link)

A Daily Chronicle of AI Innovations in February 2024 – Day 28: AI Daily News – February 28th, 2024

 NVIDIA’s Nemotron-4 beats 4x larger multilingual AI models
 GitHub launches Copilot Enterprise for customized AI coding
 Slack study shows AI frees up 41% of time spent on low-value work

 Pika launches new lip sync feature for AI videos

 Google pays publishers to test an unreleased GenAI tool

 Intel and Microsoft team up to bring 100M AI PCs by 2025

 Writer’s Palmyra-Vision summarizes charts, scribbles into text

 Apple cancels its decade-long electric car project

 OpenAI claims New York Times paid someone to ‘hack’ ChatGPT

 Tumblr and WordPress blogs will be exploited for AI model training

 Google CEO slams ‘completely unacceptable’ Gemini AI errors

 Klarna’s AI bot is doing the work of 700 employees

NVIDIA’s Nemotron-4 beats 4x larger multilingual AI models

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Nvidia has announced Nemotron-4 15B, a 15-billion parameter multilingual language model trained on 8 trillion text tokens. Nemotron-4 shows exceptional performance in English, coding, and multilingual datasets. It outperforms all other open models of similar size on 4 out of 7 benchmarks. It has the best multilingual capabilities among comparable models, even better than larger multilingual models.

The researchers highlight how Nemotron-4 scales model training data in line with parameters instead of just increasing model size. As a result, inferences are computed faster, and latency is reduced. Due to its ability to fit on a single GPU, Nemotron-4 aims to be the best general-purpose model given practical constraints. It achieves better accuracy than the 34-billion parameter LLaMA model for all tasks and remains competitive with state-of-the-art models like QWEN 14B.

Why does this matter?

Just as past computing innovations improved technology access, Nemotron’s lean GPU deployment profile can expand multilingual NLP adoption. Since Nemotron fits on a single cloud graphics card, it dramatically reduces costs for document, query, and application NLP compared to alternatives requiring supercomputers. These models can help every company become fluent with customers and operations across countless languages.

Source

GitHub launches Copilot Enterprise for customized AI coding

GitHub has launched Copilot Enterprise, an AI assistant for developers at large companies. The tool provides customized code suggestions and other programming support based on an organization’s codebase and best practices. Experts say Copilot Enterprise signals a significant shift in software engineering, with AI essentially working alongside each developer.

Copilot Enterprise integrates across the coding workflow to boost productivity. Early testing by partners like Accenture found major efficiency gains, with a 50% increase in builds from autocomplete alone. However, GitHub acknowledges skepticism around AI originality and bugs. The company plans substantial investments in responsible AI development, noting that Copilot is designed to augment human developers rather than replace them.

Why does this matter?

The entire software team could soon have an AI partner for programming. However, concerns about responsible AI development persist. Enterprises must balance rapidly integrating tools like Copilot with investments in accountability. How leadership approaches AI strategy now will separate future winners from stragglers.

Source

Slack study shows AI frees up 41% of time spent on low-value work

Slack’s latest workforce survey shows a surge in the adoption of AI tools among desk workers. There has been a 24% increase in usage over the past quarter, and 80% of users are already seeing productivity gains. However, less than half of companies have guidelines around AI adoption, which may inhibit experimentation. The research also spotlights an opportunity to use AI to automate the 41% of workers’ time spent on repetitive, low-value tasks. And focus efforts on meaningful, strategic work.

While most executives feel urgency to implement AI, top concerns include data privacy and AI accuracy. According to the findings, guidance is necessary to boost employee adoption. Workers are over 5x more likely to have tried AI tools at companies with defined policies.

Why does this matter?

This survey signals AI adoption is already boosting productivity when thoughtfully implemented. It can free up significant time spent on repetitive tasks and allows employees to refocus on higher-impact work. However, to realize AI’s benefits, organizations must establish guidelines and address data privacy and reliability concerns. Structured experimentation with intuitive AI systems can increase productivity and data-driven decision-making.

Source

 OpenAI to put AI into humanoid robots 

• OpenAI is collaborating with robotics startup Figure to integrate its AI technology into humanoid robots, marking the AI’s debut in the physical world.
• The partnership aims to develop humanoid robots for commercial use, with significant funding from high-profile investors including Jeff Bezos, Microsoft, Nvidia, and Amazon.
• The initiative will leverage OpenAI’s advanced AI models, such as GPT and DALL-E, to enhance the capabilities of Figure’s robots, aiming to address human labor shortages.

 GitHub besieged by millions of malicious repositories in ongoing attack 

• Hackers have automated the creation of malicious GitHub repositories by cloning popular repositories, infecting them with malware, and forking them thousands of times, resulting in hundreds of thousands of malicious repositories designed to steal information.
• The malware, hidden behind seven layers of obfuscation, includes a modified version of BlackCap-Grabber, which steals authentication cookies and login credentials from various apps.
• While GitHub uses artificial intelligence to block most cloned malicious packages, 1% evade detection, leading to thousands of malicious repositories remaining on the platform.

 Nvidia just released a new code generator that can run on most modern CPUs 

• Nvidia, ServiceNow, and Hugging Face have released StarCoder2, a series of open-access large language models for code generation, emphasizing efficiency, transparency, and cost-effectiveness.
• StarCoder2, trained on 619 programming languages, comes in three sizes: 3 billion, 7 billion, and 15 billion parameters, with the smallest model matching the performance of its predecessor’s largest.
• The platform highlights advancements in AI ethics and efficiency, utilizing a new code dataset for enhanced understanding of diverse programming languages and ensuring adherence to ethical AI practices by allowing developers to opt out of data usage.

 Three more publishers sue OpenAI

• The Intercept, Raw Story, and AlterNet have filed lawsuits against OpenAI and Microsoft in the Southern District of New York, alleging copyright infringement through the training of AI models without proper attribution.
• The litigation claims that ChatGPT reproduces journalism works verbatim or nearly verbatim without providing necessary copyright information, suggesting that if trained properly, it could have included these details in its outputs.
• The suits argue that OpenAI and Microsoft knowingly risked copyright infringement for profit, evidenced by their provision of legal cover to customers and the existence of an opt-out system for web content crawling.

What Else Is Happening in AI on February 28th, 2024

 Pika launches new lip sync feature for AI videos

Video startup Pika announced a new Lip Sync feature powered by ElevenLabs. Pro users can add realistic dialogue with animated mouths to AI-generated videos. Although currently limited, Pika’s capabilities offer customization of the speech style, text, or uploaded audio tracks, escalating competitiveness in the AI synthetic media space. (Link)

 Google pays publishers to test an unreleased GenAI tool

Google is privately paying a group of publishers to test a GenAI tool. They need to summarize three articles daily based on indexed external sources in exchange for a five-figure annual fee. Google says this will help under-resourced news outlets, but experts say it could negatively affect original publishers and undermine Google’s news initiative. (Link)

 Intel and Microsoft team up to bring 100M AI PCs by 2025

By collaborating with Microsoft, Intel aims to supply 100 million AI-powered PCs by 2025 and ramp up enterprise demand for efficiency gains. Despite Apple and Qualcomm’s push for Arm-based designs, Intel hopes to maintain its 76% laptop chip market share following post-COVID inventory corrections. (Link)

 Writer’s Palmyra-Vision summarizes charts, scribbles into text

AI writing startup Writer announced a new capability of its Palmyra model called Palmyra-Vision. This model can generate text summaries from images, including charts, graphs, and handwritten notes. It can automate e-commerce merchandise descriptions, graph analysis, and compliance checking while recommending human-in-the-loop for accuracy. (Link)

 Apple cancels its decade-long electric car project

Apple is canceling its decade-long electric vehicle project after spending over $10 billion. There were nearly 2,000 employees working on the effort known internally as Titan. After Apple announces the cancellation of its ambitious electric car project, some staff from the discontinued car team will shift to other teams such as Gen AI. (Link)

Nvidia’s New AI Laptops

Nvidia, the dominant force in graphics processing units (GPUs), has once again pushed the boundaries of portable computing. Their latest announcement showcases a new generation of laptops powered by the cutting-edge RTX 500 and 1000 Ada Generation GPUs. The focus here isn’t just on better gaming visuals – these laptops promise to transform the way we interact with artificial intelligence (AI) on the go.

What’s going on here?

Nvidia’s new laptop GPUs are purpose-built to accelerate AI workflows. Let’s break down the key components:

• Specialized AI Hardware: The RTX 500 and 1000 GPUs feature dedicated Tensor Cores. These cores are the heart of AI processing, designed to handle complex mathematical operations involved in machine learning and deep learning at incredible speed.

• Generative AI Powerhouse: These new GPUs bring a massive boost for generative AI applications like Stable Diffusion. This means those interested in creating realistic images from simple text descriptions can expect to see significant performance improvements.

• Efficiency Meets Power: These laptops aren’t just about raw power. They’re designed to intelligently offload lighter AI tasks to a dedicated Neural Processing Unit (NPU) built into the CPU, conserving GPU resources for the most demanding jobs.

What does this mean?

These advancements translate into a wide range of ground-breaking possibilities:

• Photorealistic Graphics Enhanced by AI: Gamers can immerse themselves in more realistic and visually stunning worlds thanks to AI-powered technologies enhancing graphics rendering.

• AI-Supercharged Productivity: From generating social media blurbs to advanced photo and video editing, professionals can complete creative tasks far more efficiently with AI assistance.

• Real-time AI Collaboration: Features like AI-powered noise cancellation and background manipulation in video calls will elevate your virtual communication to a whole new level.

Why should I care?

Nvidia’s latest AI-focused laptops have the potential to revolutionize the way we use our computers:

• Portable Creativity: Whether you’re an artist, designer, or just someone who loves to experiment with AI art tools, these laptops promise a level of on-the-go creative freedom previously unimaginable.

• Workplace Transformation: Industries from architecture to healthcare will see AI optimize processes and enhance productivity. These laptops put that power directly into the hands of professionals.

• The Future is AI: AI is advancing at a blistering pace, and Nvidia is ensuring that we won’t be tied to our desks to experience it.

In short, Nvidia’s new generation of AI laptops heralds an era where high-performance, AI-driven computing becomes accessible to more people. This has the potential to spark a wave of innovation that we can’t even fully comprehend yet.

Original source here.

During the latest World Government Summit in Dubai, Jensen Huang, the CEO of NVIDIA, spoke about the things our kids should and shouldn’t learn in the future. It may come as a surprise to many but Huang does think that our kids don’t need the knowledge of coding, just leave it to AI.

He mentioned that a decade ago, there was a belief that everyone needed to learn to code, and they were probably right, but based on what we see nowadays, the situation has changed due to achievements in AI, where everyone is literally a programmer.

He further talked about how kids may not necessarily need to learn how to code, and the focus should be on developing technology that allows for programming languages to be more human-like. In essence, traditional coding languages such as C++ or Java may become obsolete, as computers should be able to comprehend human language inputs.

Source: https://app.daily.dev/posts/vCwIfZOrx

Mistral Large: The new rival to GPT-4, 2nd best LLM of all time

The French AI startup Mistral has launched its largest-ever LLM and flagship model to date, Mistral Large, with a 32K context window. The model has top-tier reasoning capabilities, and you can use it for complex multilingual reasoning tasks, including text understanding, transformation, and code generation.

Due to a strong multitasking capability, Mistral Large is the world’s second-ranked model on MMLU (Massive multitask language understanding).

The model is natively fluent in English, French, Spanish, German, and Italian, with a nuanced understanding of grammar and cultural context. In addition to that, Mistral also shows top performance in coding and math tasks.

Mistral Large is now available via the in-house platform “La Plateforme” and Microsoft’s Azure AI via API.

Why does it matter?

Mistral Large stands out as the first model to truly challenge OpenAI’s dominance since GPT-4. It shows skills on par with GPT-4 for complex language tasks while costing 20% less. In this race to make their models better, it’s the user community that stands to gain the most. Also, the focus on European languages and cultures could make Mistral a leader in the European AI market.

Source

DeepMind’s new gen-AI model creates video games in a flash

Google DeepMind has launched a new generative AI model – Genie (Generative Interactive Environment), that can create playable video games from a simple prompt after learning game mechanics from hundreds of thousands of gameplay videos.

Developed by the collaborative efforts of Google and the University of British Columbia, Genie can create side-scrolling 2D platformer games based on user prompts, like Super Mario Brothers and Contra, using a single image.

Trained on over 200,000 hours of gameplay videos, the experimental model can turn any image or idea into a 2D platformer.

Genie can be prompted with images it has never seen before, such as real-world photographs or sketches, enabling people to interact with their imagined virtual worlds-–essentially acting as a foundation world model. This is possible despite training without any action labels.

Why does it matter?

Genie creates a watershed moment in the generative AI space, becoming the first LLM to develop interactive, playable environments from a single image prompt. The model could be a promising step towards general world models for AGI (Artificial General Intelligence) that can understand and apply learned knowledge like a human. Lastly, Genie can learn fine-grained controls exclusively from Internet videos, a unique feature as Internet videos do not typically have labels.

Source

Meta’s MobileLLM enables on-device AI deployment

Meta has released a research paper that addresses the need for efficient large language models that can run on mobile devices. The focus is on designing high-quality models with under 1 billion parameters, as this is feasible for deployment on mobiles.

By using deep and thin architectures, embedding sharing, and grouped-query attention, they developed a strong baseline model called MobileLLM, which achieves 2.7%/4.3% higher accuracy compared to previous 125M/350M state-of-the-art models. The research paper highlights that you should concentrate on developing an efficient model architecture rather than on data and parameter quantity to determine model quality.

Why does it matter?

With language understanding now possible on consumer devices, mobile developers can create products that were once hard to build because of latency or privacy issues when reliant on cloud connections. This advancement allows industries like finance, gaming, and personal health to integrate conversational interfaces, intelligent recommendations, and real-time data privacy protections using models optimized for mobile efficiency, sparking creativity in a new wave of intelligent apps.

Source

What Else Is Happening in AI on February 27th, 2024

 Qualcomm reveals 75+ pre-optimized AI models at MWC 2024

Qualcomm released 75+ new large language models, including popular generative models like Whisper and Stable Diffusion, optimized for the Snapdragon platform at the Mobile World Congress (MWC) 2024. The company stated that some of these LLMs will have generation AI capabilities for next-generation smartphones, PCs, IoT, XR devices, etc.  (Link)

 Nvidia launches new laptop GPUs for AI on the go

Nvidia launched RTX 500 and 1000 Ada Generation laptop graphics processing units (GPUs) at the MWC 2024 for on-the-go AI processing. These GPUs will utilize the Ada Lovelace architecture to provide content creators, researchers, and engineers with accelerated AI and next-generation graphic performance while working from portable devices. (Link)

 Microsoft announces AI principles for boosting innovation and competition  

Microsoft announced a set of principles to foster innovation and competition in the AI space. The move came to showcase its role as a market leader in promoting responsible AI and answer the concerns of rivals and antitrust regulators. The standard covers six key dimensions of responsible AI: fairness, reliability and safety, privacy and security, inclusiveness, transparency, and accountability.  (Link)

 Google brings Gemini in Google Messages, Android Auto, Wear OS, etc. 

Despite receiving some flakes from the industry, Google is riding the AI wave and decided to integrate Gemini into a new set of features for phones, cars, and wearables. With these new features, users can use Gemini to craft messages and AI-generated captions for images, summarize texts through AI for Android Auto, and access passes on Wear OS. (Link)

 Microsoft Copilot GPTs help you plan your vacation and find recipes. 

Microsoft has released a few copilot GPTs that can help you plan your next vacation, find recipes, learn how to cook them, create a custom workout plan, or design a logo for your brand. Microsoft corporate vice president Jordi Ribas informed the media that users will soon be able to create customized Copilot GPTs, which is missing in the current version of Copilot. (Link)

Tesla’s robot is getting quicker, better

• Elon Musk shared new footage showing improved mobility and speed of Tesla’s robot, Optimus Gen 2, which is moving more smoothly and steadily around a warehouse.
• The latest version of the Optimus robot is lighter, has increased walking speed thanks to Tesla-designed actuators and sensors, and demonstrates significant progress over previous models.
• Musk predicts the possibility of Optimus starting to ship in 2025 for less than $20,000, marking a significant milestone in Tesla’s venture into humanoid robotics capable of performing mundane or dangerous tasks for humans.
• Source

A Daily Chronicle of AI Innovations in February 2024 – Day 26: AI Daily News – February 26th, 2024

Google Deepmind announces Genie, the first generative interactive environment model

The abstract:

” We introduce Genie, the first generative interactive environment trained in an unsupervised manner from unlabelled Internet videos. The model can be prompted to generate an endless variety of action-controllable virtual worlds described through text, synthetic images, photographs, and even sketches. At 11B parameters, Genie can be considered a foundation world model. It is comprised of a spatiotemporal video tokenizer, an autoregressive dynamics model, and a simple and scalable latent action model. Genie enables users to act in the generated environments on a frame-by-frame basis despite training without any ground-truth action labels or other domain-specific requirements typically found in the world model literature. Further the resulting learned latent action space facilitates training agents to imitate behaviors from unseen videos, opening the path for training generalist agents of the future. “

I asked GPT4 to read through the article and summarize ELI5 style bullet points:

• Who Wrote This?

  • A group of smart people at Google DeepMind wrote the article. They’re working on making things better for turning text into webpages.

• What Did They Do?

  • They created something called “Genie.” It’s like a magic tool that can take all sorts of ideas or pictures and turn them into a place you can explore on a computer, like making your own little video game world from a drawing or photo. They did this by watching lots and lots of videos from the internet and learning how things move and work in those videos.

• How Does It Work?

  • They use something called “Genie” which is very smart and can understand and create new videos or game worlds by itself. You can even tell it what to do next in the world it creates, like moving forward or jumping, and it will show you what happens.

• Why Is It Cool?

  • Because Genie can create new, fun worlds just from a picture or some words, and you can play in these worlds! It’s like having a magic wand to make up your own stories and see them come to life on a computer.

• What’s Next?

  • Even though Genie is really cool, it’s not perfect. Sometimes it makes mistakes or can’t remember things for very long. But the people who made it are working to make it better, so one day, everyone might be able to create their own video game worlds just by imagining them.

• Important Points:

  • They want to make sure this tool is used in good ways and that it’s safe for everyone. They’re not sharing it with everyone just yet because they want to make sure it’s really ready and won’t cause any problems.

 Microsoft eases AI testing with new red teaming tool

Microsoft has released an open-source automation called PyRIT to help security researchers test for risks in generative AI systems before public launch. Historically, “red teaming” AI has been an expert-driven manual process requiring security teams to create edge case inputs and assess whether the system’s responses contain security, fairness, or accuracy issues. PyRIT aims to automate parts of this tedious process for scale.

PyRIT helps researchers test AI systems by inputting large datasets of prompts across different risk categories. It automatically interacts with these systems, scoring each response to quantify failures. This allows for efficient testing of thousands of input variations that could cause harm. Security teams can then take this evidence to improve the systems before release.

Why does this matter?

Microsoft’s release of the PyRIT toolkit makes rigorously testing AI systems for risks drastically more scalable. Automating parts of the red teaming process will enable much wider scrutiny for generative models and eventually raise their performance standards. PyRIT’s automation will also pressure the entire industry to step up evaluations if they want their AI trusted.

Source

 Transformers learn to plan better with Searchformer

A new paper from Meta introduces Searchformer, a Transformer model that exceeds the performance of traditional algorithms like A* search in complex planning tasks such as maze navigation and Sokoban puzzles. Searchformer is trained in two phases: first imitating A* search to learn general planning skills, then fine-tuning the model via expert iteration to find optimal solutions more efficiently.

The key innovation is the use of search-augmented training data that provides Searchformer with both the execution trace and final solution for each planning task. This enables more data-efficient learning compared to models that only see solutions. However, encoding the full reasoning trace substantially increases the length of training sequences. Still, Searchformer shows promising techniques for training AI to surpass symbolic planning algorithms.

Why does this matter?

Achieving state-of-the-art planning results shows that generative AI systems are advancing to develop human-like reasoning abilities. Mastering complex cognitive tasks like finding optimal paths has huge potential in AI applications that depend on strategic thinking and foresight. As other companies race to close this new gap in planning capabilities, progress in core areas like robotics and autonomy is likely to accelerate.

Source

 YOLOv9 sets a new standard for real-time object recognition

YOLO (You Only Look Once) is open-source software that enables real-time object recognition in images, allowing machines to “see” like humans. Researchers have launched YOLOv9, the latest iteration that achieves state-of-the-art accuracy with significantly less computational cost.

By introducing two new techniques, Programmable Gradient Information (PGI) and Generalized Efficient Layer Aggregation Network (GELAN), YOLOv9 reduces parameters by 49% and computations by 43% versus predecessor YOLOv8, while boosting accuracy on key benchmarks by 0.6%. PGI improves network updating for more precise object recognition, while GELAN optimizes the architecture to increase accuracy and speed.

