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∆ Tech in the News

Authors Sue OpenAI - More authors, including Pulitzer winners Kai Bird, Stacy Schiff, and Taylor Branch, joined a class-action suit claiming OpenAI and Microsoft used their work without consent to train AI models.

"Galaxy AI is coming" - Samsung's S24 smartphones could follow Google’s Pixel 8 Pro in having on-device AI according to a newly leaked event invite.

VideoPoet - Google released a multimodal LLM pre-trained on its massive dataset of videos and text-image pairs that can generate video and audio from text or image prompts.

COPPA - The FTC proposed updated rules for the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act that would further restrict tech companies' collection and use of children's data, particularly for targeted advertising.

Superbugs Beware - Researchers have used advanced AI to uncover a new group of antibiotics effective against MRSA (methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus) which causes over 11,000 U.S. deaths each year.

˚The hottest thing in tech THIS YEAR

ChatGPT: The First Mass-Adoption Chatbot of the AI Era

OpenAI released ChatGPT in November 2022, unleashing a wave of innovation and interest in AI throughout 2023. OpenAI made AI feel more human. GPT-4 in particular opened up new avenues, from image understanding to data analysis and beyond. Anyone, with or without specific expertise, can leverage ChatGPT to unlock immense value.

OpenAI’s results have taken the world by storm. ChatGPT reached its first million users in 5 days and broke 100M active users in January 2023, just two months after launch. It's now approaching 200M. ChatGPT also then launched Plugins, a zero-code implementation of agent-tool frameworks. Later in the year, the release of GPTs allowed users to make and share chatbots with custom domain-specific knowledge and tooling. They also announced (and consequently delayed) their GPT Store, a market for GPTs, and walked back on a revenue share model. Other leading chatbot competitors include Google Bard, Anthropic’s Claude 2.1, and Mistral’s Mixture of Experts. However, none have yet surpassed GPT-4.

In January, Microsoft invested $10B in OpenAI, the largest investment in any sector of the year by far. This partnership has continued to develop and has brought ChatGPT’s most powerful LLMs to huge audiences through its Bing Chatbot (now rebranded as Copilot) being available across the Microsoft ecosystem integrated into Office 365.

One of the biggest stories of 2023 has to be the recent OpenAI saga which saw CEO Sam Altman fired after working on a secretive AGI-focus project deemed unsafe by many co-workers. Altman was promptly offered a job at Microsoft along with most of the team, then reinstated and the board completely restructured. While Altman's return as CEO brought this chapter to a close, there are still many unanswered questions. These include:

• How major is Microsoft's influence now, and is this a cause for concern?

• What will happen to OpenAI’s nonprofit governance structure (that includes a focus on safe AI development over simple profit-motive?)

• What impact this will have on the wider AI industry?

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Top 5 AI Narratives We Were Watching in 2023

1. Multimodal AI

As the year developed it became clear the real battlefield went beyond chatbots to the ability of AI systems to process different ‘modes’ of data beyond text, like images, video, audio and more. OpenAI’s GPT-4 was the first of these, allowing us to upload images or use voice so it can “see” or ‘hear’ the contents and respond or interact in audio or images. Sam Altman told TIME multimodality is one of the key things to watch out for next year. He isn’t alone, Google launched their Gemini model recently which focuses heavily on multimodality. Sundar Pichai has also made clear Google’s plans to make Gemini an AI agent that can do anything online. Google has even more data than Microsoft to learn from and a myriad of potential ways to interact with its apps to make our lives easier.

2. AI Chips and Compute Power

All this AI has been putting huge stress on the availability of computing power provided by high-performance chips. AI workloads can require pushing the GPUs and RAM in computers and servers to the max, setting off an AI arms race between the world's largest semiconductor companies; Intel, TMSC, AMD, Nvidia, and Qualcomm. Nvidia’s stock was one of the top performers in 2023 as the demand for their AI chips went through the roof. Earlier in the year the Biden Admin also banned NVIDIA from exporting high-performance GPUs to China, which has hurt Chinese startups and led Chinese tech giants to hoard these chips in anticipation of a tech war.

