The AI Wars Reach a Fever Pitch – January 28th, 2023

The battle lines between Microsoft and Google were shaping up already, and Microsoft dug a fairly deep trench this week. Google isn't sitting passively by, though. They're bringing back both founders to ward off this existential threat, as well as laying off 12,000, presumably to narrow the company's focus to generative AI. Meanwhile Meta is asleep at the wheel, with their head of AI dismissing ChatGPT as "not particularly innovative." ...or are they just playing possum?

The Big Stuff

It's a DONE DEAL! Microsoft Expands OpenAI Partnership with a $10 Billion Bet. (link1) (link2)

The the importance of this deal can't be understated. It means that Microsoft will leverage OpenAI's tech across their massive ecosystem, including Azure Cloud Services and the Office suite of products. This move puts them in the driver's seat, forcing Google (and others Meta? Amazon/AWS? Apple?) to respond.

Another question from this move raises is will the OpenAI/Microsoft partnership bring an end to Google's search monopoly (link)? It was hard to imagine any player (much less Microsoft) being in a position to threaten the "King of the Hill," but here we are.

What will Google do?! Well...

Google Slaps Back! Calls In Founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin for AI Cage Match (link)

Google's fundamental problem is they have some of the best AI capabilities, but they are not shipping! This week, they released an amazing music model that will produce music from your humming or a text prompt, but they are not shipping it. (link). They have also released some promising looking text to video (link).

Google is planning a big AI release in May (link) and they've stated that they may make a tradeoff between safety and speed to acomplish this. However, at the same time, the rumor is they are aggressively lobbying in Washington DC on safety, trying to get legistators to stop their competitors (link).

Microsoft appears to be leading the race, right now, with Google planning a "Code Red" to catch up. Meanwhile, there has not been any indication from Amazon or Apple that they will join the fight. Meta seems to be too busy with their Metaverse endeavors to compete. Meta's AI chief said this week that ChatGPT is "not particularly innovative" (link), which is interesting since their Galactica model only survived three days online before they had to take it down (link), and there is an exodus of AI talent from Meta (link).

The large potential competitors can dismiss these technologies all they want, but saying "they aren't impressive" is interesting considering that ChatGPT has passed the medical exam (link), MBA exam (link), and Bar exam (link) THIS WEEK. Probably nothing...

Smaller, but still Cool Stuff

• Plagiarism 2.0: ChatGPT, AI and Generative Content Concerns (link) - This is a very insightful episode created by Dheep Dhillon. His podcast is amazing and worth subscribing.

• CNET Has Been Quietly Publishing AI-Written Articles for Months (link)

• Google layoffs are wide-ranging as Larry Page, Sergey Brin consulted on AI future (link)

• Microsoft asks court to toss Copilot lawsuit citing fair use (link)

• Why legal services chatbot DoNotPay is abandoning its idea of putting a robot in court (link)

• We're coming for all the models! - MosaicML talks about training Stable Diffusion from Scratch (link)

• MIT researchers develop an AI model that can detect future lung cancer risk (link)

• MetaAI releases 'Make-A-Video3D' (link)

• ChatGPT Pro plan costs $42/mo, free plan available when demand is low (link) (demo)

• Nearly a Third of White-Collar Workers Have Tried ChatGPT (link)

• What an Endless Conversation with Werner Herzog Can Teach Us about AI (link) (demo)

• Andrew Ng predicts the next 10 years in AI (link)

• Meta’s A.I. exodus: Top talent quits as the lab tries to keep pace with rivals (link)

• Robotic apple harvester uses computer vision model to determine ripeness, can pick 30 apples a minute (link)

Incredible Resources: Just CLICK. Trust us.

AI has never been more accessible. Whether you’re just getting started, or you’re a veteran, there are some amazing resources to either help you get started, or take your abilities to the next level.

• Your AI Injection Podcast (link)

• Scale.AI Hackathon - tons of amazingly cool things (link)

• Promptable - The Ultimate Workspace for Prompt Engineering (link)

• Perplexity.ai - An answer engine (link)

• Multion- a web Copilot powered by GPT (link)

• Supernormal - summarize your meeting notes (link)

• Bible and Torah GPT - get answers to your questions from scripture (bible) (torah)

• Outset AI - Generative AI Ideas for your Business (link)

• Konjer - A Library full of books you can talk to (link)

• Voicepen - Translate audio content into blog posts (link)

• DuplexGPT - Automated phone calls with Whisper and GPT-3 (beta sign up)

• Midjourney Artist Reference - A Google Sheet showing different artist styles and output (link)

Tweets of the Week

Google and Microsoft are Going All-In on Generative AI (link). Emad Mostaque is the CEO of Stability.ai, the creators of Stable Diffusion

Companies Are Now Advertising Prompt Engineer Positions for $250-335k (via Barsee)While this may seem ridiculous on the surface, prompt engineering is definitely emerging as a craft unto itself. The right person can have generative AI develop some pretty amazing things.

You never have to hear bad overdubbing or bad lipsync ever again. Thanks AI! (link)

What the heck scientists! Let us catch up! AI Papers Accelerating! (link)

2023 AI Roadmap is already insane (link)

The Hottest New Programming Language is English (link)

NVIDIA just released a new Eye Contact feature that uses AI to make you look into the camera. (link)

So far in so little time! Five Months of Midjourney Evolution (via Jameson Lopp)

Eye Candy

InstructPix2Pix (try it yourself here) (via Pete)

InstructPix2Pix can edit a photo based on your text instructions. The following photo used the prompt "wear a suit" to take the source image on the left, and produce the image on the right.

An Abandoned Ferrari (Midjourney) (link)

The Generative AI Landscape (blog) (via Lolita Taub)

Whew! Till next week.