Why does this matter?

The advanced responsiveness of YOLOv9 unlocks possibilities for mobile vision applications where computing resources are limited, like drones or smart glasses. More broadly, it highlights deep learning’s potential to match human-level visual processing speeds, encouraging technology advancements like self-driving vehicles.

Source

What Else Is Happening in AI on February 26th, 2024

Apple tests internal ChatGPT-like tool for customer support

Apple recently launched a pilot program testing an internal AI tool named “Ask.” It allows AppleCare agents to generate technical support answers automatically by querying Apple’s knowledge base. The goal is faster and more efficient customer service. (Link)

 ChatGPT gets an Android home screen widget

Android users can now access ChatGPT more easily through a home screen widget that provides quick access to the chatbot’s conversation and query modes. The widget is available in the latest beta version of the ChatGPT mobile app. (Link)

 AWS adds open-source Mistral AI models to Amazon Bedrock

AWS announced it will be bringing two of Mistral’s high-performing generative AI models, Mistral 7B and Mixtral 8x7B, to its Amazon Bedrock platform for gen AI offerings in the near future. AWS chose Mistral’s cost-efficient and customizable models to expand the range of  GenAI abilities for Bedrock users. (Link)

 Montreal tests AI system to prevent subway suicides

The Montreal Transit Authority is testing an AI system that analyzes surveillance footage to detect warning signs of suicide risk among passengers. The system, developed with a local suicide prevention center, can alert staff to intervene and save lives. With current accuracy of 25%, the “promising” pilot could be implemented in two years. (Link)

 Fast food giants embrace controversial AI worker tracking

Riley, an AI system by Hoptix, monitors worker-customer interactions in 100+ fast-food franchises to incentivize upselling. It tracks metrics like service speed, food waste, and upselling rates. Despite being a coaching tool, concerns exist regarding the imposition of unfair expectations on workers. (Link)

 Mistral AI releases new model to rival GPT-4

• Mistral AI introduces “Mistral Large,” a large language model designed to compete with top models like GPT-4 and Claude 2, and “Le Chat,” a beta chat assistant, aiming to establish an alternative to OpenAI and Anthropic’s offerings.
• With aggressive pricing at $8 per million input tokens and $24 per million output tokens, Mistral Large offers a cost-effective solution compared to GPT-4’s pricing, supporting English, French, Spanish, German, and Italian.
• The startup also revealed a strategic partnership with Microsoft to offer Mistral models on the Azure platform, enhancing Mistral AI’s market presence and potentially increasing its customer base through this new distribution channel.

 Gemini is about to slide into your DMs

• Google’s AI chatbot Gemini is being integrated into the Messages app as part of an Android update, aiming to make conversations more engaging and friend-like, initially available in English in select markets.
• Android Auto receives AI improvements for summarizing long texts or chat threads and suggesting context-based replies, enhancing safety and convenience for drivers.
• Google also introduces AI-powered accessibility features in Lookout and Maps, including screen reader enhancements and automatic generation of descriptions for images, to assist visually impaired users globally.

 Microsoft tried to sell Bing to Apple in 2018

• Microsoft attempted to sell its Bing search engine to Apple in 2018, aiming to make Bing the default search engine for Safari, but Apple declined due to concerns over Bing’s search quality.
• The discussions between Apple and Microsoft were highlighted in Google’s court filings as evidence of competition in the search industry, amidst accusations against Google for monopolizing the web search sector.
• Despite Microsoft’s nearly $100 billion investment in Bing over two decades, the search engine only secures a 3% global market share, while Google continues to maintain a dominant position, paying billions to Apple to remain the default search engine on its devices.

 Meta forms team to stop AI from tricking voters

• Meta is forming a dedicated task force to counter disinformation and harmful AI content ahead of the EU elections, focusing on rapid threat identification and mitigation.
• The task force will remove harmful content from Facebook, Instagram, and Threads, expand its fact-checking team, and introduce measures for users and advertisers to disclose AI-generated material.
• The initiative aligns with the Digital Services Act’s requirements for large online platforms to combat election manipulation, amidst growing concerns over the disruptive potential of AI and deepfakes in elections worldwide.

 Samsung unveils the Galaxy Ring as way to ‘simplify everyday wellness’

• Samsung teased the new Galaxy Ring at Galaxy Unpacked, showcasing its ambition to introduce a wearable that is part of a future vision for ambient sensing.
• The Galaxy Ring, coming in three colors and various sizes, will feature sleep, activity, and health tracking capabilities, aiming to compete with products like the Oura Ring.
• Samsung plans to integrate the Galaxy Ring into a larger ecosystem, offering features like My Vitality Score and Booster Cards in the Galaxy Health app, to provide a more holistic health monitoring system.

Impact of AI on Freelance Jobs

A Daily Chronicle of AI Innovations in February 2024 – Day 24: AI Daily News – February 24th, 2024

 Google’s chaotic AI strategy

• Google’s AI strategy has resulted in confusion among consumers due to a rapid succession of new products, names, and features, compromising public trust in both AI and Google itself.
• The company has launched a bewildering array of AI products with overlapping and inconsistent naming schemes, such as Bard transforming into Gemini, alongside multiple versions of Gemini, complicating user understanding and adoption.
• Google’s rushed approach to competing with rivals like OpenAI has led to a chaotic rollout of AI offerings, leaving customers and even its own employees mocking the company’s inability to provide clear and accessible AI solutions.
• Source

 Filmmaker puts $800 million studio expansion on hold because of OpenAI’s Sora

• Tyler Perry paused a $800 million expansion of his Atlanta studio after being influenced by OpenAI’s video AI model Sora, expressing concerns over AI’s impact on the film industry and job losses.
• Perry has started utilizing AI in film production to save time and costs, for example, in applying aging makeup, yet warns of the potential job displacement this technology may cause.
• The use of AI in Hollywood has led to debates on its implications for jobs, with calls for regulation and fair compensation, highlighted by actions like strikes and protests by SAG-AFTRA members.
• Source

 Google explains Gemini’s ‘embarrassing’ AI pictures

• Google addressed the issue of Gemini AI producing historically inaccurate images, such as racially diverse Nazis, attributing the error to tuning issues within the model.
• The problem arose from the AI’s overcompensation in its attempt to show diversity, leading to inappropriate image generation and an overly cautious approach to generating images of specific ethnicities.
• Google has paused the image generation feature in Gemini since February 22, with plans to improve its accuracy and address the challenge of AI-generated “hallucinations” before reintroducing the feature.
• Source

 Apple tests internal ChatGPT-like AI tool for customer support

• Apple is conducting internal tests on a new AI tool named “Ask,” designed to enhance the speed and efficiency of technical support provided by AppleCare agents.
• The “Ask” tool generates answers to customer technical queries by leveraging Apple’s internal knowledge base, allowing agents to offer accurate, clear, and useful assistance.
• Beyond “Ask,” Apple is significantly investing in AI, developing its own large language model framework, “Ajax,” and a chatbot service, “AppleGPT”.
• Source

 Figure AI’s humanoid robots attract funding from Microsoft, Nvidia, OpenAI, and Jeff Bezos

• Jeff Bezos, Nvidia, and other tech giants are investing in Figure AI, a startup developing human-like robots, raising about $675 million at a valuation of roughly $2 billion.
• Figure’s robot, named Figure 01, is designed to perform dangerous jobs unsuitable for humans, with the company aiming to address labor shortages.
• The investment round, initially seeking $500 million, attracted widespread industry support, including contributions from Microsoft, Amazon-affiliated funds, and venture capital firms, marking a significant push into AI-driven robotics.
• Source

A Daily Chronicle of AI Innovations in February 2024 – Day 23: AI Daily News – February 23rd, 2024

 Stable Diffusion 3 creates jaw-dropping images from text
 LongRoPE: Extending LLM context window beyond 2 million token
 Google Chrome introduces “Help me write” AI feature

Jasper acquires image platform Clipdrop from Stability AI

Suno AI V3 Alpha is redefining music generation.

GPT Store introduces linking profiles, ratings, and enhanced about pages.

Microsoft introduces a generative erase feature for AI-editing photos in Windows 11.

Google cut a deal with Reddit for AI training data.

Stable Diffusion 3 creates jaw-dropping text-to-images!

Stability.AI announced the Stable Diffusion 3 in an early preview. It is a text-to-image model with improved performance in multi-subject prompts, image quality, and spelling abilities. Stability.AI has opened the model waitlist and introduced a preview to gather insights before the open release.

Stability AI’s Stable Diffusion 3 preview has generated significant excitement in the AI community due to its superior image and text generation capabilities. This next-generation image tool promises better text generation, strong prompt adherence, and resistance to prompt leaking, ensuring the generated images match the requested prompts.

Why does it matter?

The announcement of Stable Diffusion 3 is a significant development in AI image generation because it introduces a new architecture with advanced features such as the diffusion transformer and flow matching. The early demos of Stable Diffusion 3 have shown remarkable improvements in overall generation quality, surpassing its competitors such as MidJourney, Dall-E 3, and Google ImageFX.

Source

LongRoPE: Extending LLM context window beyond 2 million tokens

Researchers at Microsoft have introduced LongRoPE, a groundbreaking method that extends the context window of pre-trained large language models (LLMs) to an impressive 2048k tokens.

Current extended context windows are limited to around 128k tokens due to high fine-tuning costs, scarcity of long texts, and catastrophic values introduced by new token positions. LongRoPE overcomes these challenges by leveraging two forms of non-uniformities in positional interpolation, introducing a progressive extension strategy, and readjusting the model on shorter context windows.

Experiments on LLaMA2 and Mistral across various tasks demonstrate the effectiveness of LongRoPE. The extended models retain the original architecture with minor positional embedding modifications and optimizations.

Why does it matter?

LongRoPE extends the context window in LLMs and opens up possibilities for long-context tasks beyond 2 million tokens. This is the highest supported token, especially when other models like Google Gemini Pro have capabilities of up to 1 million tokens. Another major impact it will have is an extended context window for open-source models, unlike top proprietary models.

Source

Google Chrome introduces “Help me write” AI feature

Google has recently rolled out an experimental AI feature called “Help me write” for its Chrome browser. This feature, powered by Gemini, aims to assist users in writing or refining text based on webpage content. It focuses on providing writing suggestions for short-form content, such as filling in digital surveys and reviews and drafting descriptions for items being sold online.

The tool can understand the webpage’s context and pull relevant information into its suggestions, such as highlighting critical features mentioned on a product page for item reviews. Users can right-click on an open text field on any website to access the feature on Google Chrome.

This feature is currently only available for English-speaking Chrome users in the US on Mac and Windows PCs. To access this tool, users in the US can enable Chrome’s Experimental AI under the “Try out experimental AI features” setting.

Why does it matter?

Google Chrome’s “Help me write” AI feature can aid users in completing surveys, writing reviews, and drafting product descriptions. However, it is still in its early stages and may not inspire user confidence compared to Microsoft’s Copilote on Edge browser. Adjusting the prompts and resulting text can negate any time-saving benefits, leaving the effectiveness of this feature for Google Chrome users open for debate.

Source

What Else Is Happening in AI on February 23rd, 2024

Google cut a deal with Reddit for AI training data.

Google and Reddit have formed a partnership that will benefit both companies. Google will pay $60 million per year for real-time access to Reddit’s data, while Reddit will gain access to Google’s Vertex AI platform. This will help Google train its AI and ML models at scale while also giving Reddit expanded access to Google’s services. (Link)

GPT Store introduces linking profiles, ratings, and enhanced about pages.

OpenAI’s GPT Store platform has new features. Builders can link their profiles to GitHub and LinkedIn, and users can leave ratings and feedback. The About pages for GPTs have also been enhanced. T (Link)

Microsoft introduces a generative erase feature for AI-editing photos in Windows 11. 

Microsoft’s Photos app now has a Generative Erase feature powered by AI. It enables users to remove unwanted elements from their photos, including backgrounds. The AI edit features are currently available to Windows Insiders, and Microsoft plans to roll out the tools to Windows 10 users. However, there is no clarity on whether AI-edited photos will have watermarks or metadata to differentiate them from unedited photos. (Link)

Suno AI V3 Alpha is redefining music generation. 

The V3 Alpha version of Suno AI’s music generation platform offers significant improvements, including better audio quality, longer clip length, and expanded language coverage. The update aims to redefine the state-of-the-art for generative music and invites user feedback with 300 free credits given to paying subscribers as a token of appreciation. (Link)

Jasper acquires image platform Clipdrop from Stability AI

Jasper acquires AI image creation and editing platform Clipdrop from Stability AI, expanding its conversational AI toolkit with visual capabilities for a comprehensive multimodal marketing copilot. The Clipdrop team will work in Paris to contribute to research and innovation on multimodality, furthering Jasper’s vision of being the most all-encompassing end-to-end AI assistant for powering personalized marketing and automation. (Link)

A Daily Chronicle of AI Innovations in February 2024 – Day 22: AI Daily News – February 22nd, 2024

 Google suspends Gemini from making AI images after backlash

• Google has temporarily halted the ability of its Gemini AI to create images of people following criticisms over its generation of historically inaccurate and racially diverse images, such as those of US Founding Fathers and Nazi-era soldiers.
• This decision comes shortly after Google issued an apology for the inaccuracies in some of the historical images generated by Gemini, amid backlash and conspiracy theories regarding the depiction of race and gender.
• Google plans to improve Gemini’s image generation capabilities concerning people and intends to re-release an enhanced version of this feature in the near future, aiming for more accurate and sensitive representations.
• Source

 Nvidia posts revenue up 265% on booming AI business

• Nvidia’s data center GPU sales soared by 409% due to a significant increase in demand for AI chips, with the company reporting $18.4 billion in revenue for this segment.
• The company exceeded Wall Street’s expectations in its fourth-quarter financial results, projecting $24 billion in sales for the current quarter against analysts’ forecasts of $22.17 billion.
• Nvidia has become a key player in the AI industry, with massive demand for its GPUs from tech giants and startups alike, spurred by the growth in generative AI applications.
• Source

 Microsoft and Intel strike a custom chip deal that could be worth billions

• Intel will produce custom chips designed by Microsoft in a deal valued over $15 billion, although the specific applications of these chips remain unspecified.
• The chips will utilize Intel’s 18A process, marking a significant step in Intel’s strategy to lead in chip manufacturing by offering foundry services for custom chip designs.
• Intel’s move to expand its foundry services and collaborate with Microsoft comes amidst challenges, including the delayed opening of a $20 billion chip plant in Ohio.
• Source

 AI researchers’ open letter demands action on deepfakes before they destroy democracy

• An open letter from AI researchers demands government action to combat deepfakes, highlighting their threat to democracy and proposing measures such as criminalizing deepfake child pornography.
• The letter warns about the rapid increase of deepfakes, with a 550% rise between 2019 and 2023, detailing that 98% of deepfake videos are pornographic, predominantly victimizing women.
• Signatories, including notable figures like Jaron Lanier and Frances Haugen, advocate for the development and dissemination of content authentication methods to distinguish real from manipulated content.
• Source

 Stability AI’s Stable Diffusion 3 preview boasts superior image and text generation capabilities

• Stability AI introduces Stable Diffusion 3, showcasing enhancements in image generation, complex prompt execution, and text-generation capabilities.
• The model incorporates the Diffusion Transformer Architecture with Flow Matching, ranging from 800 million to 8 billion parameters, promising a notable advance in AI-driven content creation.
• Despite its potential, Stability AI takes rigorous safety measures to mitigate misuse and collaborates with the community, amidst concerns over training data and the ease of modifying open-source models.
• Source

 Google releases its first open-source LLM

Google has open-sourced Gemma, a new family of state-of-the-art language models available in 2B and 7B parameter sizes. Despite being lightweight enough to run on laptops and desktops, Gemma models have been built with the same technology used for Google’s massive proprietary Gemini models and achieve remarkable performance – the 7B Gemma model outperforms the 13B LLaMA model on many key natural language processing benchmarks.

Alongside the Gemma models, Google has released a Responsible Generative AI Toolkit to assist developers in building safe applications. This includes tools for robust safety classification, debugging model behavior, and implementing best practices for deployment based on Google’s experience. Gemma is available on Google Cloud, Kaggle, Colab, and a few other platforms with incentives like free credits to get started.

 AnyGPT: A major step towards artificial general intelligence

Researchers in Shanghai have achieved a breakthrough in AI capabilities with the development of AnyGPT – a new model that can understand and generate data in virtually any modality, including text, speech, images, and music. AnyGPT leverages an innovative discrete representation approach that allows a single underlying language model architecture to smoothly process multiple modalities as inputs and outputs.

The researchers synthesized the AnyInstruct-108k dataset, containing 108,000 samples of multi-turn conversations, to train AnyGPT for these impressive capabilities. Initial experiments show that AnyGPT achieves zero-shot performance comparable to specialized models across various modalities.

 Google launches Gemini for Workspace

Google has rebranded its Duet AI for Workspace offering as Gemini for Workspace. This brings the capabilities of Gemini, Google’s most advanced AI model, into Workspace apps like Docs, Sheets, and Slides to help business users be more productive.

The new Gemini add-on comes in two tiers – a Business version for SMBs and an Enterprise version. Both provide AI-powered features like enhanced writing and data analysis, but Enterprise offers more advanced capabilities. Additionally, users get access to a Gemini chatbot to accelerate workflows by answering questions and providing expert advice. This offering pits Google against Microsoft, which has a similar Copilot experience for commercial users.

What Else Is Happening in AI on February 22nd, 2024

 Intel lands a $15 billion deal to make chips for Microsoft

Intel will produce over $15 billion worth of custom AI and cloud computing chips designed by Microsoft, using Intel’s cutting-edge 18A manufacturing process. This represents the first major customer for Intel’s foundry services, a key part of CEO Pat Gelsinger’s plan to reestablish the company as an industry leader. (Link)

 DeepMind forms new unit to address AI dangers

Google’s DeepMind has created a new AI Safety and Alignment organization, which includes an AGI safety team and other units working to incorporate safeguards into Google’s AI systems. The initial focus is on preventing bad medical advice and bias amplification, though experts believe hallucination issues can never be fully solved. (Link)

 Match Group bets on AI to help its workers improve dating apps

Match Group, owner of dating apps like Tinder and Hinge, has signed a deal to use ChatGPT and other AI tools from OpenAI for over 1,000 employees. The AI will help with coding, design, analysis, templates, and communications. All employees using it will undergo training on responsible AI use. (Link)

 Fintechs get a new ally against financial crime

Hummingbird, a startup offering tools for financial crime investigations, has launched a new product called Automations. It provides pre-built workflows to help financial investigators automatically gather information on routine crimes like tax evasion, freeing them up to focus on harder cases. Early customer feedback on Automations has been positive. (Link)

 Google Play Store tests AI-powered app recommendations

Google is testing a new AI-powered “App Highlights” feature in the Play Store that provides personalized app recommendations based on user preferences and habits. The AI analyzes usage data to suggest relevant, high-quality apps to simplify discovery. (Link)

A Daily Chronicle of AI Innovations in February 2024 – Day 21: AI Daily News – February 21st, 2024

Introducing Gemma by Google – a family of lightweight, state-of-the-art open models for their class

#openmodels 1/n “Gemma open models Gemma is a family of lightweight, state-of-the-art open models built from the same research and technology used to create the Gemini models. Developed by Google DeepMind and other teams across Google, Gemma is inspired by Gemini, and the name reflects the Latin gemma, meaning “precious stone.” Accompanying our model weights, we’re also releasing tools to support developer innovation, foster collaboration, and guide responsible use of Gemma models… Free credits for research and development Gemma is built for the open community of developers and researchers powering AI innovation. You can start working with Gemma today using free access in Kaggle, a free tier for Collab notebooks, and $300 in credits for first-time Google Cloud users. Researchers can also apply for Google Cloud credits of up to $500,000 to accelerate their projects”.

Gemini 1.5 will be ~20x cheaper than GPT4 – this is an existential threat to OpenAI

 Adobe’s new AI assistant manages your docs

Adobe launched an AI assistant feature in its Acrobat software to help users navigate documents. It summarizes content, answers questions, and generates formatted overviews. The chatbot aims to save time working with long files and complex information. Additionally, Adobe created a dedicated 50-person AI research team called CAVA (Co-Creation for Audio, Video, & Animation) focused on advancing generative video, animation, and audio creation tools.

While Adobe already has some generative image capabilities, CAVA signals a push into underserved areas like procedurally assisted video editing. The research group will explore integrating Adobe’s existing creative tools with techniques like text-to-video generation. Adobe prioritizes more AI-powered features to boost productivity through faster document understanding or more automated creative workflows.

Why does this matter?

Adobe injecting AI into PDF software and standing up an AI research group signals a strategic push to lead in generative multimedia. Features like summarizing documents offer faster results, while envisaged video/animation creation tools could redefine workflows.

