Startup Reka AI is releasing in preview its first artificial intelligence assistant, Yasa-1. The multimodal AI is described as “a language assistant with visual and auditory sensors.” The year-old company says it “trained Yasa-1 from scratch,” including pretraining foundation models “from ground zero,” then aligning them and optimizing to its training and server infrastructures. “Yasa-1 is not just a text assistant, it also understands images, short videos and audio (yes, sounds too),” said Reka AI co-founder and Chief Scientist Yi Tay. Yasa-1 is available via Reka’s APIs and as docker containers for on-site or virtual private cloud deployment. Continue reading Yasa-1: Startup Reka Launches New AI Multimodal Assistant

Google DeepMind and Google Cloud have teamed to launch what they claim is an indelible AI watermark tool, which if it works would mark an industry first. Called SynthID, the technique for identifying AI-generated images is being launched in beta. The technology embeds its digital watermark “directly into the pixels of an image, making it imperceptible to the human eye, but detectable for identification,” according to DeepMind. SynthID is being released to a limited number of Google’s Vertex AI customers using Imagen, a Google AI language model that generates photorealistic images. Continue reading Google Introduces an AI Watermark That Cannot Be Removed

Meta Platforms is releasing SeamlessM4T, the world’s “first all-in-one multilingual multimodal AI translation and transcription model,” according to the company. SeamlessM4T can perform speech-to-text, speech-to-speech, text-to-speech, and text-to-text translations for up to 100 languages, depending on the task. “Our single model provides on-demand translations that enable people who speak different languages to communicate more effectively,” Meta claims, adding that SeamlessM4T “implicitly recognizes the source languages without the need for a separate language identification model.” Continue reading Meta’s Multimodal AI Model Translates Nearly 100 Languages

Newsrooms can potentially benefit greatly from AI language models, but at this early stage they’ve begun laying down boundaries to ensure that rather than having their data coopted to build artificial intelligence by third parties they’ll survive long enough to create models of their own, or license proprietary IP. As industries await regulations from the federal government, The New York Times has proactively updated its terms of service to prohibit data-scraping of its content for machine learning. The move follows a Google policy refresh that expressly states it uses search data to train AI. Continue reading The New York Times Looks to Protect IP Content in Era of AI

This week, Meta Platforms released Llama 2, the next generation of its open-source large language model that is free for research and commercial use. Llama 2’s pretrained and fine-tuned language models are available in sizes ranging from 7 to 70 billion parameters. Meta also named Microsoft Azure its “preferred partner for Llama 2,” offering it through the Azure AI model catalog for use with cloud-native tools that leverage content filtering and safety features. Meta says Llama 2 is “also optimized to run locally on Windows,” providing developers a seamless workflow across enterprise and consumer platforms. Continue reading Meta Unveils Llama 2 LLM with Microsoft as Preferred Partner

Bozeman, Montana-based DaaS firm Snowflake has partnered with Nvidia to let clients customize LLMs (large language models) using proprietary data in the Snowflake Data Cloud. Nvidia’s NeMo platform and GPU-accelerated computing will power the effort to tailor models to specific business use cases, such as chatbots with category expertise as opposed to generalists, search engines attuned to context or generative text deep knowledge. Since most companies are eager to harness brand-specific AI without having to build a model from scratch, this category of service is generating a lot of interest. Continue reading Nvidia’s NeMo Delivers AI Customization to Snowflake Cloud

AI-startup Inflection has unveiled a new foundation LLM (large language model) to power its Pi chatbot. Inflection-1 approximates OpenAI’s GPT-3.5 in terms of size and functionality, which puts it on a par with ChatGPT insofar as model training. Inflection claims its LLM exceeds some benchmarks when tested against that competing system, as well as Meta Platforms’ LLaMA, DeepMind’s Chinchilla and Google’s PaLM-540B. Pi is short for Personal Intelligence, and Inflection compiled its LLM with a goal of creating an emotive AI whose conversation provides a reasonable facsimile of empathy and human-like sensibilities. Continue reading Inflection Shares Test Results for Its First AI Language Model

