Good morning! This is The Neuron. AI may just automate all of us out of our jobs in the next 10 years, but that doesn't mean we can't have some fun!
Today in AI:
- Four Things Satya Said About AI
- Task Force Wants $2.6 Billion For Federal AI Cloud
- This Company Uses AI to Find New Smells
- Around the Horn
- Leo Sends His Regards
Four Things Satya Said About AI
All aboard the hype train.
Microsoft missed revenue estimates last quarter and also told Wall Street to expect even less for next quarter.
But Satya Nadella made one thing clear: We're going hard on AI.
His quotes from the earnings call:
- "The age of AI is upon us, and Microsoft is powering it. We are witnessing non-linear improvements in capability of foundation models, which we are making available as platforms."
- "We have the most powerful AI supercomputing infrastructure in the cloud...Just last week, we made Azure OpenAI Service broadly available, and already over 200 customers – from KPMG to Al Jazeera – are using it."
- "GitHub is now home to 100 million developers. And GitHub Copilot is the first at-scale AI product built for this era...More than one million people have used Copilot to date. "
- "AI is just going to be a core part of a workload in Azure versus just AI alone...Over time, obviously, I think every app is going to be an AI app."
In other words, "AI is here, and we gon' win."
Task Force Wants $2.6 Billion For Federal AI Cloud
Mr. President, it's up to you now.
The NAIRR - other than being an Australian "no" - is a plan to provide AI infrastructure for everyone that's not rich or in Big Tech. The task force just shipped their report to the President and Congress after 18 months, though not without debate.
What it is: Enough computing infrastructure to train 40-120 GPT-3s a year, with data, tools and services to go with it. Priority access for researchers, educators and students. Costs $2.6 billion over 6 years and takes 3-4 years to launch.
The argument for: People have to beg, borrow and steal AWS or Azure cloud credits to do their work. Providing national AI infrastructure is a core part of the US AI strategy and breaks some of the hold that Big Tech has on AI.
The argument against: The report leaves it open for the government to just outsource all of this to Big Tech anyways - very convenient that a Google VP was on the task force. Way to break that hold, eh?
2023's a hot year for AI. Will the government get its act together and make some moves?
This Company Uses AI to Find New Smells
Take a big ol' whiff.
Osmo spun out of Google Research with $60 million in funding to find new smells.
They're using AI to generate new scents that haven't been smelled before. That could lead to:
- New perfumes that not even Diptyque could come up with
- The delicious smell of a hot chocolate chip cookie in a bottle
- A better mosquito repellant that's not as bad for the environment
Later down the road (and we're talking many years), Osmo wants to let you capture, save and send smells via your phone. That's cool.
Around the Horn
- You can turn Stable Diffusion into a generator for anything: cats (our fave), galaxies, golf courses, biryani and more.
- Cool demo: using AI to change clothes in a video.
- Sutro: generate an entire app using just a prompt.
- Drayk It: write a Drake song about anything.
- Lingobo: use AI to learn 14 different languages!
- Sweden's beefing up their supercomputer.
- NVIDIA CEO says AI will need "regulation" and "social norms"
DM me links on Twitter: @nonmayorpete
Are you new to all this AI stuff? Here's The 3-Minute Guide to Slaying Your Dinner Convo About AI to get you up to speed. Or at least smart enough to impress your family.
Leo Sends His Regards