Source

 Meta released Aria recordings to fuel smart speech recognition

Meta has released a multi-modal dataset of two-person conversations captured on Aria smart glasses. It contains audio across 7 microphones, video, motion sensors, and annotations. The glasses were worn by one participant while speaking spontaneously with another compensated contributor.

The dataset aims to advance research in areas like speech recognition, speaker ID, and translation for augmented reality interfaces. Its audio, visual, and motion signals together provide a rich capture of natural talking that could help train AI models. Such in-context glasses conversations can enable closed captioning and real-time language translation.

Why does this matter?

By capturing real-world sensory signals from glasses-framed conversations, Meta bridges the gaps AI faces to achieve human judgment. Enterprises stand to gain more relatable, trustworthy AI helpers that feel less robotic and more attuned to nuances when engaging customers or executives.

Source

 Penn’s AI chip runs on light, not electricity

Penn engineers have developed a photonic chip that uses light waves for complex mathematics. It combines optical computing research by Professor Nader Engheta with nanoscale silicon photonics technology pioneered by Professor Firooz Aflatouni. With this unified platform, neural networks can be trained and inferred faster than ever.

It allows accelerated AI computations with low power consumption and high performance. The design is ready for commercial production, including integration into graphics cards for AI development. Additional advantages include parallel processing without sensitive data storage. The development of this photonic chip represents significant progress for AI by overcoming conventional electronic limitations.

Why does this matter?

Artificial intelligence chips enable accelerated training and inference for new data insights, new products, and even new business models. Businesses that upgrade key AI infrastructure like GPUs with photonic add-ons will be able to develop algorithms with significantly improved accuracy. With processing at light speed, enterprises have an opportunity to avoid slowdowns by evolving along with light-based AI.

Source

What Else Is Happening in AI on February 21st, 2024

 Brain chip: Neuralink patient moves mouse with thoughts

Elon Musk announced that the first human to receive a Neuralink brain chip has recovered successfully. The patient can now move a computer mouse cursor on a screen just by thinking, showing the chip’s ability to read brain signals and control external devices. (Link)

 Microsoft develops server network cards to replace NVIDIA

Microsoft is developing its own networking cards. These cards move data quickly between servers, seeking to reduce reliance on NVIDIA’s cards and lower costs. Microsoft hopes its new server cards will boost the performance of the NVIDIA chip server currently in use and its own Maia AI chips. (Link)

 Wipro and IBM team up to accelerate enterprise AI

Wipro and IBM are expanding their partnership, introducing the Wipro Enterprise AI-Ready Platform. Using IBM Watsonx AI, clients can create fully integrated AI environments. This platform provides tools, language models, streamlined processes, and governance, focusing on industry-specific solutions to advance enterprise-level AI. (Link)

 Telekom’s next big thing: an app-free AI Phone

Deutsche Telekom revealed an AI-powered app-free phone concept at MWC 2024, featuring a digital assistant that can fulfill daily tasks via voice and text. Created in partnership with Qualcomm and Brain.ai, the concierge-style interface aims to simplify life by anticipating user needs contextually using generative AI. (Link)

 Tinder fights back against AI dating scams

Tinder is expanding ID verification, requiring a driver’s license and video selfie to combat rising AI-powered scams and dating crimes. The new safeguards aim to build trust, authenticity, and safety, addressing issues like pig butchering schemes using AI-generated images to trick victims. (Link)

 Google launches two new AI models

• Google has unveiled Gemma 2B and 7B, two new open-source AI models derived from its larger Gemini model, aiming to provide developers more freedom for smaller applications such as simple chatbots or summarizations.
• Gemma models, despite being smaller, are designed to be efficient and cost-effective, boasting significant performance on key benchmarks which allows them to run on personal computing devices.
• Unlike the closed Gemini model, Gemma is open source, making it accessible for a wider range of experimentation and development, and comes with a ‘responsible AI toolkit’ to help manage its open nature.

 ChatGPT has meltdown and starts sending alarming messages to users

• ChatGPT has started malfunctioning, producing incoherent responses, mixing Spanish and English without prompt, and unsettling users by implying physical presence in their environment.
• The cause of the malfunction remains unclear, though OpenAI acknowledges the issue and is actively monitoring the situation, as evidenced by user-reported anomalies and official statements on their status page.
• Some users speculate that the erratic behavior may relate to the “temperature” setting of ChatGPT, which affects its creativity and focus, noting previous instances where ChatGPT’s responses became unexpectedly lazy or sassy.

 An Apple smart ring may be imminent

• After years of research and filing several patent applications, Apple is reportedly close to launching a smart ring, spurred by Samsung’s tease of its own smart ring.
• The global smart ring market is expected to grow significantly, from $20 million in 2023 to almost $200 million by 2031, highlighting potential interest in health-monitoring wearable tech.
• Despite the lack of credible rumors or leaks, the number of patents filed by Apple suggests its smart ring development is advanced.

 New hack clones fingerprints by listening to fingers swipe screens

• Researchers from the US and China developed a method, called PrintListener, to recreate fingerprints from the sound of swiping on a touchscreen, posing a risk to biometric security systems.
• PrintListener can achieve partial and full fingerprint reconstruction from fingertip friction sounds, with success rates of 27.9% and 9.3% respectively, demonstrating the technique’s potential threat.
• To mitigate risks, suggested countermeasures include using specialized screen protectors or altering interaction with screens, amid concerns over fingerprint biometrics market’s projected growth to $75 billion by 2032.

 iMessage gets major update ahead of ‘quantum apocalypse’

• Apple is launching a significant security update in iMessage to protect against the potential threat of quantum computing, termed the “quantum apocalypse.”
• The update, known as PQ3, aims to secure iMessage conversations against both classical and quantum computing threats by redefining encryption protocols.
• Other companies, like Google, are also updating their security measures in anticipation of quantum computing challenges, with efforts being coordinated by the US National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST).

A Daily Chronicle of AI Innovations in February 2024 – Day 20: AI Daily News – February 20th, 2024

Sora Explained in Layman terms

• Sora, an AI model, combines Transformer techniques, which power language models like GPT, with diffusion techniques to predict words and generate sentences and to predict colors and transform fuzzy canvases into coherent images, respectively.
• When a text prompt is inputted into Sora, it first employs a Transformer to extrapolate a more detailed video script from the given prompt. This script includes specific details such as camera angles, textures, and animations inferred from the text.
• The generated video script is then passed to the diffusion side of Sora, where the actual video output is created. Historically, diffusion was only capable of producing images, but Sora overcame this limitation by introducing a new technique called SpaceTime patches.
• SpaceTime patches act as an intermediary step between the Transformer and diffusion processes. They essentially break down the video into smaller pieces and analyze the pixel changes within each patch to learn about animation and physics.
• While computers don’t truly understand motion, they excel at predicting patterns, such as changes in pixel colors across frames. Sora was pre-trained to understand the animation of falling objects by learning from various videos depicting downward motion.
• By leveraging SpaceTime patches and diffusion, Sora can predict and apply the necessary color changes to transform a fuzzy video into the desired output. This approach is highly flexible and can accommodate videos of any format, making Sora a versatile and powerful tool for video production.

Sora’s ability to seamlessly integrate Transformer and diffusion techniques, along with its innovative use of SpaceTime patches, allows it to effectively translate text prompts into captivating and visually stunning videos. This remarkable AI creation has truly revolutionized the world of video production.

 Groq’s New AI Chip Outperforms ChatGPT

Groq has developed a special AI hardware known as the first-ever Language Processing Unit (LPU) that aims to increase the processing power of current AI models that normally work on GPU. These LPUs can process up to 500 tokens/second, far superior to Gemini Pro and ChatGPT-3.5, which can only process between 30 and 50 tokens/second.

The company has designed its first-ever LPU-based AI chip named “GroqChip,” which uses a “tensor streaming architecture” that is less complex than traditional GPUs, enabling lower latency and higher throughput. This makes the chip a suitable candidate for real-time AI applications such as live-streaming sports or gaming.

Why does it matter?

Groq’s AI chip is the first-ever chip of its kind designed in the LPU system category. The LPUs developed by Groq can improve the deployment of AI applications and could present an alternative to Nvidia’s A100 and H100 chips, which are in high demand but have massive shortages in supply. It also signifies advancements in hardware technology specifically tailored for AI tasks. Lastly, it could stimulate further research and investment in AI chip design.

Source

 BABILong: The new benchmark to assess LLMs for long docs

The research paper delves into the limitations of current generative transformer models like GPT-4 when tasked with processing lengthy documents. It identifies a significant GPT-4 and RAG dependency on the initial 25% of input, indicating potential for enhancement. To address this, the authors propose leveraging recurrent memory augmentation within the transformer model to achieve superior performance.

Introducing a new benchmark called BABILong (Benchmark for Artificial Intelligence for Long-context evaluation), the study evaluates GPT-4, RAG, and RMT (Recurrent Memory Transformer). Results demonstrate that conventional methods prove effective only for sequences up to 10^4 elements, while fine-tuning GPT-2 with recurrent memory augmentations enables handling tasks involving up to 10^7 elements, highlighting its significant advantage.

Why does it matter?

The recurrent memory allows AI researchers and enthusiasts to overcome the limitations of current LLMs and RAG systems. Also, the BABILong benchmark will help in future studies, encouraging innovation towards a more comprehensive understanding of lengthy sequences.

Source

 Standford’s AI model identifies sex from brain scans with 90% accuracy

Standford medical researchers have developed a new-age AI model that determines the sex of individuals based on brain scans, with over 90% success. The AI model focuses on dynamic MRI scans, identifying specific brain networks—such as the default mode, striatum, and limbic networks—as critical in distinguishing male from female brains.

Why does it matter?

Over the years, there has been a constant debate in the medical field and neuroscience about whether sex differences in brain organization exist. AI has hopefully ended the debate once and for all. The research acknowledges that sex differences in brain organization are vital for developing targeted treatments for neuropsychiatric conditions, paving the way for a personalized medicine approach.

Source

What Else Is Happening in AI on February 20th, 2024

 Microsoft to invest $2.1 billion for AI infrastructure expansion in Spain.

Microsoft Vice Chair and President Brad Smith announced on X that they will expand their AI and cloud computing infrastructure in Spain via a $2.1 billion investment in the next two years. This announcement follows the $3.45 billion investment in Germany for the AI infrastructure, showing the priority of the tech giant in the AI space. (Link)

 Graphcore explores sales talk with OpenAI, Softbank, and Arm.

The British AI chipmaker and NVIDIA competitor Graphcore is struggling to raise funding from investors and is seeking a $500 billion deal with potential purchasers like OpenAI, Softbank, and Arm. This move comes despite raising $700 million from investors Microsoft and Sequoia, which are valued at $2.8 billion as of late 2020. (Link)

 OpenAI’s Sora can craft impressive video collages  

One of OpenAI’s employees, Bill Peebles, demonstrated Sora’s (the new text-to-video generator from OpenAI) prowess in generating multiple videos simultaneously. He shared the demonstration via a post on X, showcasing five different angles of the same video and how Sora stitched those together to craft an impressive video collage while keeping quality intact. (Link)

 US FTC proposes a prohibition law on AI impersonation 

The US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) proposed a rule prohibiting AI impersonation of individuals. The rule was already in place for US governments and US businesses. Now, it has been extended to individuals to protect their privacy and reduce fraud activities through the medium of technology, as we have seen with the emergence of AI-generated deep fakes. (Link)

 Meizu bid farewell to the smartphone market; shifts focus on AI

Meizu, a China-based consumer electronics brand, has decided to exit the smartphone manufacturing market after 17 years in the industry. The move comes after the company shifted its focus to AI with the ‘All-in-AI’ campaign. Meizu is working on an AI-based operating system, which will be released later this year, and a hardware terminal for all LLMs. (Link)

 Groq has created the world’s fastest AI

• Groq, a startup, has developed special AI hardware called “Language Processing Unit” (LPU) to run language models, achieving speeds of up to 500 tokens per second, significantly outpacing current LLMs like Gemini Pro and GPT-3.5.
• The “GroqChip,” utilizing a tensor streaming architecture, offers improved performance, efficiency, and accuracy for real-time AI applications by ensuring constant latency and throughput.
• While LPUs provide a fast and energy-efficient alternative for AI inference tasks, training AI models still requires traditional GPUs, with Groq offering hardware sales and a cloud API for integration into AI projects.

 Mistral’s next LLM could rival GPT-4, and you can try it now

• Mistral, a French AI startup, has launched its latest language model, “Mistral Next,” which is available for testing in chatbot arenas and might rival GPT-4 in capabilities.
• The new model is classified as “Large,” suggesting it is the startup’s most extensive model to date, aiming to compete with OpenAI’s GPT-4, and has received positive feedback from early testers on the “X” platform.
• Mistral AI has gained recognition in the open-source community for its Mixtral 8x7B language model, designed similarly to GPT-4, and recently secured €385 million in funding from notable venture capital firms.
• Source

 Neuralink’s first human patient controls mouse with thoughts

• Neuralink’s first human patient, implanted with the company’s N1 brain chip, can now control a mouse cursor with their thoughts following a successful procedure.
• Elon Musk, CEO of Neuralink, announced the patient has fully recovered without any adverse effects and is working towards achieving the ability to click the mouse telepathically.
• Neuralink aims to enable individuals, particularly those with quadriplegia or ALS, to operate computers using their minds, using a chip that is both powerful and designed to be cosmetically invisible.
• Source

 Adobe launches AI assistant that can search and summarize PDFs

• Adobe introduced an AI assistant in its Reader and Acrobat applications that can generate summaries, answer questions, and provide suggestions on PDFs and other documents, aiming to streamline information digestion.
• The AI assistant, presently in beta phase, is integrated directly into Acrobat with imminent availability in Reader, and Adobe intends to introduce a paid subscription model for the tool post-beta.
• Adobe’s AI assistant distinguishes itself by being a built-in feature that can produce overviews, assist with conversational queries, generate verifiable citations, and facilitate content creation for various formats without the need for uploading PDFs.
• Source

 LockBit ransomware group taken down in multinational operation

• LockBit’s website was seized and its operations disrupted by a joint task force including the FBI and NCA under “Operation Cronos,” impacting the group’s ransomware activities and dark web presence.
• The operation led to the seizure of LockBit’s administration environment and leak site, with plans to use the platform to expose the operations and capabilities of LockBit through information bulletins.
• A PHP exploit deployed by the FBI played a significant role in undermining LockBit’s operations, according to statements from law enforcement and the group’s supposed ringleader, with the operation also resulting in charges against two Russian nationals.

A Daily Chronicle of AI Innovations in February 2024 – Day 19: AI Daily News – February 19th, 2024

 NVIDIA’s new dataset sharpens LLMs in math

NVIDIA has released OpenMathInstruct-1, an open-source math instruction tuning dataset with 1.8M problem-solution pairs. OpenMathInstruct-1 is a high-quality, synthetically generated dataset 4x bigger than previous ones and does NOT use GPT-4. The dataset is constructed by synthesizing code-interpreter solutions for GSM8K and MATH, two popular math reasoning benchmarks, using the Mixtral model.

The best model, OpenMath-CodeLlama-70B, trained on a subset of OpenMathInstruct-1, achieves a score of 84.6% on GSM8K and 50.7% on MATH, which is competitive with the best gpt-distilled models.

Why does this matter?

The dataset improves open-source LLMs for math, bridging the gap with closed-source models. It also uses better-licensed models, such as from Mistral AI. It is likely to impact AI research significantly, fostering advancements in LLMs’ mathematical reasoning through open-source collaboration.

Source

 Apple is working on AI updates to Spotlight and Xcode

Apple has expanded internal testing of new generative AI features for its Xcode programming software and plans to release them to third-party developers this year.

Furthermore, it is looking at potential uses for generative AI in consumer-facing products, like automatic playlist creation in Apple Music, slideshows in Keynote, or Spotlight search. AI chatbot-like search features for Spotlight could let iOS and macOS users make natural language requests, like with ChatGPT, to get weather reports or operate features deep within apps.

Why does this matter?

Apple’s statements about generative AI have been conservative compared to its counterparts. But AI updates to Xcode hint at giving competition to Microsoft’s GitHub Copilot. Apple has also released MLX to train AI models on Apple silicon chips easily, a text-to-image editing AI MGIE, and AI animator Keyframer.

Source

 Google open-sources Magika, its AI-powered file-type identifier

Google has open-sourced Magika, its AI-powered file-type identification system, to help others accurately detect binary and textual file types. Magika employs a custom, highly optimized deep-learning model, enabling precise file identification within milliseconds, even when running on a CPU.

Magika, thanks to its AI model and large training dataset, is able to outperform other existing tools by about 20%. It has greater performance gains on textual files, including code files and configuration files that other tools can struggle with.

Internally, Magika is used at scale to help improve Google users’ safety by routing Gmail, Drive, and Safe Browsing files to the proper security and content policy scanners.

Why does this matter?

Today, web browsers, code editors, and countless other software rely on file-type detection to decide how to properly render a file. Accurate identification is notoriously difficult because each file format has a different structure or no structure at all. Magika ditches current tedious and error-prone methods for robust and faster AI. It improves security with resilience to ever-evolving threats, enhancing software’s user safety and functionality.

 SoftBank to build a $100B AI chip venture

• SoftBank’s Masayoshi Son is seeking $100 billion to create a new AI chip venture, aiming to compete with industry leader Nvidia.
• The new venture, named Izanagi, will collaborate with Arm, a company SoftBank spun out but still owns about 90% of, to enter the AI chip market.
• SoftBank plans to raise $70 billion of the venture’s funding from Middle Eastern institutional investors, contributing the remaining $30 billion itself.

 Reddit has a new AI training deal to sell user content

• Reddit has entered into a $60 million annual contract with a large AI company to allow the use of its social media platform’s content for AI training as it prepares for a potential IPO.
• The deal could set a precedent for similar future agreements and is part of Reddit’s efforts to leverage AI technology to attract investors for its advised $5 billion IPO valuation.
• Reddit’s revenue increased to more than $800 million last year, showing a 20% growth from 2022, as the company moves closer to launching its IPO, possibly as early as next month.

 Air Canada chatbot promised a discount. Now the airline has to pay it.

• A British Columbia resident was misled by an Air Canada chatbot into believing he would receive a discount under the airline’s bereavement policy for a last-minute flight booked due to a family tragedy.
• Air Canada argued that the chatbot was a separate legal entity and not responsible for providing incorrect information about its bereavement policy, which led to a dispute over accountability.
• The Canadian civil-resolutions tribunal ruled in favor of the customer, emphasizing that Air Canada is responsible for all information provided on its website, including that from a chatbot.

 Apple faces €500m fine from EU over Spotify complaint

• Apple is facing a reported $539 million fine as a result of an EU investigation into Spotify’s antitrust complaint, which alleges Apple’s policies restrict competition by preventing apps from offering cheaper alternatives to its music service.
• The fine originates from Spotify’s 2019 complaint about Apple’s App Store policies, specifically the restriction on developers linking to their own subscription services, a policy Apple modified in 2022 following regulatory feedback from Japan.
• While the fine amounts to $539 million, discussions initially suggested Apple could face penalties nearing $40 billion, highlighting a significant reduction from the potential maximum based on Apple’s global annual turnover.

What Else Is Happening in AI on February 19th, 2024

SoftBank’s founder is seeking about $100 billion for an AI chip venture.

SoftBank’s founder, Masayoshi Son, envisions creating a company that can complement the chip design unit Arm Holdings Plc. The AI chip venture is code-named Izanag and will allow him to build an AI chip powerhouse, competing with Nvidia and supplying semiconductors essential for AI. (Link)

ElevenLabs teases a new AI sound effects feature.

The popular AI voice startup teased a new feature allowing users to generate sounds via text prompts. It showcased the outputs of this feature with OpenAI’s Sora demos on X. (Link)

NBA commissioner Adam Silver demonstrates NB-AI concept.

Adam Silver demoed a potential future for how NBA fans will use AI to watch basketball action. The proposed interface is named NB-AI and was unveiled at the league’s Tech Summit on Friday. Check out the demo here! (Link)

Reddit signs AI content licensing deal ahead of IPO.

Reddit Inc. has signed a contract allowing a company to train its AI models on its content. Reddit told prospective investors in its IPO that it had signed the deal, worth about $60 million on an annualized basis, earlier this year. This deal with an unnamed large AI company could be a model for future contracts of similar nature. (Link)

Mistral quietly released a new model in testing called ‘next’.

Early users testing the model are reporting capabilities that meet or surpass GPT-4. A user writes, ‘it bests gpt-4 at reasoning and has mistral’s characteristic conciseness’. It could be a milestone in open source if early tests hold up. (Link)

A Daily Chronicle of AI Innovations in February 2024 – Day 14: AI Daily News – February 14th, 2024

 Nvidia launches offline AI chatbot trainable on local data

NVIDIA has released Chat with RTX, a new tool allowing users to create customized AI chatbots powered by their own local data on Windows PCs equipped with GeForce RTX GPUs. Users can rapidly build chatbots that provide quick, relevant answers to queries by connecting the software to files, videos, and other personal content stored locally on their devices.