Snorkel AI is offering new capabilities to help companies curate and prep data for generative artificial intelligence. Formed in 2015, Snorkel AI has been developing software for data-centric AI. Its best known product is Snorkel Flow, which helps enterprise clients build and deploy AI applications efficiently using programmatic labeling to automate the process of creating training data for AI models. Now Snorkel AI’s Foundation Model Data Platform is going beyond programmatic labeling with two new core solutions: Snorkel GenFlow for building generative AI applications and Snorkel Foundry for developing custom LLMs with proprietary data. Continue reading Snorkel AI Debuts Products for Model Training, Development

Meta Platforms has unveiled Voicebox, an AI model that can produce high-quality audio clips and edit pre-recorded audio. It also uses artificial intelligence for speech generation efforts, using what Meta calls “in-context learning” to accomplish tasks it was not specifically trained for. The company says Voicebox is first in class with this type of generalized learning for audio. Untrained tasks include sampling, stylizing and editing. As an editor, it can isolate and remove sounds like car horns and background animal noise while preserving the content and style of the source audio. The multilingual model generates speech in six languages. Continue reading Meta Creates Voicebox Generative AI Model for Audio Synth

AI startup Anthropic is sharing new details of the “safe AI” principles that helped train its Claude chatbot. Also known as “Constitutional AI,” the method draws inspiration from treatises that range from a Universal Declaration of Human Rights to Apple’s Terms of Service and Anthropic’s own research. “What ‘values’ might a language model have?,” Anthropic asks, noting “our recently published research on Constitutional AI provides one answer by giving language models explicit values determined by a constitution, rather than values determined implicitly via large-scale human feedback.” Continue reading Anthropic Shares Details of Constitutional AI Used on Claude

Amazon is giving Alexa an AI update, with a “more generalized and capable” large language model in development to power the device, CEO Andy Jassy told investors on the company’s Q1 earnings call. While Jassy addressed updates to the company’s AI and machine learning tech that is now facing increased competition, it was actually advertising that gave the company bragging rights this quarter. Amazon’s ad products had 21 percent revenue growth year-over-year, totaling $9.5 billion. As many digital companies struggle to maintain ad momentum in a restrained market, the results are impressive. Continue reading Amazon Has Ad Surge, Looks to Better LLM to Power Alexa

Stability AI has released StableLM, an open source language model that will compete with OpenAI’s GPT-4 to create apps like ChatGPT. The Alpha version of StableLM is available in 3 billion and 7 billion parameters, and the company promises 15 billion to 65 billion parameter models to come. “With the launch of the StableLM suite of models, Stability AI is continuing to make foundational AI technology accessible to all,” the London-based company said. The StableLM models can generate text and code to power various downstream applications with appropriate training. Continue reading Stability AI Debuts Open Source StableLM Foundation Model

Auto-GPT, an open source app that uses OpenAI’s text-generating models, is currently generating a great deal of social media attention. The program can act somewhat autonomously in that it creates its own feedback loop, asking itself a series of questions to help build a more nuanced and complete response to a text prompt. In short, something that would take a user multiple prompts to produce the desired information using ChatGPT could be accomplished using a single request of Auto-GPT, which could independently explore a subject before spitting back a comprehensive response. Continue reading Auto-GPT Generates Social Sizzle, Ushers in Era of AI Agents

Walmart has rolled out a new online look in a bid to catch up with Amazon, simultaneously advancing its conversational AI capabilities using OpenAI’s GPT-4 and Google’s BERT. Starting last year, generative AI has reportedly been a major initiative of the Arkansas-based retailer in key areas including search, supply chain management and virtual shopping, although it is only now that the company is emphasizing the tools to customers by expanding its offerings like Text to Shop. The text- or voice-activated way to add items to Walmart.com shopping carts is one of nearly two dozen conversational AI experiences at Walmart. Continue reading Walmart Leans into AI, Retools Site to Compete with Amazon

Alphabet and Google CEO Sundar Pichai is promising Bard critics that a new and improved conversational AI model will soon be available. Although both the LaMDA-powered Bard and its rival, OpenAI’s ChatGPT have been prone to a variety of errors in their early stages, Bard — following on the heels of ChatGPT’s release and meteoric popularity — has borne the brunt of less favorable reviews. Google is taking steps to maintain thought leadership in the space, so that parent company Alphabet can compete with Microsoft and OpenAI, who were quicker to move ChatGPT into the public consciousness, gaining a first-mover advantage. Continue reading Google Is Improving Its Bard AI Chatbot with PaLM Upgrade