Edition #9: One More Thing in AI

Date: 10-Nov-2023

Dear reader,

Welcome to the latest edition of the “One More Thing in AI newsletter.  For Startup founders and Business Leaders like you who want to get smarter on AI in less than 5 minutes. This edition was really easy to put together because there were so many interesting things that happened in the last few days. I hope you enjoy this edition. I'd love to hear your thoughts.

Best regards,

Renjit Philip

In this Edition 

💡 GPT-4 Turbo: OpenAI's Leap forward

🌐 Navigating the Open AI Seas: Meta and Hugging Face's New Voyage

🌈 Forecasting Innovation: Rainbow Weather's Meteoric Rise 

🚀 AI's New Frontier: Samsung Unveils Gauss, A ChatGPT Rival

🌟 Amazon's Olympus AI: Stepping into the Future

📈 Aleph Alpha's Series B Triumph

😄 Humor (my attempt at creating a cartoon with DALL.E-3’s help)

🌟 Sponsored: Yadget Data Generator for Software testing

Please look at the bottom of the newsletter for sponsorship opportunities to reach over 1000+ business and startup professionals. If you subscribe to our email edition, you get to read this edition before non-subscribers, and it stays in your mailbox as a future reference. Subscription has its value!

💡 GPT-4 Turbo: OpenAI's Leap forward

🌟A Quantum Leap in AI: GPT-4 Turbo

Imagine a world where your AI tool can process the content of an entire novel in one go. That's the reality with OpenAI's GPT-4 Turbo, introduced at their developer conference. This iteration is a game-changer, capable of handling inputs up to 300 pages long, a significant jump from the previous 50-page limit. It's like shifting from a sports car to a hypercar in the AI world.

📈 Up-to-date and Cost-Effective

GPT-4 Turbo isn't just about size; it's also about being current. With knowledge updated to April 2023, it surpasses its predecessor, which only had information until September 2021. Moreover, it's more wallet-friendly, with a 3x reduction in input token costs and a 2x reduction in output token costs. This makes it an attractive option for developers looking to push the boundaries of AI without breaking the bank.

🔍Enhanced Capabilities: Beyond Text

This new model isn't confined to text; it can process images as prompts, offering descriptive captions and facilitating text-to-speech requests. It's like giving AI the ability to read and 'see' and 'speak,' broadening its application spectrum significantly.

🌍A Growing User Base and Legal Safeguards

OpenAI's ChatGPT, powered by these advancements, boasts over 100 million weekly active users globally. It's the go-to communication tool for a majority of Fortune 500 companies. OpenAI also ensures customer protection against legal issues like copyright infringement, promising to cover associated costs.

🛠️Mini-ChatGPTs: Tailored AI Tools

The introduction of mini-ChatGPTs marks a new era of user-friendly AI. These single-application tools, requiring no coding knowledge, can be instantly shared. OpenAI plans to launch a 'store' for these innovations, making them accessible to a wider audience. This move brings new developers into the game, driving usage further.

Takeaway 

OpenAI's GPT-4 Turbo represents a significant paradigm shift in AI accessibility and application. The mini-GPTs platform is similar to the “App Store” on Apple and Android phones, which created millions of apps and unleashed value to developers and customers.

Navigating the Open AI Seas: Meta and Hugging Face's New Voyage

Dawn of a New AI Era

Imagine a world where artificial intelligence is not just a tool in the hands of a few tech giants but a collaborative force open to startup founders and solopreneurs across the globe. This is not a distant dream but the unfolding reality as Meta joins forces with Hugging Face to launch an AI-focused startup program at Paris's “Station F”.

The Open vs. Closed AI Debate

At the heart of this initiative lies a critical debate: the future of AI development. Should it be open and collaborative, or should it remain under the tight control of major tech companies? Meta and Hugging Face champion the former, advocating for a more open approach. This stance is particularly poignant in an era where AI's potential and risks are hotly debated, with some tech leaders calling for stringent regulations.

Meta's Stance: A Call for Openness

Meta's chief AI scientist, Yann LeCun, and 70 other experts recently emphasized the need for openness in AI development. They argue that hasty regulation could concentrate power, stifling competition and innovation. Their vision is clear: open AI models can lead to better policy-making and ensure safety, security, and accountability.

Hugging Face: The Open Source Champion

Hugging Face, a billion-dollar startup is at the forefront of providing open-source alternatives to proprietary AI models like ChatGPT. Their commitment to open-source AI aligns perfectly with Meta's vision, making their collaboration a strategic fit.

AI Startup Program: A Launchpad for Innovation

From now until December 1, 2023, startups can apply to join this groundbreaking program. The criteria? A focus on projects built on open foundation models or a willingness to integrate these models into their products. This initiative aims to bring the benefits of open AI to the French ecosystem, a move away from the major cloud infrastructure companies.

A Shift in Focus: From Metaverse to AI

Meta's pivot from its metaverse ambitions to this AI accelerator program reflects the rapidly evolving tech landscape. Just a year ago, Meta focused on VR/AR/MR in collaboration with L’Oréal and HEC. Today, the spotlight is on generative AI, a field gaining immense traction and promising immediate impacts. Meta’s shareholders will be pleased.

Forecasting Innovation: Rainbow Weather's Meteoric Rise

🌈 The Dawn of a New Era in Weather Forecasting

Imagine a world where weather predictions are not just a guess but a precise science. That's the vision of Rainbow Weather, a Polish meteorological AI-driven tech startup. With a recent infusion of almost $2M in funding, Rainbow Weather is poised to revolutionize how we interact with the weather.

💡 The AI-Driven Meteorological Marvel

By harnessing a diverse array of data sources, from satellites to user reports, the startup provides hyperlocal forecasts with stunning accuracy. 