Features of Chat with RTX include support for multiple data formats (text, PDFs, video, etc.), access to LLM like Mistral, running offline for privacy, and fast performance via RTX GPUs. From personalized recommendations based on influencing videos to extracting answers from personal notes or archives, there are many potential applications.

Why does this matter?

OpenAI and its cloud-based approach now face fresh competition from this Nvidia offering as it lets solopreneurs develop more tailored workflows. It shows how AI can become more personalized, controllable, and accessible right on local devices. Instead of relying solely on generic cloud services, businesses can now customize chatbots with confidential data for targeted assistance.

Source

 ChatGPT can now remember conversations

OpenAI is testing a memory capability for ChatGPT to recall details from past conversations to provide more helpful and personalized responses. Users can explicitly tell ChatGPT what memories to remember or delete conversationally or via settings. Over time, ChatGPT will provide increasingly relevant suggestions based on users preferences, so they don’t have to repeat them.

This feature is rolled out to only a few Free and Plus users and OpenAI will share broader plans soon. OpenAI also states memories bring added privacy considerations, so sensitive data won’t be proactively retained without permission.

Why does this matter?

ChatGPT’s memory feature allows for more personalized, contextually-aware interactions. Its ability to recall specifics from entire conversations brings AI assistants one step closer to feeling like cooperative partners, not just neutral tools. For companies, remembering user preferences increases efficiency, while individuals may find improved relationships with AI companions.

Source

 Cohere launches open-source LLM in 101 languages

Cohere has launched Aya, a new open-source LLM supporting 101 languages, over twice as many as existing models support. Backed by the large dataset covering lesser resourced languages, Aya aims to unlock AI potential for overlooked cultures. Benchmarking shows Aya significantly outperforms other open-source massively multilingual models.

The release tackles the data scarcity outside of English training content that limits AI progress. By providing rare non-English fine-tuning demonstrations, it enables customization in 50+ previously unsupported languages. Experts emphasize that Aya represents a crucial step toward preserving linguistic diversity.

Why does this matter?

With over 100 languages supported, more communities globally can benefit from generative models tailored to their cultural contexts. It also signifies an ethical shift: recognizing AI’s real-world impact requires serving people inclusively. Models like Aya, trained on diverse data, inch us toward AI that can help everyone.

Source

 Zuckerberg says Quest 3 is better than Vision Pro in every way

• Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Meta, stated on Instagram that he believes the Quest 3 headset is not only a better value but also a superior product compared to Apple’s Vision Pro.
• Zuckerberg emphasized the Quest 3’s advantages over the Vision Pro, including its lighter weight, lack of a wired battery pack for greater motion, a wider field of view, and a more immersive content library.
• While acknowledging the Vision Pro’s strength as an entertainment device, Zuckerberg highlighted the Quest 3’s significant cost benefit, being “like seven times less expensive” than the Vision Pro.

 Slack is getting a major Gen AI boost

• Slack is introducing AI features allowing for summaries of threads, channel recaps, and the answering of work-related questions, initially available as a paid add-on for Slack Enterprise users.
• The AI tool enables summarization of unread messages or messages from a specified timeframe and allows users to ask questions about workplace projects or policies based on previous Slack messages.
• Slack is expanding its AI capabilities to integrate with other applications, summarizing external documents and building a new digest feature to highlight important messages, with a focus on keeping customer data private and siloed.

 Microsoft and OpenAI claim hackers are using generative AI to improve cyberattacks

• Russia, China, and other nations are leveraging the latest artificial intelligence tools to enhance hacking capabilities and identify new espionage targets, based on a report from Microsoft and OpenAI.
• The report highlights the association of AI use with specific hacking groups from China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea, marking a first in identifying such ties to government-sponsored cyber activities.
• Microsoft has taken steps to block these groups’ access to AI tools like OpenAI’s ChatGPT, aiming to curb their ability to conduct espionage and cyberattacks, despite challenges in completely stopping such activities.

 Apple researchers unveil ‘Keyframer’, a new AI tool

• Apple researchers have introduced “Keyframer,” an AI tool using large language models (LLMs) to animate still images with natural language prompts.
• “Keyframer” can generate CSS animation code from text prompts and allows users to refine animations by editing the code or adding prompts, enhancing the creative process.
• The tool aims to democratize animation, making it accessible to non-experts and indicating a shift towards AI-assisted creative processes in various industries.

we’re moving from memory to reason. logic and reasoning are the foundation of both human and artificial intelligence. it’s about figuring things out. our ai engineers and entrepreneurs finally get this! stronger logic and reasoning algorithms will easily solve alignment and hallucinations for us. but that’s just the beginning.

logic and reasoning tell us that we human beings value three things above all; happiness, health and goodness. this is what our life is most about. this is what we most want for the people we love and care about.

so, yes, ais will be making amazing discoveries in science and medicine over these next few years because of their much stronger logic and reasoning algorithms. much smarter ais endowed with much stronger logic and reasoning algorithms will make us humans much more productive, generating trillions of dollars in new wealth over the next 6 years. we will end poverty, end factory farming, stop aborting as many lives each year as die of all other cause combined, and reverse climate change.

but our greatest achievement, and we can do this in a few years rather than in a few decades, is to make everyone on the planet much happier and much healthier, and a much better person. superlogical ais will teach us how to evolve into what will essentially be a new human species. it will develop safe pharmaceuticals that make us much happier, and much kinder. it will create medicines that not only cure, but also prevent, diseases like cancer. it will allow us all to live much longer, healthier lives. ais will create a paradise for everyone on the planet. and it won’t take longer than 10 years for all of this to happen.

what it may not do, simply because it probably won’t be necessary, is make us all much smarter. it will be doing all of our deepest thinking for us, freeing us to enjoy our lives like never before. we humans are hardwired to seek pleasure and avoid pain. most fundamentally that is who we are. we’re almost there.

https://www.youtube.com/live/RikVztHFUQ8?si=GwKFWipXfTytrhD4

OpenAI and Microsoft Disrupt Malicious AI Use by State-Affiliated Threat Actors

OpenAI and Microsoft have teamed up to identify and disrupt operations of five state-affiliated malicious groups using AI for cyber threats, aiming to secure digital ecosystems and promote AI safety.

https://www.dagens.com/news/openai-and-microsoft-disrupt-malicious-ai-use-by-state-affiliated-threat-actors

OpenAI is jumping into one of the hottest areas of artificial intelligence: autonomous agents.

Microsoft-backed OpenAI is working on a type of agent software to automate complex tasks by taking over a users’ device, The Information reported on Wednesday, citing a person with knowledge on the matter. The agent software will handle web-based tasks such as gathering public data about a set of companies, creating itineraries or booking flight tickets, according to the report. The new assistants – often called “agents” – promise to perform more complex personal and work tasks when commanded to by a human, without needing close supervision.

https://www.reuters.com/technology/openai-developing-software-that-operates-devices-automates-tasks-information-2024-02-07/

Source

What Else Is Happening in AI on February 14th, 2024

 Nous Research released 1M-Entry 70B Llama-2 model with advanced steerability

Nous Research has released its largest model yet – Nous Hermes 2 Llama-2 70B – trained on over 1 million entries of primarily synthetic GPT-4 generated data. The model uses a more structured ChatML prompt format compatible with OpenAI, enabling advanced multi-turn chat dialogues. (Link)

 Otter launches AI meeting buddy that can catch up on meetings

Otter has introduced a new feature for its AI chatbot to query past transcripts, in-channel team conversations, and auto-generated overviews. This AI suite aims to outperform and replace competitors’ paid offerings like Microsoft, Zoom and Google by simplifying recall and productivity for users leveraging Otter’s complete meeting data. (Link)

 OpenAI CEO forecasts smarter multitasking GPT-5

At the World Government Summit, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman remarked that the upcoming GPT-5 model will be smarter, faster, more multimodal, and better at everything across the board due to its generality. There are rumors that GPT-5 could be a multimodal AI called “Gobi” slated for release in spring 2024 after training on a massive dataset. (Link)

 ElevenLabs announced expansion for its speech to speech in 29 languages

ElevenLabs’s Speech to Speech is now available in 29 languages, making it multilingual. The tool, launched in November, lets users transform their voice into another character with full control over emotions, timing, and delivery by prompting alone. This update just made it more inclusive! (Link)

 Airbnb plans to build ‘most innovative AI interfaces ever

Airbnb plans to leverage AI, including its recent acquisition of stealth startup GamePlanner, to evolve its interface into an adaptive “ultimate concierge”. Airbnb executives believe the generative models themselves are underutilized and want to focus on improving the AI application layer to deliver more personalized, cross-category services. (Link)

A Daily Chronicle of AI Innovations in February 2024 – Day 13: AI Daily News – February 13th, 2024

How LLMs are built?

ChatGPT adds ability to remember things you discussed. Rolling out now to a small portion of users

NVIDIA CEO says computers will pass any test a human can within 6 years

NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang says computers will pass any test a human can by the end of this decade pic.twitter.com/nThVio1wwq

— Tsarathustra (@tsarnick) February 3, 2024

 More Agents = More Performance: Tencent Research

The Tencent Research Team has released a paper claiming that the performance of language models can be significantly improved by simply increasing the number of agents. The researchers use a “sampling-and-voting” method in which the input task is fed multiple times into a language model with multiple language model agents to produce results. After that, majority voting is applied to these answers to determine the final answer.

The researchers prove this methodology by experimenting with different datasets and tasks, showing that the performance of language models increases with the size of the ensemble, i.e., with the number of agents (results below). They also established that even smaller LLMs can match/outperform their larger counterparts by scaling the number of agents. (Example below)

Why does it matter?

Using multiple agents to boost LLM performance is a fresh tactic to tackle single models’ inherent limitations and biases. This method eliminates the need for complicated methods such as chain-of-thought prompting. While it is not a silver bullet, it can be combined with existing complicated methods that stimulate the potential of LLMs and enhance them to achieve further performance improvements.

Source

 Google DeepMind’s MC-ViT understands long-context video

Researchers from Google DeepMind and the University of Cornell have combined to develop a method allowing AI-based systems to understand longer videos better. Currently, most AI-based models can comprehend videos for up to a short duration due to the complexity and computing power.

That’s where MC-ViT aims to make a difference, as it can store a compressed “memory” of past video segments, allowing the model to reference past events efficiently. Human memory consolidation theories inspire this method by combining neuroscience and psychology. The MC-ViT method provides state-of-the-art action recognition and question answering despite using fewer resources.

Why does it matter?

Most video encoders based on transformers struggle with processing long sequences due to their complex nature. Efforts to address this often add complexity and slow things down. MC-ViT offers a simpler way to handle longer videos without major architectural changes.

Source

 ElevenLabs lets you turn your voice into passive income

ElevenLabs has developed an AI voice cloning model that allows you to turn your voice into passive income. Users must sign up for their “Voice Actor Payouts” program.

After creating the account, upload a 30-minute audio of your voice. The cloning model will create your professional voice clone with AI that resembles your original voice. You can then share it in Voice Library to make it available to the growing community of ElevenLabs.

After that, whenever someone uses your professional voice clone, you will get a cash or character reward according to your requirements. You can also decide on a rate for your voice usage by opting for a standard royalty program or setting a custom rate.

Why does it matter?

By leveraging ElevenLabs’ AI voice cloning, users can potentially monetize their voices in various ways, such as providing narration for audiobooks, voicing virtual assistants, or even lending their voices to advertising campaigns. This innovation democratizes the field of voice acting, making it accessible to a broader audience beyond professional actors and voiceover artists. Additionally, it reflects the growing influence of AI in reshaping traditional industries.

Source

What Else Is Happening in AI on February 13th, 2024

 NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang advocates for each country’s sovereign AI

While speaking at the World Governments Summit in Dubai, the NVIDIA CEO strongly advocated the need for sovereign AI. He said, “Every country needs to own the production of their own intelligence.” He further added, “It codifies your culture, your society’s intelligence, your common sense, your history – you own your own data.”  (Link)

 Google to invest €25 million in Europe to uplift AI skills

Google has pledged 25 million euros to help the people of Europe learn how to use AI. With this funding, Google wants to develop various social enterprise and nonprofit applications. The tech giant is also looking to run “growth academies” to support companies using AI to scale their companies and has expanded its free online AI training courses to 18 languages. (Link)

 NVIDIA surpasses Amazon in market value 

NVIDIA Corp. briefly surpassed Amazon.com Inc. in market value on Monday. Nvidia rose almost 0.2%, closing with a market value of about $1.78 trillion. While Amazon fell 1.2%, it ended with a closing valuation of $1.79 trillion. With this market value, NVIDIA Corp. temporarily became the 4th most valuable US-listed company behind Alphabet, Microsoft, and Apple. (Link)

 Microsoft might develop an AI upscaling feature for Windows 11

Microsoft may release an AI upscaling feature for PC gaming on Windows 11, similar to Nvidia’s Deep Learning Super Sampling (DLSS) technology. The “Automatic Super Resolution” feature, which an X user spotted in the latest test version of Windows 11, uses AI to improve supported games’ frame rates and image detail. Microsoft is yet to announce the news or hardware specifics, if any.  (Link)

 Fandom rolls out controversial generative AI features

Fandom hosts wikis for many fandoms and has rolled out many generative AI features. However, some features like “Quick Answers” have sparked a controversy. Quick Answers generates a Q&A-style dropdown that distills information into a bite-sized sentence. Wiki creators have complained that it answers fan questions inaccurately, thereby hampering user trust.  (Link)

 Sam Altman warns that ‘societal misalignments’ could make AI dangerous

• OpenAI CEO Sam Altman expressed concerns at the World Governments Summit about the potential for ‘societal misalignments’ caused by artificial intelligence, emphasizing the need for international oversight similar to the International Atomic Energy Agency.
• Altman highlighted the importance of not focusing solely on the dramatic scenarios like killer robots but on the subtle ways AI could unintentionally cause societal harm, advocating for regulatory measures not led by the AI industry itself.
• Despite the challenges, Altman remains optimistic about the future of AI, comparing its current state to the early days of mobile technology, and anticipates significant advancements and improvements in the coming years.
• Source

 SpaceX plans to deorbit 100 Starlink satellites due to potential flaw

• SpaceX plans to deorbit 100 first-generation Starlink satellites due to a potential flaw to prevent them from failing, with the process designed to ensure they burn up safely in the Earth’s atmosphere without posing a risk.
• The deorbiting operation will not impact Starlink customers, as the network still has over 5,400 operational satellites, demonstrating SpaceX’s dedication to space sustainability and minimizing orbital hazards.
• SpaceX has implemented an ‘autonomous collision avoidance’ system and ion thrusters in its satellites for maneuverability, and has a policy of deorbiting satellites within five years or less to avoid becoming a space risk, with 406 satellites already deorbited.

 Nvidia unveils tool for running GenAI on PCs

• Nvidia is releasing a tool named “Chat with RTX” that enables owners of GeForce RTX 30 Series and 40 Series graphics cards to run an AI-powered chatbot offline on Windows PCs.
• “Chat with RTX” allows customization of GenAI models with personal documents for querying, supporting multiple text formats and even YouTube playlist transcriptions.
• Despite its limitations, such as inability to remember context and variable response relevance, “Chat with RTX” represents a growing trend of running GenAI models locally for increased privacy and lower latency.
• https://youtu.be/H8vJ_wZPH3A?si=DTWYvcZNDvfds8Rv

 iMessage and Bing escape EU rules

• Apple’s iMessage has been declared by the European Commission not to be a “core platform service” under the EU’s Digital Markets Act (DMA), exempting it from rigorous new rules such as interoperability requirements.
• The decision came after a five-month investigation, and while services like WhatsApp and Messenger have been designated as core platform services requiring interoperability, iMessage, Bing, Edge, and Microsoft Advertising have not.
• Despite avoiding the DMA’s interoperability obligations, Apple announced it would support the cross-platform RCS messaging standard on iPhones, which will function alongside iMessage without replacing it.

 Google says it got rid of over 170 million fake reviews in Search and Maps in 2023

• Google announced that it eliminated more than 170 million fake reviews in Google Search and Maps in 2023, a figure that surpasses by over 45 percent the number removed in the previous year.
• The company introduced new algorithms to detect fake reviews, including identifying duplicate content across multiple businesses and sudden spikes of 5-star ratings, leading to the removal of five million fake reviews related to a scamming network.
• Additionally, Google removed 14 million policy-violating videos and blocked over 2 million scam attempts to claim legitimate business profiles in 2023, doubling the figures from 2022.

• “More agents = more performance”- The Tencent Research Team:
  The Tencent Research team suggests boosting language model performance by adding more agents. They use a “sampling-and-voting” method, where the input task is run multiple times through a language model with several agents to generate various results. These results are then subjected to majority voting to determine the most reliable result.

• Google DeepMind’s MC-ViT enables long-context video understanding:
  Most transformer-based video encoders are limited to short contexts due to quadratic complexity. To overcome this issue, Google DeepMind introduces memory consolidated vision transformer (MC-ViT) that effortlessly extends its context far into the past and exhibits excellent scaling behavior when learning from longer videos.

• ElevenLabs’ AI voice cloning lets you turn your voice into passive income:
  ElevenLabs has developed an AI-based voice cloning model to turn your voice into passive income. The voice cloning program allows all voice-over artists to create professional clones, share them with the Voice Library community, and earn rewards/royalty every time soundbite is used.

• NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang advocates for each country’s sovereign AI:
  While speaking at the World Governments Summit in Dubai, the NVIDIA CEO strongly advocated the need for sovereign AI. He said, “Every country needs to own the production of their own intelligence.” He further added, “It codifies your culture, your society’s intelligence, your common sense, your history – you own your own data.”

• Google to invest €25 million in Europe to uplift AI skills:
  Google has pledged 25 million euros to help the people of Europe learn AI. Google is also looking to run “growth academies” to support companies using AI to scale their companies and has expanded its free online AI training courses to 18 languages.

• NVIDIA surpasses Amazon in market value:
  NVIDIA Corp. briefly surpassed Amazon.com Inc. on Monday. Nvidia rose almost 0.2%, closing with a market value of about $1.78 trillion. While Amazon fell 1.2%, it ended with a closing valuation of $1.79 trillion. It made NVIDIA Corp. 4th largest US-listed company.

• Microsoft might develop an AI upscaling feature for Windows 11:
  Microsoft may release an AI upscaling feature for PC gaming on Windows 11, similar to Nvidia’s DLSS technology. The “Automatic Super Resolution” feature uses AI to improve supported games’ frame rates and image detail.

• Fandom rolls out controversial generative AI features:
  Fandom’s Quick Answers feature, part of its generative AI tools, has sparked controversy among wiki creators. It generates short Q&A-style responses, but many creators complain about inaccuracies, undermining user trust.

A Daily Chronicle of AI Innovations in February 2024 – Day 12: AI Daily News – February 12th, 2024

 DeepSeekMath: The key to mathematical LLMs

In its latest research paper, DeepSeek AI has introduced a new AI model, DeepSeekMath 7B, specialized for improving mathematical reasoning in open-source LLMs. It has been pre-trained on a massive corpus of 120 billion tokens extracted from math-related web content, combined with reinforcement learning techniques tailored for math problems.

When evaluated across crucial English and Chinese benchmarks, DeepSeekMath 7B outperformed all the leading open-source mathematical reasoning models, even coming close to the performance of proprietary models like GPT-4 and Gemini Ultra.

Why does this matter?

Previously, state-of-the-art mathematical reasoning was locked within proprietary models that aren’t inaccessible to everyone. With DeepSeekMath 7B’s decision to go open-source (while also sharing the training methodology), new doors have opened for math AI development across fields like education, finance, scientific computing, and more. Teams can build on DeepSeekMath’s high-performance foundation instead of starting models from scratch.

Source

 localllm enables GenAI app development without GPUs

Google has introduced a new open-source tool called localllm that allows developers to run LLMs locally on CPUs within Cloud Workstations instead of relying on scarce GPU resources. localllm provides easy access to “quantized” LLMs from HuggingFace that have been optimized to run efficiently on devices with limited compute capacity.

By allowing LLMs to run on CPU and memory, localllm significantly enhances productivity and cost efficiency. Developers can now integrate powerful LLMs into their workflows without managing scarce GPU resources or relying on external services.

Why does this matter?

localllm democratizes access to the power of large language models by freeing developers from GPU constraints. Now, even solo innovators and small teams can experiment and create production-ready GenAI applications without huge investments in infrastructure costs.

Source

 IBM researchers show how GenAI can tamper calls

In a concerning development, IBM researchers have shown how multiple GenAI services can be used to tamper and manipulate live phone calls. They demonstrated this by developing a proof-of-concept, a tool that acts as a man-in-the-middle to intercept a call between two speakers. They then experimented with the tool by audio jacking a live phone conversation.

