Innovation Profs - 11/12/2024

Your weekly guide to generative AI tools and news

Innovation Profs
November 12, 2024

Generative AI News

First artwork painted by humanoid robot to sell at auction fetches $1m

A.I. God. Portrait of Alan Turing, a painting created by Ai-Da, an AI-powered humanoid robot, was sold at auction house Sotheby’s in New York this past Thursday for $1.08 million. The painting was originally expected to sell for between $120,000 and $180,000 and received 27 bids. According to a statement Sotheby’s, “Today’s record-breaking sale price for the first artwork by a humanoid robot artist to go up for auction marks a moment in the history of modern and contemporary art and reflects the growing intersection between AI technology and the global art market.”

OpenAI and others seek new path to smarter AI as current methods hit limitations

Over the past two years, we’ve seen significant growth in the power and capabilities of large language models. Is attaining an even higher level of performance just a matter of combining more data and computing power with existing techniques? That may not be the case, as researchers have encountered “unexpected delays and challenges” in achieving this goal, suggesting that current techniques for producing LLMs may be plateauing. According to Ilya Sutskever, former OpenAI Chief Scientist, “The 2010s were the age of scaling, now we're back in the age of wonder and discovery once again. Everyone is looking for the next thing. Scaling the right thing matters more now than ever.” One promising alternative approach is to use “training techniques that use more human-like ways for algorithms to ‘think’,” a strategy employed to develop OpenAI’s o1 model.

X is testing a free version of AI chatbot Grok

Grok, the LLM put out by Elon Musk’s company xAI, is currently only available to premium users of X. That may soon change, as some unpaid X users have reported that they’ve been given limited access to Grok on the platform, which suggests that this access will soon be given to all unpaid users of X. Given that only 0.26% of X’s user base consists of premium users, free access to Grok on X will drastically improve its exposure.

Google rolls out its Gemini AI-powered video presentation app

Vids is Google’s new Gemini-powered tool for producing video productions, which includes the ability to generate scripts, create voiceovers, and add stock footage to videos. Vids takes as input documents, slides, voiceovers, and video clips and yields a video presentation as output.

Amazon may up its investment in Anthropic — on one condition

Amazon has already invested $4 billion in Anthropic, the company behind the LLM Claude. Now, it’s being reported that Amazon is willing to invest further in Anthropic, but with one catch: Anthropic has to train its models using Amazon Web Services’ silicon chips instead of the Nvidia chips it prefers to use. We’ll see if Anthropic accepts the offer.

Quick Hits

Jarvis AI is real – Google accidentally leaks its AI agent that browses the web for you

One step closer to automation

www.techradar.com/computing/artificial-intelligence/jarvis-ai-is-real-google-accidentally-leaks-its-ai-agent-that-browses-the-web-for-you

Recraft might be the most powerful AI image platform I’ve ever used — here’s why

The home of the Red Panda

www.tomsguide.com/ai/ai-image-video/recraft-might-be-the-most-powerful-ai-image-platform-ive-ever-used-heres-why

Encore is an AI-powered search engine for your thrifting needs | TechCrunch

Former Apple engineer Alex Ruber and former Twitter and Asana engineer Parth Chopra first met on Y Combinator's founder match platform, then met in person

techcrunch.com/2024/11/10/encore-is-an-ai-powered-search-engine-for-your-thrifting-needs

This is how to spot AI-generated 3D models

A 3D artist has identified the tell-tale signs of AI assets in Epic Games' Fab store.

www.creativebloq.com/ai/this-is-how-to-spot-ai-generated-3d-models

Chegg Is On Its Last Legs After ChatGPT Sent Its Stock Down 99%

After seeing its stock fall 99%, there are doubts the online education company will be able to pay its debts.

gizmodo.com/chegg-is-on-its-last-legs-after-chatgpt-sent-its-stock-down-99-2000522585

ChatGPT coded a game for me in seconds and I am simply astounded – and coders should be very worried

Second time's the charm

www.techradar.com/computing/artificial-intelligence/chatgpt-coded-a-game-for-me-in-seconds-and-i-am-simply-astounded-and-coders-should-be-very-worried

Despite its impressive output, generative AI doesn’t have a coherent understanding of the world

Large language models can achieve incredible performance on some tasks without having internalized a coherent model of the world or the rules that govern it, MIT researchers find. This means these models are likely to fail unexpectedly if they are deployed in situations where the environment or task slightly changes.

news.mit.edu/2024/generative-ai-lacks-coherent-world-understanding-1105

Anthropic Does The Unthinkable with Haiku 3.5

Explore Claude 3.5 Haiku's strengths, limitations, and market implications in the AI landscape. Uncover the future of AI with Claude 3.5 Haiku

www.geeky-gadgets.com/claude-3-5-haiku-ai-model

An introduction to fine-tuning LLMs at home with Axolotl

Got a modern Nvidia or AMD graphics card? Custom Llamas are only a few commands and a little data prep away

www.theregister.com/2024/11/10/llm_finetuning_guide

Tool of the week: Learn About

Google has a new experimental generative AI tool called Learn About that gives users a deeper dive into topics of their choice.

Learn About guides you through topics with interactive content, suggested topics, images and videos. I asked it about the history of the NFL and was given an interactive timeline, related content and suggested next prompts.

AI-generated image of the week

Midjourney now lets users edit uploaded images (previously you could only edit images created in Midjourney). So we decided to transform a photo of the Innovation Profs presenting at a conference to this…

Prompt: busy colorado ski resort in winter

Get starting with Generative AI

New to generative AI? Here are some places to start…

What we found

You can stop obsessing over your prompts for everyday questions. A new study shows when you need better prompts and when you do not.

The study finds that in most cases you can simply ask for what you want in clear language. But there are cases where prompt engineering makes a difference: technical coding, data visualization, programming and scripting tasks, and algorithmic problem-solving.