🚀 The Funding Fuel: Propelling Forward

The recent funding round saw contributions from notable Venture Capitalist firms like Kolos Ventures, Verras Capital, and Melnichek Investments, along with support from the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development. This financial backing is a decisive vote of confidence in Rainbow Weather's potential to disrupt the weather forecasting industry.

🌍 A Global Impact: Precision Meets Practicality

Rainbow Weather's first market product, a mobile app for iOS and Android, has already made waves. It outperforms significant players like Apple Weather and AccuWeather in rain prediction precision. This level of accuracy translates to thousands of users receiving timely and accurate weather alerts, a crucial factor in regions prone to severe weather conditions.

AI's New Frontier: Samsung Unveils Gauss, A ChatGPT Rival

🌟 Introducing Samsung Gauss: A Triad of AI Tools

Just days after OpenAI's event, Samsung entered the spotlight with its AI marvel, Samsung Gauss, at the Samsung AI Forum 2023. This suite, developed by Samsung Research, comprises three distinct tools: Samsung Gauss Language, Samsung Gauss Code, and Samsung Gauss Image, each designed to revolutionize how we interact with technology.

📝 Samsung Gauss Language: Beyond ChatGPT

Samsung Gauss Language is a large language model like ChatGPT but with a twist. It's engineered to enhance productivity in numerous ways, such as assisting in writing and editing emails, summarizing documents, and translating languages. Samsung plans to integrate this model into its devices, potentially transforming smartphones, laptops, and tablets into smarter companions.

💻 Samsung Gauss Code: The Developer's Dream

Samsung Gauss Code, paired with the code assistant code.i, zeroes in on the development of code. It's crafted to aid developers in swiftly writing code, offering features like code description and test case generation.

🖼️ Samsung Gauss Image: Revolutionizing Image Processing

As the name implies, Samsung Gauss Image focuses on image generation and editing. Imagine converting a low-resolution image into a high-resolution masterpiece in an instant. This tool could redefine the boundaries of digital art and photography.

🚀 Samsung's Vision: AI for the Future

Currently, Samsung Gauss is an internal tool, but plans are underway to make it publicly available soon. With ambitions to release a Galaxy S24 powered by this Generative AI model as early as 2024, Samsung plans to integrate AI into its consumer tech products.

Takeaway 

Samsung brings AI-powered tools to its devices. What is your move, Apple?

Amazon's Olympus AI: Stepping into the Future of Artificial Intelligence

🌐 Amazon's Bold Move into Conversational AI

Amazon is stepping up its game in the AI world by developing a new conversational AI software, Olympus. This move positions Amazon as a formidable competitor to OpenAI and Microsoft in the corporate AI technology sector.

🤖 Olympus: Enhancing Amazon's Ecosystem

Olympus is not just another AI model; it's anticipated to transform Amazon's online retail platform and empower Alexa's voice assistant features on devices like Echo. Moreover, it's set to bolster Amazon Web Services (AWS).

⚔️ Outperforming Titan: Amazon's AI Ambition

Olympus is expected to surpass Titan, AWS's current suite of Greek-named large language models. While Titan has been offering cloud clients capabilities in personalization and search, Olympus aims to set a new benchmark in AI performance.

🕒 The Timeline: Anticipation and Uncertainty

The exact timeline for Olympus's completion and deployment remains a subject of speculation. Currently, AWS offers one Titan model to customers, with two more in the pipeline, designed to provide ChatGPT-like text responses and summarization of lengthy texts.

🌏 Alibaba Joins the AI Race

In a parallel development, Alibaba, China's cloud computing and e-commerce giant, has introduced Tongyi Qianwen 2.0, its latest large language model. This move signifies Alibaba's ambition to compete with global tech giants like Amazon and Microsoft. The AI race is not just a duel but an international tournament with multiple formidable players.

Takeaway 

Amazon's foray into advanced AI with Olympus marks a significant shift in its strategy. They have been slow to get on to the Gen AI bandwagon till now.

Aleph Alpha's Series B Triumph

🚀 Aleph Alpha's Funding Milestone

Aleph Alpha, a Heidelberg-based AI innovator, has made headlines by securing over $500 million in Series B financing. This significant investment marks a new chapter in the AI field, particularly in explainable and trustworthy AI.

💡 The Investors' Ensemble

The round was led by the Innovation Park Artificial Intelligence (Ipai), Bosch Ventures, and the companies of Schwarz Group. New investors are Joining this impressive lineup, including Hewlett Packard Enterprise and SAP. The participation of these heavyweight investors underscores the confidence in Aleph Alpha's potential.

🔬 Focused Investment: Pioneering AI Research

The funds are earmarked for research on foundation models and enhancing product capabilities, particularly for business-critical environments.

🌍 Aleph Alpha: A Global AI Visionary

Under the leadership of CEO Jonas Andrulis, Aleph Alpha stands out not just as an AI company but as a collective of international scientists, engineers, and innovators. They are at the forefront of researching, developing, and deploying transformative AI, including large language and multimodal models. 

Their operation of the fastest European commercial AI cluster and their generative AI solutions for enterprises and governmental institutions highlight their commitment to data security and building trustworthy AI.

Humor

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That is it for this edition of the newsletter. If you subscribe to our email edition, you get to read this edition before non-subscribers, and it stays in your mailbox as a future reference. Subscription has its value!

Until next time, keep learning, applying, and experimenting with AI!

Deeper dive / Sources

1️⃣ Forecasting Innovation: Rainbow Weather's Meteoric Rise 

2️⃣ Samsung Unveils Gauss, A ChatGPT Rival 

3️⃣ Amazon's Olympus AI: Stepping into the Future 

4️⃣ GPT-4 Turbo: OpenAI's Leap forward

5️⃣ Aleph Alpha's Series B Triumph

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