The call audio was processed through a speech recognition engine to generate a text transcript. This transcript was then reviewed by a large language model that was pre-trained to modify any mentions of bank account numbers. Specifically, when the model detected a speaker state their bank account number, it would replace the actual number with a fake one.

Remarkably, whenever the AI model swapped in these phony account numbers, it even injected its own natural buffering phrases like “let me confirm that information” to account for the extra seconds needed to generate the devious fakes.

The altered text, now with fake account details, was fed into a text-to-speech engine that cloned the speakers’ voices. The manipulated voice was successfully inserted back into the audio call, and the two people had no idea their conversation had been changed!

Why does this matter?

This proof-of-concept highlights alarming implications – victims could become unwilling puppets as AI makes realistic conversation tampering dangerously easy. While promising, generative AI’s proliferation creates an urgent need to identify and mitigate emerging risks. Even if still theoretical, such threats warrant increased scrutiny around model transparency and integrity verification measures before irreparable societal harm occurs.

Source

What Else Is Happening in AI on February 12th, 2024

 Perplexity partners with Vercel to bring AI search to apps

By partnering with Vercel, Perplexity AI is making its large language models available to developers building apps on Vercel. Developers get access to Perplexity’s LLMs pplx-7b-online and pplx-70b-online that use up-to-date internet knowledge to power features like recommendations and chatbots. (Link)

Volkswagen sets up “AI Lab” to speed up its AI development initiatives

The lab will build AI prototypes for voice recognition, connected digital services, improved electric vehicle charging cycles, predictive maintenance, and other applications. The goal is to collaborate with tech firms and rapidly implement ideas across Volkswagen brands. (Link)

 Tech giants use AI to monitor employee messages

AI startup Aware has attracted clients like Walmart, Starbucks, and Delta to use its technology to monitor workplace communications. But experts argue this AI surveillance could enable “thought crime” violations and treat staff “like inventory.” There are also issues around privacy, transparency, and recourse for employees. (Link)

 Disney harnesses AI to bring contextual ads to streaming

Their new ad tool called “Magic Words” uses AI to analyze the mood and content of scenes in movies and shows. It then allows brands to target custom ads based on those descriptive tags. Six major ad agencies are beta-testing the product as Disney pushes further into streaming ads amid declining traditional TV revenue. (Link)

 Microsoft hints at a more helpful Copilot in Windows 11

New Copilot experiences let the assistant offer relevant actions and understand the context better. Notepad is also getting Copilot integration for text explanations. The features hint at a forthcoming Windows 11 update centered on AI advancements. (Link)

 Crowd destroys a driverless Waymo car

• A Waymo driverless taxi was attacked in San Francisco’s Chinatown, resulting in its windshield being smashed, being covered in spray paint, its windows broken, and ultimately being set on fire.
• No motive for the attack has been reported, and the Waymo car was not transporting any riders at the time of the incident; police confirmed there were no injuries.
• The incident occurs amidst tensions between San Francisco residents and automated vehicle operators, following previous issues with robotaxis causing disruption and accidents in the city.
• Source

 Apple has been buying AI startups faster than Google, Facebook, likely to shakeup global AI soon

• Apple has reportedly outpaced major rivals like Google, Meta, and Microsoft in AI startup acquisitions in 2023, with up to 32 companies acquired, highlighting its dedication to AI development.
• The company’s strategic acquisitions provide access to cutting-edge technology and top-talent, aiming to strengthen its competitive edge and AI capabilities in its product lineup.
• While specifics of Apple’s integration plans for these AI technologies remain undisclosed, its aggressive acquisition strategy signals a significant focus on leading the global AI innovation forefront.
• Source

 The antitrust fight against Big Tech is just beginning

• DOJ’s Jonathan Kanter emphasizes the commencement of a significant antitrust battle against Big Tech, highlighting unprecedented public resonance with these issues.
• The US government has recently blocked a notable number of mergers to protect competition, including stopping Penguin Random House from acquiring Simon & Schuster.
• Kanter highlights the problem of monopsony in tech markets, where powerful buyers distort the market, and stresses the importance of antitrust enforcement for a competitive economy.
• Source

 Nvidia CEO plays down fears in call for rapid AI infrastructure growth

• Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang downplays fears of AI, attributing them to overhyped concerns and interests aimed at scaring people, while advocating for rapid development of AI infrastructure for economic benefits.
• Huang argues that regulating AI should not be more difficult than past innovations like cars and planes, emphasizing the importance of countries building their own AI infrastructure to protect culture and gain economic advantages.
• Despite Nvidia’s success with AI chips and the ongoing global debate on AI regulation, Huang encourages nations to proactively develop their AI capabilities, dismissing the scare tactics as a barrier to embracing the technology’s potential.
• Source

10 AI tools that can be used to improve research

#1 Gemini:

Gemini is an AI chatbot from Google AI that can be used for a variety of research tasks, including finding information, summarizing texts, and generating creative text formats. It can be used for both primary and secondary research and it is great for creating content.

• Accuracy: Gemini is trained on a massive dataset of text and code, which means that it can generate text that is accurate and reliable also it uses Google to look up answers.

• Relevance: Gemini can be used to find information that is relevant to a specific research topic.

• Creativity: Gemini can be used to generate creative text formats such as code, scripts, musical pieces, email, letters, etc.

• Engagement: Gemini can be used to present information creatively and engagingly.

• Accessibility: Gemini is available for free and can be used from anywhere in the world.

Scite.AI

Scite AI is an innovative platform that helps discover and evaluate scientific articles. Its Smart Citations feature provides context and classification of citations in scientific literature, indicating whether they support or contrast the cited claims.

• Smart Citations: Offers detailed insights into how other papers have cited a publication, including the context and whether the citation supports or contradicts the claims made.

• Deep Learning Model: Automatically classifies each citation’s context, indicating the confidence level of the classification.

• Citation Statement Search: Enables searching across metadata relevant publications.

• Custom Dashboards: Allows users to build and manage collections of articles, providing aggregate insights and notifications.

• Reference Check: Helps to evaluate the quality of references used in manuscripts.

• Journal Metrics: Offers insights into publications, top authors, and scite Index rankings.

• Assistant by scite: An AI tool that utilizes Smart Citations for generating content and building reference lists.

4. GPT4All

GPT4All is an open-source ecosystem for training and deploying large language models that can be run locally on consumer-grade hardware. GPT4All is designed to be powerful, customizable and great for conducting research. Overall, it is an offline and secure AI-powered search engine.

• Answer questions about anything: You can use any ChatGPT version for your personal use to answer even simple questions.

• Personal writing assistant: Write emails, documents, stories, songs, play based on your previous work.

• Reading documents: Submit your text documents and receive summaries and answers. You can easily find answers in the documents you provide by submitting a folder of documents for GPT4All to extract information from.

5. AsReview

AsReview is a software package designed to make systematic reviews more efficient using active learning techniques. It helps to review large amounts of text quickly and addresses the challenge of time constraints when reading large amounts of literature.

• Free and Open Source: The software is available for free and its source code is openly accessible.

• Local or Server Installation: It can be installed either locally on a device or on a server, providing full control over data.

• Active Learning Algorithms: Users can select from various active learning algorithms for their projects.

• Project Management: Enables creation of multiple projects, selection of datasets, and incorporation of prior knowledge.

• Research Infrastructure: Provides an open-source infrastructure for large-scale simulation studies and algorithm validation.

• Extensible: Users can contribute to its development through GitHub.

6. DeepL

DeepL translates texts & full document files instantly. Millions translate with DeepL everyday. It is commonly used for translating web pages, documents, and emails. It can also translate speech.

DeepL also has a great feature called DeepL Write. DeepL Write is a powerful tool that can help you to improve your writing in a variety of ways. It is a valuable resource for anyone who wants to write clear, concise, and effective prose.

1. Tailored Translations: Adjust translations to fit specific needs and context, with alternatives for words or phrases.

2. Whole Document Translation: One-click translation of entire documents including PDF, Word, and PowerPoint files while maintaining original formatting.

3. Tone Adjustment: Option to select between formal and informal tone of voice for translations in selected languages.

4. Built-in Dictionary: Instant access to dictionary for insight into specific words in translations, including context, examples, and synonyms.

7. Humata

Humata is an AI tool designed to assist with processing and understanding PDF documents. It offers features like summarizing, comparing documents, and answering questions based on the content of the uploaded files.

• Designed to process and summarize long documents, allowing users to ask questions and get summarized answers from any PDF file.

• Claims to be faster and more efficient than manual reading, capable of answering repeated questions and customizing summaries.

• Humata differs from ChatGPT by its ability to read and interpret files, generating answers with citations from the documents.

• Offers a free version for trial

8. Cockatoo

Cockatoo AI is an AI-powered transcription service that automatically generates text from recorded speech. It is a convenient and easy-to-use tool that can be used to transcribe a variety of audio and video files. It is one of the AI-powered tools that not everyone will find a use for but it is a great tool nonetheless.

• Highly accurate transcription: Cockatoo AI uses cutting-edge AI to transcribe audio and video files with a high degree of accuracy. It is said to be able to transcribe speech with superhuman accuracy, surpassing human performance.

• Support for multiple languages: Cockatoo AI supports transcription in more than 90 languages, making it a versatile tool for global users.

• Versatile file formats: Cockatoo AI can transcribe a variety of audio and video file formats, including MP3, WAV, MP4, and MOV.

• Quick turnaround: Cockatoo AI can transcribe audio and video files quickly, with one hour of audio typically being transcribed in just 2-3 minutes.

• Seamless export options: Cockatoo AI allows users to export their transcripts in a variety of formats, including SRT, DOCX, any PDF document, and TXT.

9. Avidnote

Avidnote is an AI-powered research writing platform that helps researchers write and organize their research notes easily. It combines all of the different parts of the academic writing process, from finding articles to managing references and annotating research notes.

• AI research paper summary: Avidnote can automatically summarize research papers in a few clicks. This can save researchers a lot of time and effort, as they no longer need to read the entire paper to get the main points.

• Integrated note-taking: Avidnote allows researchers to take notes directly on the research papers they are reading. This makes it easy to keep track of their thoughts and ideas as they are reading.

• Collaborative research: Avidnote can be used by multiple researchers to collaborate on the same project. This can help share ideas, feedback, and research notes.

• AI citation generation: Avidnote can automatically generate citations for research papers in APA, MLA, and Chicago styles. This can save researchers a lot of time and effort, as they no longer need to manually format citations.

• AI writing assistant: Avidnote can provide suggestions for improving the writing style of research papers. This can help researchers to write more clear, concise, and persuasive papers.

• AI plagiarism detection: Avidnote can detect plagiarism in research papers. This can help researchers to avoid plagiarism and maintain the integrity of their work.

10. Research Rabbit

Research Rabbit is an online tool that helps you find references quickly and easily. It is a citation-based literature mapping tool that can be used to plan your essay, minor project, or literature review.

• AI for Researchers: Enhances research writing, reading, and data analysis using AI.

• Effective Reading: Capabilities include summarizing, proofreading text, and identifying research gaps.

• Data Analysis: Offers tools to input data and discover correlations and insights, relevant articles.

• Research Methods Support: Includes transcribing interviews and other research methods.

• AI Functionalities: Enables users to upload papers, ask questions, summarize text, get explanations, and proofread using AI.

• Note Saving: Provides an integrated platform to save notes alongside papers.

A Daily Chronicle of AI Innovations in February 2024 – Day 11: AI Daily News – February 11th, 2024

This week, we’ll cover Google DeepMind creating a grandmaster-level chess AI, the satirical AI Goody-2 raising questions about ethics and AI boundaries, Google rebranding Bard to Gemini and launching the Gemini Advanced chatbot and mobile apps, OpenAI developing AI agents to automate work, and various companies introducing new AI-related products and features.

Google DeepMind has just made an incredible breakthrough in the world of chess. They’ve developed a brand new artificial intelligence (AI) that can play chess at a grandmaster level. And get this—it’s not like any other chess AI we’ve seen before!

Read Aloud For Me: Access All Your AI Tools within 1 single App

Instead of using traditional search algorithm approaches, Google DeepMind’s chess AI is based on a language model architecture. This innovative approach diverges from the norm and opens up new possibilities in the realm of AI.

To train this AI, DeepMind fed it a massive dataset of 10 million chess games and a mind-boggling 15 billion data points. And the results are mind-blowing. The AI achieved an Elo rating of 2895 in rapid chess when pitted against human opponents. That’s seriously impressive!

In fact, this AI even outperformed AlphaZero, another notable chess AI, when it didn’t use the MCTS strategy. That’s truly remarkable.

But here’s the real kicker: this breakthrough isn’t just about chess. It highlights the incredible potential of the Transformer architecture, which was primarily known for its use in language models. It challenges the idea that transformers can only be used as statistical pattern recognizers. So, we might just be scratching the surface of what these transformers can do!

Overall, this groundbreaking achievement by Google DeepMind opens up exciting opportunities for the future of AI, not just in chess but in various domains as well.

So, have you heard about this AI called Goody-2? It’s actually quite a fascinating creation by the art studio Brain. But here’s the thing – Goody-2 takes the concept of ethical AI to a whole new level. I mean, it absolutely refuses to engage in any conversation, no matter the topic. Talk about being too ethical for its own good!

The idea behind Goody-2 is to highlight the extremes of ethical AI development. It’s a satirical take on the overly cautious approach some AI developers take when it comes to potential risks and offensive content. In the eyes of Goody-2, every single query, no matter how innocent or harmless, is seen as potentially offensive or dangerous. It’s like the AI is constantly on high alert, unwilling to take any risks.

But let’s not dismiss the underlying questions Goody-2 raises. It really makes you think about the effectiveness of AI and the necessity of setting boundaries. By deliberately prioritizing ethical considerations over practical utility, its creators are making a statement about responsibility in AI development. How much caution is too much? Where do we draw the line between being responsible and being overly cautious?

Goody-2 may be a satirical creation, but it’s provoking some thought-provoking discussions about the role of AI in our lives and the balance between responsibility and usefulness.

Did you hear the news? Google has made some changes to their chatbot lineup! Say goodbye to Google Bard and say hello to Gemini Advanced! It seems like Google has rebranded their chatbot and given it a new name. Exciting stuff, right?

But that’s not all. Google has also launched the Gemini Advanced chatbot, which features their incredible Ultra 1.0 AI model. This means that the chatbot is smarter and more advanced than ever before. Imagine having a chatbot that can understand and respond to your commands with a high level of accuracy. Pretty cool, right?

And it’s not just limited to desktop anymore. Gemini is also moving into the mobile world, specifically Android and iOS phones. You can now have this pocket-sized chatbot ready to assist you whenever and wherever you are. Whether you need some creative inspiration, want to navigate through voice commands, or even scan something with your camera, Gemini has got you covered.

The rollout has already started in the US and some Asian countries, but don’t worry if you’re not in those regions. Google plans to expand Gemini’s availability worldwide gradually. So, keep an eye out for it because this chatbot is going places!

So, get this: OpenAI is seriously stepping up the game when it comes to AI. They’re developing these incredible AI “agents” that can basically take over your device and do all sorts of tasks for you. I mean, we’re talking about automating complex workflows between applications here. No more wasting time with manual cursor movements, clicks, and typing between apps. It’s like having a personal assistant right in your computer.

But wait, there’s more! These agents don’t just handle basic stuff. They can also deal with web-based tasks like booking flights or creating itineraries, and here’s the kicker: they don’t even need access to APIs. That’s some serious next-level tech right there.

Sure, OpenAI’s ChatGPT can already do some pretty nifty stuff using APIs, but these AI agents are taking things to a whole new level. They’ll be able to handle unstructured, complex work with little explicit guidance. So basically, they’re smart, adaptable, and can handle all sorts of tasks without breaking a sweat.

I don’t know about you, but I’m excited to see what these AI agents can do. It’s like having a super-efficient, ultra-intelligent buddy right in your computer, ready to take on the world of work.

Brilliant Labs just made an exciting announcement in the world of augmented reality (AR) glasses. While Apple may have been grabbing the spotlight with its Vision Pro, Brilliant Labs unveiled its own smart glasses called “Frame” that come with a multi-modal voice/vision/text AI assistant named Noa. These lightweight glasses are powered by advanced models like GPT-4 and Stable Diffusion, and what sets them apart is their open-source design, allowing programmers to build and customize on top of the AI capabilities.

But that’s not all. Noa, the AI assistant on the Frame, will also leverage Perplexity’s cutting-edge technology to provide rapid answers using its real-time chatbot. So, whether you’re interacting with the glasses through voice commands, visual cues, or text input, Noa will have you covered with quick and accurate responses.

Now, let’s shift our attention to Google. The tech giant’s research division recently introduced an impressive development called MobileDiffusion. This innovation allows Android and iPhone users to generate high-resolution images, measuring 512*512 pixels, in less than a second. What makes it even more remarkable is that MobileDiffusion boasts a comparably small model size of just 520M parameters, making it ideal for mobile devices. With its rapid image generation capabilities, this technology takes user experience to the next level, even allowing users to generate images in real-time while typing text prompts.

Furthermore, Google has launched its largest and most capable AI model, Ultra 1.0, in its ChatGPT-like assistant, which has been rebranded as Gemini (formerly Bard). This advanced AI model is now available as a premium plan called Gemini Advanced, accessible in 150 countries for a subscription fee of $19.99 per month. Users can enjoy a two-month trial at no cost. To enhance accessibility, Google has also rolled out Android and iOS apps for Gemini, making it convenient for users to harness its power across different devices.

Alibaba Group has also made strides in the field of AI, specifically with their Qwen1.5 series. This release includes models of various sizes, from 0.5B to 72B, offering flexibility for different use cases. Remarkably, Qwen1.5-72B has outperformed Llama2-70B in all benchmarks, showcasing its superior performance. These models are available on Ollama and LMStudio platforms, and an API is also provided on together.ai, allowing developers to leverage the capabilities of Qwen1.5 series models in their own applications.

NVIDIA, a prominent player in the AI space, has introduced Canary 1B, a multilingual model designed for speech-to-text recognition and translation. This powerful model supports transcription and translation in English, Spanish, German, and French. With its superior performance, Canary surpasses similarly-sized models like Whisper-large-v3 and SeamlessM4T-Medium-v1 in both transcription and translation tasks, securing the top spot on the HuggingFace Open ASR leaderboard. It achieves an impressive average word error rate of 6.67%, outperforming all other open-source models.

Excitingly, researchers have released Lag-Llama, the first open-source foundation model for time series forecasting. With this model, users can make accurate predictions for various time-dependent data. This is a significant development that has the potential to revolutionize industries reliant on accurate forecasting, such as finance and logistics.

Another noteworthy release in the AI assistant space comes from LAION. They have introduced BUD-E, an open-source conversational and empathic AI Voice Assistant. BUD-E stands out for its ability to use natural voices, empathy, and emotional intelligence to handle multi-speaker conversations. With this empathic approach, BUD-E offers a more human-like and personalized interaction experience.

MetaVoice has contributed to the advancements in text-to-speech (TTS) technology with the release of MetaVoice-1B. Trained on an extensive dataset of 100K hours of speech, this 1.2B parameter base model supports emotional speech in English and voice cloning. By making MetaVoice-1B available under the Apache 2.0 license, developers can utilize its capabilities in various applications that require TTS functionality.

Bria AI is addressing the need for background removal in images with its RMBG v1.4 release. This open-source model, trained on fully licensed images, provides a solution for easily separating subjects from their backgrounds. With RMBG, users can effortlessly create visually appealing compositions by removing unwanted elements from their images.

Researchers have also introduced InteractiveVideo, a user-centric framework for video generation. This framework is designed to enable dynamic interaction between users and generative models during the video generation process. By allowing users to instruct the model in real-time, InteractiveVideo empowers individuals to shape the generated content according to their preferences and creative vision.

Microsoft has been making strides in improving its AI search and chatbot experience with the redesigned Copilot AI. This enhanced version, previously known as Bing Chat, offers a new look and comes equipped with built-in AI image creation and editing functionality. Additionally, Microsoft introduces Deucalion, a finely tuned model that enriches Copilot’s Balanced mode, making it more efficient and versatile for users.

Online gaming platform Roblox has integrated AI-powered real-time chat translations, supporting communication in 16 different languages. This feature enables users from diverse linguistic backgrounds to interact seamlessly within the Roblox community, fostering a more inclusive and connected platform.

Hugging Face has expanded its offerings with the new Assistants feature on HuggingChat. These custom chatbots, built using open-source language models (LLMs) like Mistral and Llama, empower developers to create personalized conversational experiences. Similar to OpenAI’s popular GPTs, Assistants enable users to access free and customizable chatbot capabilities.