3. Generative Art

A whole new breed of AI startups emerged in 2023 as the generative art boom exploded raising the fear of deepfakes. ElevenLabs brought realistic audio generation tools. Midjourney image-generation tool exploded in early 2023. Meta’s ‘Segment anything’ offered image or video generation and alterations on their platforms. Wonder Dynamics launched wrapping of real humans with computer-generated characters in videos and was backed by Stephen Spielberg. Runway Gen 1 enabled us to alter video and Gen 2 launched the amazing Motion brush for video editing. More recently came ‘real-time’ image editing tools like Leonardo AI's Real Time Canvas, and Pico 1.0’s high-quality AI text-to-video conversion. Incumbents in the space also reacted fast to this challenge, with Canva, Apple, and Adobe, all implementing AI tools across their creative suites to further empower their creators.

4. AI and Copyright

AI raises many novel questions regarding copyright and compensation for the content used to train AI models. The actors' union SAG-Aftra reached an agreement with major film studios on AI and the way that the studios can use scans of deceased actors. The outcome was that Studios may no longer use scans of deceased performers without the consent of their estate or SAG-AFTRA. In a federal ruling by a US judge, it was determined that AI-generated artwork can't be copyrighted. And as mentioned in today’s News section writers have also launched a class-action lawsuit against OpenAI and Microsoft.

5. Deepfakes and Politics

Many are rightly concerned about the threat of AI-created “Deepfakes” to affect the 2024 election. Google recently filed a patent application for an AI-based system that detects “information operations campaigns on social media.”  Google also said it will restrict Bard chatbot and AI search responses on election topics ahead of the 2024 race citing "an abundance of caution".

Trending Tech News of 2023

1. Apple’s iPhone 15 Launch

Apple's iPhone 15 launch event showcased its focus on intuitive AI rather than generative AI, with features like voice isolation, automated voicemail transcription, and new accessibility features. Apple's focus on enhancing reality rather than distorting it may set it apart from competitors in the GenAI space.

2. Bankruptcies and Shutdowns

Major names to close up operations this year include WeWork, Bird Scooters, Vice Media, Rite Aid, Omeagle, Wyre.

3. Facebook's $700M Privacy Settlement

After settling a class action privacy lawsuit, Tech giant Meta – owner of Facebook – agreed to pay a huge $725M to users of its platform who were impacted by its sub-par practices.

4. The 23andMe hack

In October, 23andMe announced that hackers had compromised their data. This eventually affected 6.9M profiles and led to personal data such as ancestry reports and DNA information appearing for sale on a hacking forum.

5. Apple Launches High Yield Savings Account

Earlier this year, Apple partnered with Goldman Sachs to launch 4.15% APY savings account for Apple Card holders earlier this year and looks to end their partnership within 18 months.

6. UAW Strikes

The United Auto Workers staged an unprecedented strike against the Big Three Detroit automakers in October over automation of plants and poor wages, and emerged with three big, lucrative deals. Some analysts have cautioned that the lucrative deals for the UAW could backfire by being so rich that it creates an incentive for companies to shift assembly jobs to other locations or invest even more in automation to reduce overheads. About half of California voters worry that AI will take over their jobs within the next five years, according to a POLITICO survey released yesterday. (OK that one included AI after all sorry.)

7. Layoffs in Tech

Microsoft, Amazon, Google, Salesforce, Spotify, and many more companies laid off significant numbers of staff in 2023 as the economic downturn and fed rate hikes continued to impact revenues, stock prices, and office space occupancy rates.

Top Tech Deals of 2023

If you have a deal or company that you would like to host on our next issue, drop us a line: [email protected].

Thanks for connecting with us.

The Tech Buzz Team