DeepSeek AI introduces DeepSeekMath 7B, an open-source model designed to approach the mathematical reasoning capability of GPT-4. With a massive parameter count of 7B, this model opens up avenues for more advanced mathematical problem-solving and computational tasks. DeepSeekMath-Base, initialized with DeepSeek-Coder-Base-v1.5 7B, provides a strong foundation for mathematical AI applications.

Moving forward, Microsoft is collaborating with news organizations to adopt generative AI, bringing the benefits of AI technology to the journalism industry. With these collaborations, news organizations can leverage generative models to enhance their storytelling and reporting capabilities, contributing to more engaging and insightful content.

In an exciting partnership, LG Electronics has joined forces with Korean generative AI startup Upstage to develop small language models (SLMs). These models will power LG’s on-device AI features and AI services on their range of notebooks. By integrating SLMs into their devices, LG aims to enhance user experiences by offering more advanced and personalized AI functionalities.

Stability AI has unveiled the updated SVD 1.1 model, optimized for generating short AI videos with improved motion and consistency. This enhancement brings a smoother and more realistic experience to video generation, opening up new possibilities for content creators and video enthusiasts.

Lastly, both OpenAI and Meta have made an important commitment to label AI-generated images. This step ensures transparency and ethics in the usage of AI models for generating images, promoting responsible AI development and deployment.

Now, let’s address a privacy concern related to Google’s Gemini assistant. By default, Google saves your conversations with Gemini for years. While this may raise concerns about data retention, it’s important to note that Google provides users with control over their data through privacy settings. Users can adjust these settings to align with their preferences and manage the data saved by Gemini.

That wraps up the latest updates in AI technology and advancements. From the exciting progress in AR glasses to the development of powerful AI models and tools, these innovations are shaping the future of AI and paving the way for even more exciting possibilities.

In this episode, we covered Google DeepMind’s groundbreaking chess AI, the satirical AI Goody-2 raising ethical questions, Google’s rebranding of Bard to Gemini and launching the Gemini Advanced chatbot, OpenAI’s work on automating complex workflows, and the exciting new AI-related products and features introduced by various companies including Brilliant Labs, Google, Alibaba, NVIDIA, and more. Thank you for joining us on AI Unraveled: Demystifying Frequently Asked Questions on Artificial Intelligence, where we’ve delved into groundbreaking research, innovative applications, and emerging technologies that are pushing the boundaries of AI, keeping you updated on the latest ChatGPT and Google Bard trends. Stay tuned and subscribe for more!

 Google DeepMind develops grandmaster-level chess AI

• Google DeepMind has developed a new AI capable of playing chess at a grandmaster level using a language model-based architecture, diverging from traditional search algorithm approaches.
• The chess AI, trained on a dataset of 10 million games and 15 billion data points, achieved an Elo rating of 2895 in rapid chess against human opponents, surpassing AlphaZero when not employing the MCTS strategy.
• This breakthrough demonstrates the broader potential of Transformer architecture beyond language models, challenging the notion of transformers as merely statistical pattern recognizers.
• Source

 Meet Goody-2, the AI too ethical to discuss literally anything

• Goody-2 is a satirical AI created by the art studio Brain, designed to highlight the extremes of ethical AI by refusing to engage in any conversation due to viewing all queries as potentially offensive or dangerous.
• The AI serves as a critique of overly cautious AI development practices and the balance between responsibility and usefulness, emphasizing responsibility to an absurd level.
• Despite its satire, Goody-2 raises questions about the effectiveness of AI and the necessity of setting boundaries, as seen in its creators’ deliberate decision to prioritize ethical considerations over practical utility.
• Source

 Reddit beats film industry again, won’t have to reveal pirates’ IP addresses

• Movie companies’ third attempt to force Reddit to reveal IP addresses of users discussing piracy was rejected by the US District Court for the Northern District of California.
• US Magistrate Judge Thomas Hixson ruled that providing IP addresses is subject to First Amendment scrutiny, protecting potential witnesses’ right to anonymity.
• The court upheld Reddit’s right to protect its users’ First Amendment rights, noting that the information sought by movie companies could be obtained from other sources.

 Amazon steers consumers to higher-priced items, lawsuit claims

• Amazon faces a lawsuit filed by two customers accusing the company of inflating prices through its Buy Box algorithm, misleading shoppers into paying more.
• The lawsuit claims Amazon gives preference to its own products or those from sellers in its Fulfillment By Amazon (FBA) program, often hiding cheaper options from other sellers.
• Jeffrey Taylor and Robert Selway, who brought the lawsuit, argue this practice violates Washington’s Consumer Protection Act by deceiving consumers and stifling fair competition.
• Source

 Instagram and Threads will stop recommending political content

• Amazon faces a lawsuit filed by two customers accusing the company of inflating prices through its Buy Box algorithm, misleading shoppers into paying more.
• The lawsuit claims Amazon gives preference to its own products or those from sellers in its Fulfillment By Amazon (FBA) program, often hiding cheaper options from other sellers.
• Jeffrey Taylor and Robert Selway, who brought the lawsuit, argue this practice violates Washington’s Consumer Protection Act by deceiving consumers and stifling fair competition.
• Source

A Daily Chronicle of AI Innovations in February 2024 – Day 09: AI Daily News – February 09th, 2024

Read Aloud For Me: Access All Your AI Tools within 1 single App

Download Read Aloud For Me GPT FREE at https://apps.apple.com/ca/app/read-aloud-for-me-top-ai-gpts/id1598647453

 Google Bard Is Dead, Gemini Advanced Is In!

1. Google Bard is now Gemini

Google has rebranded its Bard conversational AI to Gemini with a new sidekick: Gemini Advanced!

This advanced chatbot is powered by Google’s largest “Ultra 1.0” language model, which testing shows is the most preferred chatbot compared to competitors. It can walk you through a DIY car repair or brainstorm your next viral TikTok.

2. Google launches Gemini Advanced

Google launched the Gemini Advanced chatbot with its Ultra 1.0 AI model. The Advanced version can walk you through a DIY car repair or brainstorm your next viral TikTok.

3. Google rollouts Gemini mobile apps

Gemini’s also moving into Android and iOS phones as pocket pals ready to share creative fire 24/7 via voice commands, screen overlays, or camera scans. The ‘droid rollout has started for the US and some Asian countries. The rest of us will just be staring at our phones and waiting for an invite from Google.

P.S. It will gradually expand globally.

Why does this matter?

With the Gemini Advanced, Google took the LLM race to the next level, challenging its competitor, GPT-4, with its specialized architecture optimized for search queries and natural language understanding. Who will win the race is a matter of time.

Source

 OpenAI Is Developing AI Agents To Automate Work

OpenAI is developing AI “agents” that can autonomously take over a user’s device and execute multi-step workflows.

• One type of agent takes over a user’s device and automates complex workflows between applications, like transferring data from a document to a spreadsheet for analysis. This removes the need for manual cursor movements, clicks, and typing between apps.
• Another agent handles web-based tasks like booking flights or creating itineraries without needing access to APIs.

While OpenAI’s ChatGPT can already do some agent-like tasks using APIs, these AI agents will be able to do more unstructured, complex work with little explicit guidance.

Why does this matter?

Having AI agents that can independently carry out tasks like booking travel could greatly simplify digital life for many end users. Rather than manually navigating across apps and websites, users can plan an entire vacation through a conversational assistant or have household devices automatically troubleshoot problems without any user effort.

Source

 Brilliant Labs Announces Multimodal AI Glasses, With Perplexity’s AI

1. Brilliant Labs announces Frames

While Apple hogged the spotlight with its chunky new Vision Pro, a Singapore startup, Brilliant Labs, quietly showed off its AR glasses packed with a multi-modal voice/vision/text AI assistant named Noa. https://youtu.be/xiR-XojPVLk?si=W6Q31vl1wNfqnNXj

These lightweight smart glasses, dubbed “Frame,” are powered by models like GPT-4 and Stable Diffusion, allowing hands-free price comparisons or visual overlays to project information before your eyes using voice commands. No fiddling with another device is needed.

The best part is- programmers can build on these AI glasses thanks to their open-source design.

Source

2. Perplexity to integrate AI Chatbot into the Frames

In addition to enhancing the daily activities and interactions with the digital and physical world, Noa would also provide rapid answers using Perplexity’s real-time chatbot so Frame responses stay sharp.

Source

Why does this matter?

Unlike AR Apple Vision Pro and Meta’s glasses that immerses users in augmented reality for interactive experiences, Frame AR glasses focuses on improving daily interactions and tasks like comparing product prices while shopping, translating foreign text seen while traveling abroad, or creating shareable media on the go.

It also enhances accessibility for users with limited dexterity or vision.

What Else Is Happening in AI in February 09th, 2024

 Instagram tests AI writers for messages

Instagram is likely to bring the option ‘Write with AI’, which will probably paraphrase the texts in different styles to enhance creativity in conversations, similar to Google’s Magic Compose. (Link)

 Stability AI releases Stable Audio AudioSparx 1.0 music model

Stability AI launches AudioSparx 1.0, a groundbreaking generative model for music and audio. It produces professional-grade stereo music from simple text prompts in seconds, with a coherent structure. (Link)

 Midjourney opens alpha-testing of its website

Midjourney grants early web access to AI art creators with over 1000 images, transitioning from Discord dependence. The alpha testing signals that Midjourney moving beyond its chat app origin towards web and mobile apps, gradually maturing as a multi-platform AI art creation service. (Link)

 Altman seeks trillions to revolutionize AI chip capacity

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman pursues multi-trillion dollar investments, including from the UAE government, to build specialized GPUs and chips for powering AI systems. If funded, this initiative would accelerate OpenAI’s ML to new heights. (Link)

 FCC bans deceptive AI voice robocalls

The FCC prohibits robocalls using AI to clone voices, declaring them “artificial” per existing law. The ruling aims to deter deception and confirm consumers are protected from exploitative automated calls mimicking trusted people. Violators face penalties as authorities crack down on illegal practices enabled by advancing voice synthesis tech. (Link)

 Sam Altman seeks $7 trillion for new AI chip project

• Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, is aiming to raise trillions of dollars from investors, including the UAE government, to revolutionize the semiconductor industry and overcome chip shortages critical for AI development.
• Altman’s project seeks to expand global chip manufacturing capacity and enhance AI capabilities, requiring an investment of $5 trillion to $7 trillion, which would significantly exceed the current semiconductor industry size.
• Sam Altman’s vision includes forming partnerships with OpenAI, investors, chip manufacturers, and energy suppliers to create chip foundries, requiring extensive funding that might involve debt financing.

 FCC declares AI-voiced robocalls illegal

• The FCC has made it illegal for robocalls to use AI-generated voices, allowing state attorneys general to take legal action against such practices.
• AI-generated voices are now classified as “an artificial or prerecorded voice” under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA), restricting their use for non-emergency purposes without prior consent.
• The FCC’s ruling aims to combat scams and misinformation spread through AI-generated voice robocalls, providing state attorneys general with enhanced tools for enforcement.

 Ex-Apple engineer sentenced to prison for stealing Apple Car trade secrets

• Xiaolang Zhang, a former Apple engineer, was sentenced to 120 days in prison and three years supervised release for stealing self-driving car technology.
• Zhang transferred sensitive documents and hardware related to Apple’s self-driving vehicle project to his wife’s laptop before planning to leave for a job in China.
• In addition to his prison sentence, Zhang must pay restitution of $146,984, having originally faced up to 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine.

 Leading AI companies join new US safety consortium

• The U.S. AI Safety Institute Consortium (AISIC) was announced by the Biden Administration as a response to an executive order, including significant AI entities like Amazon, Google, Apple, Microsoft, OpenAI, and NVIDIA among over 200 representatives.
• The consortium aims to set safety standards and protect the U.S. innovation ecosystem, focusing on the development of safe and trustworthy AI through collaboration with various sectors, including healthcare and academia.
• Notably absent from the consortium are major tech companies Tesla, Oracle, and Broadcom.

 Midjourney might ban Biden and Trump images this election season

• Midjourney, led by CEO David Holz, is reportedly considering banning images of political figures like Biden and Trump during the upcoming election season to prevent the spread of misinformation.
• The company previously ended free trials for its AI image generator after AI-generated deepfakes, including ones of Trump getting arrested and the pope in a fashionable coat, went viral.
• Despite implementing rules against misleading creations, Bloomberg was still able to generate altered images of Trump.

 Scientists in UK set fusion record

• A 40-year-old UK fusion reactor set a new world record for energy output, generating 69 megajoules of fusion energy for five seconds before its closure, advancing the pursuit of clean, limitless energy.
• The achievement by the Joint European Torus (JET) enhances confidence in future fusion projects like ITER, which is under construction in France, despite JET’s operation concluding in December 2023.
• The decision to shut down JET reflects complex dynamics, including Brexit-driven shifts in the UK’s fusion energy strategy, despite the experiment’s substantial contributions to fusion research.

A Daily Chronicle of AI Innovations in February 2024 – Day 08: AI Daily News – February 08th, 2024

Google rebrands Bard AI to Gemini and launches a new app and subscription

 Microsoft pushes Copilot ahead of the Super Bowl

In their latest blogs and Super Bowl commercial, Microsoft announced their intention to showcase the capabilities of Copilot exactly one year after their entry into the AI space with Bing Chat. They have announced updates to their Android and iOS applications to make the user interface more sleek and user-friendly, along with a carousel for follow-up prompts.

Microsoft also introduced new features to Designer in Copilot to take image generation a step further with the option to edit generated images using follow-up prompts. The customizations can be anything from highlighting the image subject to enhancing colors and modifying the background. For Copilot Pro users, additional features such as resizing the images and changing the aspect ratio are also available.

Why does this matter? 

Copilot unifies the AI experience for users on all major platforms by enhancing the experience on mobile platforms and combining text and image generative abilities. Adding additional features to the image generation model greatly enhances the usability and accuracy of the final output for users.

Source

 Deepmind presents ‘self-discover’ framework for LLMs improvement

Google Deepmind, with the University of Southern California, has proposed a ‘self-discover’ prompting framework to enhance the performance of LLMs. Models such as GPT-4 and Google’s Palm 2 have witnessed a performance improvement on challenging reasoning benchmarks by 32% compared to the Chain of Thought (CoT) framework.

The framework works by identifying the reasoning technique intrinsic to the task and then proceeds to solve the task with the discovered technique ideal for the task. This framework also works with 10 to 40 times less inference computation, which means that the output will be generated faster using the same computational resources.

Why does this matter?

Improving the reasoning accuracy of an LLM is largely beneficial to users as they can achieve the desired output with fewer prompts and with greater accuracy. Moreover, reducing the inference directly translates to lower computational resource consumption, leading to lower operating costs for enterprises.

Source

 YouTube reveals plans to use AI tools to empower human creativity

YouTube CEO Neal Mohan revealed 4 new bets they have placed for 2024, with the first bet being on AI tools to empower human creativity on the platform. These AI tools include:

• Dream Screen, which lets content creators generate custom backgrounds through AI with simple prompts of an idea.

• Dream Track will allow content creators to generate custom music by just typing in the music theme and the artist they want to feature.

These new tools are mainly aimed to be used in YouTube Shorts and highlight a priority to move towards short-form content.

Why does this matter?

The democratization of AI tools for content creators allows them to offer better quality content to their viewers, which collectively boosts the quality of engagement on the platform. This also lowers the bar to entry for many aspiring artists and lets them create quality content without the added difficulty of generating custom video assets.

Source

What else is happening in AI on February 08th 2024

 OpenAI forms a new team for child safety research.

OpenAI revealed the existence of a child safety team through their careers page, where they had open positions for a child safety enforcement specialist. The team will study and review AI-generated content for “sensitive content” to ensure that the generated content aligns with their platform policy. This is to prevent the misuse of OpenAI’s AI tools by underage users.  (Link)

 Elon Musk to financially support efforts to use AI to decipher Roman scrolls.

Elon Musk shared on X that the Musk Foundation will fund the effort to decipher the scrolls charred by the volcanic eruption of Mt.Vesuvius. The project run by Nat Freidman (former CEO of GitHub) states that the next stage of the effort will cost approximately $2 million, after which they should be able to read entire scrolls. The total cost to decipher all the discovered scrolls is estimated to be around $10 million. (Link)

 Microsoft’s Satya Nadella urges India to capitalize on the opportunity of AI.

The CEO of Microsoft, Satya Nadella, at the Taj Mahal Hotel in Mumbai, expressed how India has an unprecedented opportunity to capitalize on the AI wave owing to the 5 million+ programmers in the country. He also stated that Microsoft will help train over 2 million employees in India with the skills required for AI development. (Link)

 OpenAI introduces the creation of endpoint-specific API keys for better security.

The OpenAI Developers account on X announced their latest feature for developers to create endpoint-specific API keys. These special API keys allow for granular access and better security as they will only let specific registered endpoints access the API. (Link)

 Ikea introduces a new ChatGPT-powered AI assistant for interior design.

On the OpenAI GPT store, Ikea launched its AI assistant, which helps users envision and draw inspiration to design their interior spaces using Ikea products. The AI assistant helps users input specific dimensions, budgets, preferences, and requirements for personalized furniture recommendations through a familiar ChatGPT-style window. (Link)

 OpenAI is developing two AI agents to automate entire work processes

• OpenAI is developing two AI agents aimed at automating complex tasks; one is device-specific for tasks like data transfer and filling out forms, while the other focuses on web-based tasks such as data collection and booking tickets.
• The company aims to evolve ChatGPT into a super-smart personal assistant for work, capable of performing tasks in the user’s style, incorporating the latest data, and potentially being marketed as a standalone product or part of a software suite.
• OpenAI’s efforts complement trends where companies like Google and startups are working towards AI agents capable of carrying out actions on behalf of users.
• Source

 Disney takes a $1.5B stake in Epic Games to build an ‘entertainment universe’ with Fortnite

• Disney invests $1.5 billion in Epic Games to help create a new open games and entertainment universe, integrating characters and stories from franchises like Marvel, Star Wars, and Disney itself.
• This collaboration aims to extend beyond traditional gaming, allowing players to interact, create, and share content within a persistent universe powered by Unreal Engine.
• The partnership builds on previous collaborations between Disney and Epic Games, signaling Disney’s largest venture into the gaming world and hinting at future integration of gaming and entertainment experiences.

 Google Bard rebrands as ‘Gemini’ with new Android app and Advanced model

• Google has renamed its AI and related applications to Gemini, introducing a dedicated Android app and incorporating features formerly known as Duet AI in Google Workspace into the Gemini brand.
• Gemini will replace Google Assistant as the default AI assistant on Android devices and is designed to be a comprehensive tool that is conversational, multimodal, and highly helpful.
• Alongside the rebranding, Google announced the Gemini Ultra 1.0, a superior version of its large language model available through a new $20-monthly Google One AI Premium plan, aiming to set new benchmarks in AI capabilities.

 Microsoft upgrades Copilot with enhanced image editing features, new AI model

• Microsoft launched a new version of its Copilot artificial intelligence chatbot, featuring enhanced capabilities for users to create and edit images with natural language prompts.
• The update introduces an AI model named Deucalion to enhance the “Balanced” mode of Copilot, promising richer and faster responses, alongside a redesigned user interface for better usability.
• Additionally, Microsoft plans to further expand Copilot’s features, hinting at upcoming extensions and plugins to enhance functionality.

A Daily Chronicle of AI Innovations in February 2024 – Day 07: AI Daily News – February 07th, 2024

 Apple’s MGIE: Making sky bluer with each prompt

Apple released a new open-source AI model called MGIE(MLLM Guided Image Editing). It has editing capabilities based on natural language instructions. MGIE leverages multimodal large language models to interpret user commands and perform pixel-level image manipulation. It can handle editing tasks like Photoshop-style modifications, optimizations, and local editing.

MGIE integrates MLLMs into image editing in two ways. First, it uses MLLMs to understand the user input, deriving expressive instructions. For example, if the user input is “make sky more blue,” the AI model creates an instruction, “increase the saturation of sky region by 20%.” The second usage of MLLM is to generate the output image.

Why does this matter?

MGIE from Apple is a breakthrough in the field of instruction-based image editing. It is an AI model focusing on natural language instructions for image manipulation, boosting creativity and accuracy. MGIE is also a testament to the AI prowess that Apple is developing, and it will be interesting to see how it leverages such innovations for upcoming products.

Source

 Meta will label your content if you post an AI-generated image

Meta is developing advanced tools to label metadata for each image posted on their platforms like Instagram, Facebook, and Threads. Labeling will be aligned with “AI-generated” information in the C2PA and IPTC technical standards. These standards will allow Meta to detect AI-generated images from other platforms like Google, OpenAI, Microsoft, Adobe, Midjourney, and Shutterstock.

Meta wants to differentiate between human-generated and AI-generated content on its platform to reduce misinformation. However, this tool is also limited, as it can only detect still images. So, AI-generated video content still goes undetected on Meta platforms.

Why does this matter?

The level of misinformation and deepfakes generated by AI has been alarming. Meta is taking a step closer to reducing misinformation by labeling metadata and declaring which images are AI-generated. It also aligns with the European Union’s push for tech giants like Google and Meta to label AI-generated content.

Source

 Smaug-72B: The king of open-source AI is here!

Abacus AI recently released a new open-source language model called Smaug-72B. It outperforms GPT-3.5 and Mistral Medium in several benchmarks. Smaug 72B is the first open-source model with an average score of over 80 in major LLM evaluations. According to the latest rankings from Hugging Face, It is one of the leading platforms for NLP research and applications.

Smaug 72B is a fine-tuned version of Qwn 72B, a powerful language model developed by a team of researchers at Alibaba Group. It helps enterprises solve complex problems by leveraging AI capabilities and enhancing automation.

Why does this matter?

Smaug 72B is the first open-source model to achieve an average score of 80 on the Hugging Face Open LLM leaderboard. It is a breakthrough for enterprises, startups, and small businesses, breaking the monopoly of big tech companies over AI innovations.

Source

What Else Is Happening in AI on February 07th, 2024

OpenAI introduces watermarks to DALL-E 3 for content credentials.

OpenAI has added watermarks to the image metadata, enhancing content authenticity. These watermarks will distinguish between human and AI-generated content verified through websites like “Content Credentials Verify.” Watermarks will be added to images from the ChatGPT website and DALL-E 3 API, which will be visible to mobile users starting February 12th. However, the feature is limited to still images only. (Link)

Microsoft introduces Face Check for secure identity verification.

Microsoft has unveiled “Face Check,” a new facial recognition feature, as part of its Entra Verified ID digital identity platform. Face Check provides an additional layer of security for identity verification by matching a user’s real-time selfie with their government ID or employee credentials. Azure AI services power face check and aims to enhance security while respecting privacy and compliance through a partnership approach. Microsoft’s partner BEMO has already implemented Face Check for employee verification(Link)

 Stability AI has launched an upgraded version of its Stable Video Diffusion (SVD).

Stability AI has launched SVD 1.1, an upgraded version of its image-to-video latent diffusion model, Stable Video Diffusion (SVD). This new model generates 4-second, 25-frame videos at 1024×576 resolution with improved motion and consistency compared to the original SVD. It is available via Hugging Face and Stability AI subscriptions. (Link)

CheXagent has introduced a new AI model for automated chest X-ray interpretation.

CheXagent, developed in partnership with Stability AI by Stanford University, is a foundation model for chest X-ray interpretation. It automates the analysis and summary of chest X-ray images for clinical decision-making. CheXagent combines a clinical language model, a vision encoder, and a network to bridge vision and language. CheXbench is available to evaluate the performance of foundation models on chest X-ray interpretation tasks. (Link)

LinkedIn launched an AI feature to introduce users to new connections.

LinkedIn launched a new AI feature that helps users start conversations. Premium subscribers can use this feature when sending messages to others. The AI uses information from the subscriber’s and the other person’s profiles to suggest what to say, like an introduction or asking about their work experience. This feature was initially available for recruiters and has now been expanded to help users find jobs and summarize posts in their feeds. (Link)

 Apple releases a new AI model

• Apple has released “MGIE,” an open-source AI model for instruction-based image editing, utilizing multimodal large language models to interpret instructions and manipulate images.
• MGIE offers features like Photoshop-style modification, global photo optimization, and local editing, and can be used through a web demo or integrated into applications.
• The model is available as an open-source project on GitHub and Hugging Face Spaces.

 Apple still working on foldable iPhones and iPads

• Apple is developing “at least two” foldable iPhone prototypes inspired by the design of Samsung’s Galaxy Z Flip, though production is not planned for 2024 or 2025.
• The company faces challenges in creating a foldable iPhone that matches the thinness of current models while accommodating battery and display needs.
• Apple is also working on a folding iPad, approximately the size of an iPad Mini, aiming to launch a seven- or eight-inch model around 2026 or 2027.

 Deepfake ‘face swap’ attacks surged 704% last year, study finds. Link

• Deepfake “face swap” attacks increased by 704% from the first to the second half of 2023, as reported by iProov, a British biometric firm.
• The surge in attacks is attributed to the growing ease of access to generative AI tools, making sophisticated face swaps both user-friendly and affordable.
• Deepfake scams, including a notable case involving a finance worker in Hong Kong losing $25mln, highlight the significant threat posed by these technologies.

 Humanity’s most distant space probe jeopardized by computer glitch

• A computer glitch that began on November 14 has compromised Voyager 1’s ability to send back telemetry data, affecting insight into the spacecraft’s condition.
• The glitch is suspected to be due to a corrupted memory bit in the Flight Data Subsystem, making it challenging to determine the exact cause without detailed data.
• Despite the issue, signals received indicate Voyager 1 is still operational and receiving commands, with efforts ongoing to resolve the telemetry data problem.

A Daily Chronicle of AI Innovations in February 2024 – Day 06: AI Daily News – February 06th, 2024

 Qwen 1.5: Alibaba’s 72 B, multilingual Gen AI model

Alibaba has released Qwen 1.5, the latest iteration of its open-source generative AI model series. Key upgrades include expanded model sizes up to 72 billion parameters, integration with HuggingFace Transformers for easier use, and multilingual capabilities covering 12 languages.

Comprehensive benchmarks demonstrate significant performance gains over the previous Qwen version across metrics like reasoning, human preference alignment, and long-context understanding. They compared Qwen1.5-72B-Chat with GPT-3.5, and the results are shown below:

The unified release aims to provide researchers and developers an advanced foundation model for possible downstream applications. Quantized versions allow low-resource deployment. Overall, Qwen 1.5 represents steady progress towards Alibaba’s goal of creating a “truly ‘good” generative model aligned with ethical objectives.

Why does this matter?

This release signals Alibaba’s intent to compete with Big Tech firms in steering the AI race. The upgraded model enables researchers and developers to create more capable assistants and tools. Qwen 1.5’s advancements could enhance education, healthcare, and sustainability solutions.

Source

 AI software reads ancient words unseen since Caesar’s era

Nat Friedman (former CEO of Github) uses AI to decode ancient Herculaneum scrolls charred in the 79AD eruption of Mount Vesuvius. These unreadable scrolls are believed to contain a vast trove of texts that could reshape our view of figures like Caesar and Jesus Christ. Past failed attempts to unwrap them physically led Brent Seales to pioneer 3D scanning methods. However, the initial software struggled with the complexity.

A $1 million AI contest was launched ten months ago, attracting coders worldwide. Contestants developed new techniques, exposing ink patterns invisible to the human eye. The winning method by Luke Farritor and the team successfully reconstructed over a dozen readable columns of Greek text from one scroll. While not yet revelatory, this breakthrough after centuries has scholars hopeful more scrolls can now be unveiled using similar AI techniques, potentially surfacing lost ancient works.

Why does this matter?

The ability to reconstruct lost ancient knowledge illustrates AI’s immense potential to reveal invisible insights. Just like how technology helps discover hidden oil resources, AI could unearth ‘info treasures’ expanding our history, science, and literary canons. These breakthroughs capture the public imagination and signal a new data-uncovering AI industry.

Source

 Roblox users can chat cross-lingually in milliseconds

Roblox has developed a real-time multilingual chat translation system, allowing users speaking different languages to communicate seamlessly while gaming. It required building a high-speed unified model covering 16 languages rather than separate models. Comprehensive benchmarks show the model outperforms commercial APIs in translating Roblox slang and linguistic nuances.

The sub-100 millisecond translation latency enables genuine cross-lingual conversations. Roblox aims to eventually support all linguistic communities on its platform as translation capabilities expand. Long-term goals include exploring automatic voice chat translation to better convey tone and emotion. Overall, the specialized AI showcases Roblox’s commitment to connecting diverse users globally by removing language barriers.

Why does this matter?

It showcases AI furthering connection and community-building online, much like transport innovations expanding in-person interactions. Allowing seamless cross-cultural communication at scale illustrates tech removing barriers to global understanding. Platforms facilitating positive societal impacts can inspire user loyalty amid competitive dynamics.

Source

What Else Is Happening in AI on February 06th, 2024

 Semafor tests AI for responsible reporting

News startup Semafor launched a product called Signals – AI-aided curation of top stories by its reporters. An internal search tool helps uncover diverse sources in multiple languages. This showcases responsibly leveraging AI to enhance human judgment as publishers adapt to changes in consumer web habits. (Link)

 Bumble’s new AI feature sniffs out fakes for safer matchmaking

Bumble has launched a new AI tool called Deception Detector to proactively identify and block fake profiles and scams. Testing showed it automatically blocked 95% of spam accounts, reducing user reports by 45%. This builds on Bumble’s efforts to use AI to make its dating and friend-finding platforms safer. (Link)

 Huawei repurposes factory to prioritize AI chip production over its bestselling phones

Huawei is slowing production of its popular Mate 60 phones to ramp up manufacturing of its Ascend AI chips instead, due to growing domestic demand. This positions Huawei to boost China’s AI industry, given US export controls limiting availability of chips like Nvidia’s. It shows the strategic priority of AI for Huawei and China overall. (Link)

 UK to spend $125M+ to tackle challenges around AI

The UK government will invest over $125 million to support responsible AI development and position the UK as an AI leader. This will fund new university research hubs across the UK, a partnership with the US on the responsible use of AI, regulators overseeing AI, and 21 projects to develop ML technologies to drive productivity. (Link)

 Europ Assistance partnered with TCS to boost IT operations with AI

Europ Assistance, a leading global assistance and travel insurance company, has selected TCS as its strategic partner to transform its IT operations using AI. By providing real-time insights into Europ Assistance’s technology stack, TCS will support their business growth, improve customer service delivery, and enable the company to achieve its mission of providing “Anytime, Anywhere” services across 200+ countries. (Link)

 AI reveals hidden text of 2,000-year-old scroll

• A group of classical scholars, assisted by three computer scientists, has partially decoded a Roman scroll buried in the Vesuvius eruption in A.D. 79 using artificial intelligence and X-ray technology.
• The scroll, part of the Herculaneum Papyri, is believed to contain texts by Philodemus on topics like food and music, revealing insights into ancient Roman life.
• The breakthrough, facilitated by a $700,000 prize from the Vesuvius Challenge, led to the reading of over 2,000 Greek letters from the scroll, with hopes to decode 85% of it by the end of the year.

 Adam Neumann wants to buy WeWork

• Adam Neumann, ousted CEO and co-founder of WeWork, expressed interest in buying the company out of bankruptcy, claiming WeWork has ignored his attempts to get more information for a bid.
• Neumann’s intent to purchase WeWork has been supported by funding from Dan Loeb’s hedge fund Third Point since December 2023, though WeWork has shown disinterest in his offer.
• Despite WeWork’s bankruptcy and prior refusal of a $1 billion funding offer from Neumann in October 2022, Neumann believes his acquisition could offer valuable synergies and management expertise.

 Midjourney hires veteran Apple engineer to build its ‘Orb’

• Generative AI startup Midjourney has appointed Ahmad Abbas, a former Apple Vision Pro engineer, as head of hardware to potentially develop a project known as the ‘Orb’ focusing on 3D data capture and AI-generated content.
• Abbas has extensive experience in hardware engineering, including his time at Apple and Elon Musk’s Neuralink, and has previously worked with Midjourney’s founder, David Holz, at Leap Motion.
• While details are scarce, the ‘Orb’ may relate to generating and managing 3D environments and could signify Midjourney’s entry into creating hardware aimed at real-time generated video games and AI-powered 3D worlds.

 Meta to start labeling AI-generated images

• Meta is expanding the labeling of AI-generated imagery on its platforms, including content created with rivals’ tools, to improve transparency and detection of synthetic content.
• The company already labels images created by its own “Imagine with Meta” tool but plans to extend this to images generated by other companies’ tools, focusing on elections around the world.
• Meta is also exploring the use of generative AI in content moderation, while acknowledging challenges in detecting AI-generated videos and audio, and aims to require user disclosure for synthetic content.

 Bluesky opens its doors to the public

• Bluesky, funded by Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey and aiming to offer an alternative to Elon Musk’s X, is now open to the public after being invite-only for nearly a year.
• The platform, notable for its decentralized infrastructure called the AT Protocol and open-source code, allows developers and users greater control and customization, including over content moderation.
• Bluesky challenges existing social networks with its focus on user experience and is preparing to introduce open federation and content moderation tools to enhance its decentralized social media model.

 Bumble’s new AI tool identifies and blocks scam accounts, fake profiles

• Bumble has introduced a new AI tool named Deception Detector to identify and block scam accounts and fake profiles, which during tests blocked 95% of such accounts and reduced user reports of spam by 45%.
• The development of Deception Detector is in response to user concerns about fake profiles and scams on dating platforms, with Bumble research highlighting these as major issues for users, especially women.
• Besides Deception Detector, Bumble continues to enhance user safety and trust through features like Private Detector for blurring unsolicited nude images and AI-generated icebreakers in Bumble For Friends.

A Daily Chronicle of AI Innovations in February 2024 – Day 05: AI Daily News – February 05th, 2024

How to access Google Bard in Canada as of February 05th, 2024

Download the Opera browser and go to https://bard.google.com

This is How ChatGPT help me save $250.

TLDR: ChatGPT helped me jump start my hybrid to avoid towing fee $100 and helped me not pay the diagnostic fee $150 at the shop.

My car wouldn’t start this morning and it gave me a warning light and message on the car’s screen. I took a picture of the screen with my phone, uploaded it to ChatGPT 4 Turbo, described the make/model, my situation (weather, location, parked on slope), and the last time it had been serviced.

I asked what was wrong, and it told me that the auxiliary battery was dead, so I asked it how to jump start it. It’s a hybrid, so it told me to open the fuse box, ground the cable and connect to the battery. I took a picture of the fuse box because I didn’t know where to connect, and it told me that ground is usually black and the other part is usually red. I connected it and it started up. I drove it to the shop, so it saved me the $100 towing fee. At the shop, I told them to replace my battery without charging me the $150 “diagnostic fee,” since ChatGPT already told me the issue. The hybrid battery wasn’t the issue because I took a picture of the battery usage with 4 out of 5 bars. Also, there was no warning light. This saved me $250 in total, and it basically paid for itself for a year.

I can deal with some inconveniences related to copyright and other concerns as long as I’m saving real money. I’ll keep my subscription, because it’s pretty handy. Thanks for reading!

source: r/artificialintelligence

Top comment: I can’t wait until AI like this is completely integrated into a home system like Alexa, and we have a friendly voice that just walks us through everything.

 Google MobileDiffusion: AI Image generation in <1s on phones

Google Research introduced MobileDifussion, which can generate images from Android and iPhone with a resolution of 512*512 pixels in about half a second. What’s impressive about this is its comparably small model size of just 520M parameters, which makes it uniquely suited for mobile deployment. This is significantly less than the Stable Diffusion and SDX, which boast a billion parameters.

MobileDiffusion has the capability to enable a rapid image generation experience while typing text prompts.

Google researchers measured the performance of MobileDiffusion on both iOS and Android devices using different runtime optimizers.

Why does this matter?

MobileDifussion represents a paradigm shift in the AI image generation horizon, especially in the smartphone or mobile space. Image generation models like Stable Diffusion and DALL-E are billions of parameters in size and require powerful desktops or servers to run, making them impossible to run on a handset. With superior efficiency in terms of latency and size, MobileDiffusion has the potential to be a friendly option for mobile deployments.

Source

 Hugging Face enables custom chatbot creation in 2-clicks

Hugging Face tech lead Philipp Schmid said users can now create custom chatbots in “two clicks” using “Hugging Chat Assistant.” Users’ creations are then publicly available. Schmid compares the feature to OpenAI’s GPTs feature and adds they can use “any available open LLM, like Llama2 or Mixtral.”

Why does this matter?

Hugging Face’s Chat Assistant has democratized AI creation and simplified the process of building custom chatbots, lowering the barrier to entry. Also, open-source means more innovation, enabling a more comprehensive range of individuals and organizations to harness the power of conversational AI.

Source

 Google to release ChatGPT Plus competitor ‘Gemini Advanced’ next week

According to a leaked web text, Google might release its ChatGPT Plus competitor named “Gemini Advanced” on February 7th. This suggests a name change for the Bard chatbot after Google announced “Bard Advanced” at the end of last year. The Gemini Advanced ChatBot will be powered by the eponymous Gemini model in the Ultra 1.0 release.

According to Google, Gemini Advanced is far more capable of complex tasks like coding, logical reasoning, following nuanced instructions, and creative collaboration. Google also wants to include multimodal capabilities, coding features, and detailed data analysis. Currently, the model is optimized for English but can respond to other global languages sooner.

Why does this matter?

Google’s Gemini Advanced will be an answer for OpenAI’s ChatGPT Plus. It signals increasing competition in the AI language model market, potentially leading to improved features and services for users. The only question is whether Ultra can beat GPT-4, and if that’s the case, what counters can OpenAI do that will be interesting to see.

Source

What Else Is Happening in AI on February 05th, 2024

 NYU’s latest AI innovation echoes a toddler’s language learning journey

New York University (NYU) researchers have developed an AI system to behave like a toddler and learn a new language precisely. For this purpose, the AI model uses video recording from a child’s perspective to understand the language and its meaning, respond to new situations, and learn from new experiences. (Link)

 GenAI to disrupt 200K U.S. entertainment industry jobs by 2026

CVL Economics surveyed 300 executives from six U.S. entertainment industries between Nov 17 and Dec 22, 2023, to understand the impact of Generative AI. The survey found that 203,800 jobs could get disrupted in the entertainment space by 2026. 72% of the companies surveyed are early adopters, of which 25% already use it, and 47% plan to implement it soon. (Link)

 Apple CEO Tim Cook hints at major AI announcement ‘later this year’

Apple CEO Tim Cook hinted at Apple making a major AI announcement later this year during a meeting with the analysts during the first-quarter earnings showcase. He further added that there’s a massive opportunity for Apple with Gen AI and AI as they look to compete with cutting-edge AI companies like Microsoft, Google, Amazon, OpenAI, etc. (Link)

 The U.S. Police Department turns to AI to review bodycam footage

Over the last decade, U.S. police departments have spent millions of dollars to equip their officers with body-worn cameras that record their daily work. However, the data collected needs to be adequately analyzed to identify patterns. Now, the department is turning to AI to examine this stockpile of footage to identify problematic officers and patterns of behavior. (Link)

 Adobe to provide support for Firefly in the latest Vision Pro release

Adobe’s popular image-generating software, Firefly, is now announced for the new version of Apple Vision Pro. It now joins the company’s previously announced Lightroom photo app. People expected Adobe Lightroom to be a native Apple Vision Pro app from launch, but now it’s adding Firefly AI, the GenAI tool that produces images based on text descriptions. (Link)

 Deepfake costs company $25 million

• Scammers utilized AI-generated deepfakes to impersonate a multinational company’s CFO in a video call, tricking an employee into transferring over $25 million.
• The scam involved deepfake representations of the CFO and senior executives, leading the employee to believe the request for a large money transfer was legitimate.
• Hong Kong police have encountered over 20 cases involving AI deepfakes to bypass facial recognition, emphasizing the increasing abuse of deepfake technology in fraud and identity theft. Read more.

 Amazon finds $1B jackpot in its 100 million+ IPv4 address stockpile

• The scarcity of IPv4 addresses, akin to digital real estate, has led Amazon Web Services (AWS) to implement a new pricing scheme charging $0.005 per public IPv4 address per hour, opening up a significant revenue stream.
• With IPv4 addresses running out due to the limit of 4.3 billion unique IDs and increasing demand from the growth of smart devices, AWS urges a transition to IPv6 to alleviate shortage and high administrative costs.
• Amazon controls nearly 132 million IPv4 addresses, with an estimated valuation of $4.6 billion; the new pricing strategy could generate between $400 million to $1 billion annually from their use in AWS services.

 Meta oversight board calls company’s deepfake rule ‘incoherent’

• The Oversight Board criticizes Meta’s current rules against faked videos as “incoherent” and urges the company to urgently revise its policy to better prevent harm from manipulated media.
• It suggests that Meta should not only focus on how manipulated content is created but should also add labels to altered videos to inform users, rather than just relying on fact-checkers.
• Meta is reviewing the Oversight Board’s recommendations and will respond publicly within 60 days, while the altered video of President Biden continues to spread on other platforms like X (formerly Twitter).
• Read more

 Snap lays off 10% of workforce to ‘reduce hierarchy’

• Snapchat’s parent company, Snap, announced plans to lay off 10% of its workforce, impacting over 500 employees, as part of a restructuring effort to promote growth and reduce hierarchy.
• The layoffs will result in pre-tax charges estimated between $55 million to $75 million, primarily for severance and related costs, with the majority of these costs expected in the first quarter of 2024.
• The decision for a second wave of layoffs comes after a previous reorganization focused on reducing layers within the product team and follows a reported increase in user growth and a net loss in Q3 earnings

A Daily Chronicle of AI Innovations in February 2024 – Day 03: AI Daily News – February 03rd, 2024

 Google plans to launch ChatGPT Plus competitor next week

• Google is set to launch “Gemini Advanced,” a ChatGPT Plus competitor, possibly on February 7th, signaling a name change from “Bard Advanced” announced last year.
• The Gemini Advanced chatbot, powered by the Ultra 1.0 model, aims to excel in complex tasks such as coding, logical reasoning, and creative collaboration.
• Gemini Advanced, likely a paid service, aims to outperform ChatGPT by integrating with Google services for task completion and information retrieval, while also incorporating an image generator similar to DALL-E 3 and reaching GPT-4 levels with the Gemini Pro model.
• Source

 Apple tested its self-driving car tech more than ever last year

• Apple significantly increased its autonomous vehicle testing in 2023, almost quadrupling its self-driving miles on California’s public roads compared to the previous year.
• The company’s testing peaked in August with 83,900 miles, although it remains behind more advanced companies like Waymo and Cruise in total miles tested.
• Apple has reportedly scaled back its ambitions for a fully autonomous vehicle, now focusing on developing automated driving-assistance features similar to those offered by other automakers.
• Source

 Hugging Face launches open source AI assistant maker to rival OpenAI’s custom GPTs

• Hugging Face has launched Hugging Chat Assistants, a free, customizable AI assistant maker that rivals OpenAI’s subscription-based custom GPTs.
• The new tool allows users to choose from a variety of open source large language models (LLMs) for their AI assistants, unlike OpenAI’s reliance on proprietary models.
• An aggregator page for third-party customized Hugging Chat Assistants mimics OpenAI’s GPT Store, offering users various assistants to choose from and use.
• Source

 Google’s MobileDiffusion generates AI images on mobile devices in less than a second

• Google’s MobileDiffusion enables the creation of high-quality images from text on smartphones in less than a second, leveraging a model that is significantly smaller than existing counterparts.
• It achieves this rapid and efficient text-to-image conversion through a novel architecture including a text encoder, a diffusion network, and an image decoder, producing 512 x 512-pixel images swiftly on both Android and iOS devices.
• While demonstrating a significant advance in mobile AI capabilities, Google has not yet released MobileDiffusion publicly, viewing this development as a step towards making text-to-image generation widely accessible on mobile platforms.
• Source

 Meta warns investors Mark Zuckerberg’s hobbies could kill him in SEC filing

• Meta warned investors in its latest SEC filing that CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s engagement in “high-risk activities” could result in serious injury or death, impacting the company’s operations.
• The company’s 10-K filing listed combat sports, extreme sports, and recreational aviation as risky hobbies of Zuckerberg, noting his achievements in Brazilian jiu-jitsu and pursuit of a pilot’s license.
• This cautionary statement, highlighting the potential risks of Zuckerberg’s personal hobbies to Meta’s future, was newly included in the 2023 filing and is a departure from the company’s previous filings.
• Source

A Daily Chronicle of AI Innovations in February 2024 – Day 02: AI Daily News – February 02nd, 2024

Google bets big on AI with huge upgrades

1. Launches an AI image generator – ImageFX

It allows users to create and edit images using a prompt-based UI. It offers an “expressive chips” feature, which provides keyword suggestions to experiment with different dimensions of image creation. Google claims to have implemented technical safeguards to prevent the tool from being used for abusive or inappropriate content.

Additionally, images generated using ImageFX will be tagged with a digital watermark called SynthID for identification purposes. Google is also expanding the use of Imagen 2, the image model, across its products and services.

(Source)

2. Google has released two new AI tools for music creation: MusicFX and TextFX

MusicFX generates music based on user prompts but has limitations with stringed instruments and filters out copyrighted content.

TextFX, conversely, is a suite of modules designed to aid in the lyrics-writing process, drawing inspiration from rap artist Lupe Fiasco.

(Source)

3. Google’s Bard is now Gemini Pro-powered globally, supporting 40+ languages
The chatbot will have improved understanding and summarizing content, reasoning, brainstorming, writing, and planning capabilities. Google has also extended support for more than 40 languages in its “Double check” feature, which evaluates if search results are similar to what Bard generates.

(Source)

4. Google’s Bard can now generate photos using its Imagen 2 text-to-image model
Bard’s image generation feature is free, and Google has implemented safety measures to avoid generating explicit or offensive content.

(Source)

5. Google Maps introduces a new AI feature to help users discover new places
The feature uses LLMs to analyze over 250M locations and contributions from over 300M Local Guides. Users can search for specific recommendations, and the AI will generate suggestions based on their preferences. It’s currently being rolled out in the US.
(Source)

 Amazon launches an AI shopping assistant for product recommendations

Amazon has launched an AI-powered shopping assistant called Rufus in its mobile app. Rufus is trained on Amazon’s product catalog and information from the web, allowing customers to chat with it to get help with finding products, comparing them, and getting recommendations.

The AI assistant will initially be available in beta to select US customers, with plans to expand to more users in the coming weeks. Customers can type or speak their questions into the chat dialog box, and Rufus will provide answers based on their training.

Why does this matter?

Rufus can save time and effort compared to traditional search and browsing. However, the quality of responses remains to be seen. For Amazon, this positions them at the forefront of leveraging AI to enhance the shopping experience. If effective, Rufus could increase customer engagement on Amazon and drive more sales. It also sets them apart from competitors.

Source

 Meta to deploy custom in-house chips to reduce dependence on costly NVIDIA

Meta plans to deploy a new version of its custom chip aimed at supporting its AI push in its data centers this year, according to an internal company document. The chip, a second generation of Meta’s in-house silicon line, could help reduce the company’s dependence on Nvidia chips and control the costs associated with running AI workloads. The chip will work in coordination with commercially available graphics processing units (GPUs).

Why does this matter?

Meta’s deployment of its own chip could potentially save hundreds of millions of dollars in annual energy costs and billions in chip purchasing costs. It also gives them more control over the core hardware for their AI systems versus relying on vendors.

Source

AI, EO, DPA

The Biden administration plans to use the Defense Production Act to force tech companies to inform the government when they train AI models above a compute threshold.

Between the lines:

• These actions are one of the first implementations of the broad AI Executive Order passed last year. In the coming months, more provisions from the EO will come into effect.
• OpenAI and Google will likely need to disclose training details for the successors to GPT-4 and Gemini. The compute thresholds are still a pretty murky area – it’s unclear exactly when companies need to involve the government.
• And while the EO was a direct response from the executive branch, Senators on both sides of the aisle are eager to take action on AI (and Big Tech more broadly).

Elsewhere in AI regulation:

• Bipartisan senators unveil the DEFIANCE Act, which would federally criminalize deepfake porn, in the wake of Taylor Swift’s viral AI images.
• The FCC wants to officially recognize AI-generated voices as “artificial,” which would make AI-powered robocalls illegal.
• And a look at the US Copyright Office, which plans to release three very consequential reports this year on AI and copyright law.

What Else Is Happening in AI on February 02nd, 2024

 The Arc browser is incorporating AI to improve bookmarks and search results

The new features in Arc for Mac and Windows include “Instant Links,” which allows users to skip search engines and directly ask the AI bot for specific links. Another feature, called Live Folders, will provide live-updating streams of data from various sources. (Link)

 The Allen Institute for AI is open-sourcing its text-generating AI models

The model is OLMo, along with the dataset used to train them. These models are designed to be more “open” than others, allowing developers to use them freely for training, experimentation, and commercialization. (Link)

 Apple CEO Tim Cook confirmed that AI features are coming ‘later this year’

This aligns with reports that iOS 18 could be the biggest update in the operating system’s history. Apple’s integration of AI into its software platforms, including iOS, iPadOS, and macOS, is expected to include advanced photo manipulation and word processing enhancements. This announcement suggests that Apple has ambitious plans to compete with Google and Samsung in the AI space. (Link)

 Scientists use AI to create an early diagnostic test for ovarian cancer

Researchers at the Georgia Tech Integrated Cancer Research Center have developed a new test for ovarian cancer using AI and blood metabolite information. The test has shown 93% accuracy in detecting ovarian cancer in samples from the study group, outperforming existing tests. They have also developed a personalized approach to ovarian cancer diagnosis, using a patient’s individual metabolic profile to determine the probability of the disease’s presence. (Link)

 Anthropic launches a new ‘dark mode’ visual option for its Claude chatbot. (Link)

Just click on the Profile > Appearance > Select Dark. 

 Meta’s plans to crush Google and Microsoft in AI

• Mark Zuckerberg announced Meta’s intent to aggressively enter the AI market, aiming to outpace Microsoft and Google by leveraging the vast amount of data on its platforms.
• Meta plans to make an ambitious long-term investment in AI, estimated to cost over $30 billion yearly, on top of its existing expenses.
• The company’s strategy includes building advanced AI products and services for users of Instagram and WhatsApp, focusing on achieving general intelligence (AGI).

 Tim Cook says big Apple AI announcement is coming later this year

• Apple CEO Tim Cook confirmed that generative AI software features are expected to be released to customers later this year, during Apple’s quarterly earnings call.
• The upcoming generative AI features are anticipated to be part of what could be the “biggest update” in iOS history, according to Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman.
• Tim Cook emphasized Apple’s commitment to not disclose too much before the actual release but hinted at significant advancements in AI, including applications in iOS, iPadOS, and macOS.

 Meta plans new in-house AI chip ‘Artemis’

• Meta is set to deploy its new AI chip “Artemis” to reduce dependence on Nvidia chips, aiming for cost savings and enhanced computing to power AI-driven experiences.
• By developing in-house AI silicon like Artemis, Meta aims to save on energy and chip costs while maintaining a competitive edge in AI technologies against rivals.
• The Artemis chip is focused on inference processes, complementing the GPUs Meta uses, with plans for a broader in-house AI silicon project to support its computational needs.

 Google’s Bard gets a free AI image generator to compete with ChatGPT

• Google introduced a free image generation feature to Bard, using Imagen 2, to create images from text, offering competition to OpenAI’s multimodal chatbots like ChatGPT.
• The feature introduces a watermark for AI-generated images and implements safeguards against creating images of known people or explicit content, but it’s not available in the EU, Switzerland, and the UK.
• Bard with Gemini Pro has expanded to over 40 languages and 230 countries, and Google is also integrating Imagen 2 into its products and making it available for developers via Google Cloud Vertex AI.

 Former CIA hacker sentenced to 40 years in prison

• Joshua Schulte, a former CIA software engineer, was sentenced to 40 years in prison for passing classified information to WikiLeaks, marking the most damaging disclosure of classified information in U.S. history.
• The information leaked, known as the Vault 7 release in 2017, exposed CIA’s hacking tools and methods, including techniques for spying on smartphones and converting internet-connected TVs into listening devices.
• Schulte’s actions have been described as causing exceptionally grave harm to U.S. national security by severely compromising CIA’s operational capabilities and putting both personnel and intelligence missions at risk.

A Daily Chronicle of AI Innovations in February 2024 – Day 01: AI Daily News – February 01st, 2024

 Shopify boosts its commerce platform with AI enhancements

Shopify unveiled over 100 new updates to its commerce platform, with AI emerging as a key theme. The new AI-powered capabilities are aimed at helping merchants work smarter, sell more, and create better customer experiences.

The headline feature is Shopify Magic, which applies different AI models to assist merchants in various ways. This includes automatically generating product descriptions, FAQ pages, and other marketing copy. Early tests showed Magic can create SEO-optimized text in seconds versus the minutes typically required to write high-converting product blurbs.

On the marketing front, Shopify is infusing its Audiences ad targeting tool with more AI to optimize campaign performance. Its new semantic search capability better understands search intent using natural language processing.

Why does this matter?

The AI advancements could provide Shopify an edge over rivals. In addition, the new features will help merchants capitalize on the ongoing boom in online commerce and attract more customers across different channels and markets. This also reflects broader trends in retail and e-commerce, where AI is transforming everything from supply chains to customer service.

Source

 OpenAI explores how good GPT-4 is at creating bioweapons

OpenAI is developing a blueprint for evaluating the risk that a large language model (LLM) could aid someone in creating a biological threat.

In an evaluation involving both biology experts and students, it found that GPT-4 provides at most a mild uplift in biological threat creation accuracy. While this uplift is not large enough to be conclusive, the finding is a starting point for continued research and community deliberation.

Why does this matter?

LLMs could accelerate the development of bioweapons or make them accessible to more people. OpenAI is working on an early warning system that could serve as a “tripwire” for potential misuse and development of biological weapons.

Source

 LLaVA-1.6: Improved reasoning, OCR, and world knowledge

LLaVA-1.6 releases with improved reasoning, OCR, and world knowledge. It even exceeds Gemini Pro on several benchmarks. Compared with LLaVA-1.5, LLaVA-1.6 has several improvements:

• Increasing the input image resolution to 4x more pixels.
• Better visual reasoning and OCR capability with an improved visual instruction tuning data mixture.
• Better visual conversation for more scenarios, covering different applications. Better world knowledge and logical reasoning.
• Efficient deployment and inference with SGLang.

Along with performance improvements, LLaVA-1.6 maintains the minimalist design and data efficiency of LLaVA-1.5. The largest 34B variant finishes training in ~1 day with 32 A100s.

Why does this matter?

LLaVA-1.6 is an upgrade to LLaVA-1.5, which has a simple and efficient design and great performance akin to GPT-4V.. LLaVA-1.5 has since served as the foundation of many comprehensive studies of data, models, and capabilities of large multimodal models (LMM) and has enabled various new applications. It shows the growing open-source AI community with fast-moving and freewheeling standards.

Source

The uncomfortable truth about AI’s impact on the workforce is playing out inside the big AI companies themselves.

The article  discusses how the increasing investment in AI by tech giants like Microsoft and Google is affecting the global workforce. It highlights that these companies are slowing hiring in non-AI areas and, in some cases, cutting jobs in those divisions as they ramp up spending on AI. For example, Alphabet’s workforce decreased from over 190,000 employees in 2022 to around 182,000 at the end of 2023, with further layoffs in 2024. The article emphasizes that the integration of AI has raised concerns about job displacement and the need for a workforce strategy that integrates AI and keeps jobs through the modification of roles. It also mentions the importance of being adaptable and learning about the new wave of jobs that may emerge due to technological advances. The impact of AI on different types of jobs, including white-collar and high-paid positions, is also discussed

The article provides insights into how the adoption of AI by major tech companies is reshaping the workforce and the potential implications for job stability and creation. It underscores the need for a proactive workforce strategy to integrate AI and mitigate job displacement, emphasizing the importance of adaptability and learning to navigate the evolving job market. The discussion on the impact of AI on different types of jobs, including high-paid white-collar positions, offers a comprehensive view of the challenges and opportunities associated with AI integration in the workforce.

Cisco’s head of security thinks that we’re headed into an AI phishing nightmare

Source

The article  discusses the potential impact of AI on cybersecurity, particularly in the context of phishing attacks. Jeetu Patel, Cisco’s executive vice president and general manager of security and collaboration, expresses concerns about the increasing sophistication of phishing scams facilitated by generative AI tools. These tools can produce written work that is challenging for humans to detect, making it easier for attackers to create convincing email traps. Patel emphasizes that this trend could make it harder for individuals to distinguish between legitimate activity and malicious attacks, posing a significant challenge for cybersecurity. The article highlights the potential implications of AI advancement for cybersecurity and the need for proactive measures to address these emerging threats.

The article provides insights into the growing concern about the potential misuse of AI in the context of cybersecurity, specifically in relation to phishing attacks. It underscores the need for heightened awareness and proactive strategies to counter the increasing sophistication of AI-enabled cyber threats. The concerns raised by Cisco’s head of security shed light on the evolving nature of cybersecurity challenges in the face of advancing AI technology, emphasizing the importance of staying ahead of potential threats and vulnerabilities.

What Else Is Happening in AI on February 01st, 2024

Microsoft LASERs away LLM inaccuracies.

Microsoft Research introduces Layer-Selective Rank Reduction (or LASER). While the method seems counterintuitive, it makes models trained on large amounts of data smaller and more accurate. With LASER, researchers can “intervene” and replace one weight matrix with an approximate smaller one. (Link)

Mistral CEO confirms ‘leak’ of new open source model nearing GPT-4 performance.

A user with the handle “Miqu Dev” posted a set of files on HuggingFace that together comprised a seemingly new open-source LLM labeled “miqu-1-70b.” Mistral co-founder and CEO Arthur Mensch took to X to clarify and confirm. Some X users also shared what appeared to be its exceptionally high performance at common LLM tasks, approaching OpenAI’s GPT-4 on the EQ-Bench. (Link)

Synthesia launches LLM-powered assistant to turn any text file or link into AI video.

Synthesia launched a tool to turn text-based sources into full-fledged synthetic videos in minutes. It builds on Synthesia’s existing offerings and can work with any document or web link, making it easier for enterprise teams to create videos for internal and external use cases. (Link)

AI is helping pick what you’ll wear in two years.

Fashion forecasters are leveraging AI to make decisions about the trends and styles you’ll be scrambling to wear. A McKinsey survey found that 73% of fashion executives said GenAI will be a business priority next year. AI predicts trends by scraping social media, evaluating runway looks, analyzing search data, and generating images. (Link)

Twin Labs automates repetitive tasks by letting AI take over your mouse cursor.

Paris-based startup Twin Labs wants to build an automation product for repetitive tasks, but what’s interesting is how they’re doing it. The company relies on models like GPT-4V) to replicate what humans usually do. Twin Labs is more like a web browser. The tool can automatically load web pages, click on buttons, and enter text. (Link)

SpaceX signs deal to launch private space station Link

• Starlab Space has chosen SpaceX’s Starship megarocket to launch its large and heavy space station, Starlab, into orbit, aiming for a launch in a single flight.
• Starlab, a venture between Voyager Space and Airbus, is designed to be fully operational from a single launch without the need for space assembly, targeting a 2028 operational date.
• The space station will serve various users including space agencies, researchers, and companies, with SpaceX’s Starship being the only current launch vehicle capable of handling its size and weight.

 Mistral CEO confirms ‘leak’ of new open source AI model nearing GPT-4 performance. Link

• Mistral’s CEO Arthur Mensch confirmed that an ‘over-enthusiastic employee’ from an early access customer leaked a quantized and watermarked version of an old model, hinting at Mistral’s ongoing development of a new AI model nearing GPT-4’s performance.
• The leaked model, labeled “miqu-1-70b,” was shared on HuggingFace and 4chan, attracting attention for its high performance on common language model benchmarks, leading to speculation it might be a new Mistral model.
• Despite the leak, Mensch hinted at further advancements with Mistral’s AI models, suggesting the company is close to matching or even exceeding GPT-4’s performance with upcoming versions.

 OpenAI says GPT-4 poses little risk of helping create bioweapons Link

• OpenAI released a study indicating that GPT-4 poses at most slight risk in assisting in the creation of a bioweapon, according to their conducted research involving biology experts and students.
• The study, motivated by concerns highlighted in President Biden’s AI Executive Order, aimed to reassure that while GPT-4 may slightly facilitate the creation of bioweapons, the impact is not statistically significant.
• In experiments with 100 participants, GPT-4 marginally improved the ability to plan a bioweapon, with biology experts showing an 8.8% increase in plan accuracy, underscoring the need for further research on AI’s potential risks.

 Microsoft, OpenAI to invest $500 million in AI robotics startup Link

• Microsoft and OpenAI are leading a funding round to invest $500 million in Figure AI, a robotics startup competing with Tesla’s Optimus.
• Figure AI, known for its commercial autonomous humanoid robot, could reach a valuation of $1.9 billion with this investment.
• The startup, which partnered with BMW for deploying its robots, aims to address labor shortages and increase productivity through automation.

 An AI headband to control your dreams. Link

• Tech startup Prophetic introduced Halo, an AI-powered headband designed to induce lucid dreams, allowing wearers to control their dream experiences.
• Prophetic is seeking beta users, particularly from previous lucid dream studies, to help create a large EEG dataset to refine Halo’s effectiveness in inducing lucid dreams.
• Interested individuals can reserve the Halo headband with a $100 deposit, leading towards an estimated price of $2,000, with shipments expected in winter 2025.

Playing Doom using gut bacteria Link

• The latest, weirdest way to play Doom involves using genetically modified E. coli bacteria, as explored in a paper by MIT’s Media Lab PhD student Lauren “Ren” Ramlan.
• Ramlan’s method doesn’t turn E. coli into a computer but uses the bacteria’s ability to fluoresce as pixels on an organic screen to display Doom screenshots.
• Although innovative, the process is impractical for gameplay, with the organic display managing only 2.5 frames in 24 hours, amounting to a game speed of 0.00003 FPS.

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A Daily Chronicle of AI Innovations in January 2024