LLAMA
Highlights
1. The overemphasis on AI productivity is misleading, as it can lead to the deskilling of people. Therefore, new methods to assess AI’s impact on skill development are necessary. Additionally, some researchers find that incorporating worker feedback is beneficial in designing AI solutions that enhance processes and outputs.
2. Meta launched Llama 3.1 405B, an open-source frontier AI model. While some argue the model is not entirely open-source due to some restrictions, the amount of detail about the training process disclosed is impressive. Newly released Mistral Large 2 (123B) is also claimed to be cutting-edge. However, multimodal capability is missing from both models.
3. The competition in search is intensifying with Bing introducing new generative search experience and OpenAI announcing SearchGPT. The era of traditional search engine might be ending.
4. Google DeepMind’s two AI systems solved 4 out of 6 problems in International Mathematical Olympiad. A key component is a version of Gemini AI that’s fine-tuned to translate natural-language math problems into formal statements.
5. A drug called lenacapavir is shown to provide 100% protection against HIV in a trial with about 5000 female participants.
Innovation Insights
1. Measure twice, spend once (Wild World of Work)
Professor Matt Beane emphasizes the urgent need to measure human ability alongside productivity, as current practices neglect this critical aspect, leading to a loss of valuable skills. He discusses his collaboration with partners to develop methods for assessing the impact of generative AI on both productivity and skill development. Beane shares insights from conversations with leaders who recognize the problem but lack data to address it effectively.
2. The secret to successful AI implementations? Worker voice (Ideas Made to Matter)
Incorporating worker input in AI design and implementation enhances the likelihood of AI tools augmenting rather than displacing jobs, according to MIT experts. Their paper, “Bringing Worker Voice Into Generative AI,” emphasizes involving stakeholders in defining problems and designing AI solutions, which can improve worker processes and outputs. Overall, a structured approach that includes worker feedback at various stages can lead to more successful and equitable AI implementations.
3. Innovating around an existing core product or service (Harvard Business Review)
Wharton professor David Robertson explains that companies like LEGO, GoPro, and CarMax achieve growth by building families of complementary innovations around a core product, a strategy that lies between disruptive and incremental innovation. This approach, which involves using customer feedback to develop complementary products without fundamentally changing the core product, helps companies enhance value and stay competitive. Robertson emphasizes the importance of involving customers and frontline employees in the innovation process and argues that companies should be open to partnerships and collaborations to effectively implement complementary innovations.
4. CEO’s Guide to Maximizing Value Potential from AI in 2024 (BCG)
To effectively scale AI, CEOs should adopt the 10-20-70 approach: allocate 10% of AI initiatives to algorithms, 20% to technology and data, and 70% to people and processes. Additionally, there are three strategic actions—deploying off-the-shelf tools, work flow re-engineering, and expanding revenue streams—to fully leverage AI’s value in 2024.
AI Innovations
1. Meta
Meta has launched Llama 3.1, its most advanced open-source AI model, which includes the powerful 405B model capable of state-of-the-art performance in various tasks and a context length of 128K (Meta).
Meta AI now includes a new “Imagine me” feature for creating stylized selfies, supports more languages, and can route complex queries to the advanced Llama 3.1 405B model (TechCrunch).
2. Apple
Apple has unveiled a family of open DataComp for Language Models (with a notable 7B model) that outperform offerings from Mistral and Hugging Face (VentureBeat).
3. xAI
Elon Musk has initiated the training of “the world’s most powerful AI” using xAI’s Memphis Supercluster, which employs 100,000 Nvidia H100 GPUs, aiming to achieve unprecedented AI capabilities by December 2024 (Tom’s Hardware).
4. Cohere
Cohere has introduced Rerank 3 Nimble, a new foundation model for enterprise search and Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) systems that is approximately three times faster than Rerank 3 (Cohere).
5. Adobe
Adobe has unveiled powerful innovations in Illustrator and Photoshop, including AI-driven features like Generative Shape Fill, a Selection Brush Tool, and the Adjustment Brush Tool (Adobe).
6. Search
Bing has introduced a new generative search experience that combines generative AI and large language models (LLMs) with traditional search results to create detailed, dynamic responses to user queries (Bing).
OpenAI has announced SearchGPT, an AI-powered search engine that provides real-time information and organizes search results with summaries and visual answers, initially available as a prototype to 10,000 users and eventually planned to be integrated into ChatGPT (The Verge).
7. Mistral
Mistral AI has announced the 123B Mistral Large 2, with superior capabilities in code generation, mathematics, reasoning, multilingual support, and advanced function calling (Mistral).
8. Math
Google DeepMind’s AI systems, AlphaProof and AlphaGeometry 2, achieved a score equivalent to a silver medal in the International Mathematical Olympiad (IMO) by solving four out of six problems. However, the achievement comes with caveats, including the need for longer processing times and human assistance in translating problems into formal mathematical language (Ars Technica).
9. AI Avatar
Chinese companies are offering AI avatars to “resurrect” deceased loved ones, allowing people to interact with digital replicas of the departed (NPR).
10. Cancer detection
A UCLA study found that AI software detects prostate cancer with 25% greater accuracy than doctors, promising more accurate diagnoses and targeted treatments (FoxNews).
Ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS) can progress to invasive breast cancer; by analyzing chromatin images from 560 samples of 122 patients across three disease stages, researchers identified eight morphological cell states and significant spatial changes predictive of disease stage (Nature Communications).
11. Music
Udio v1.5, an advanced music model, boasts improved audio quality, key control, and enhanced global language support (Udio).
12. Video
Stable Video 4D is an innovative AI model that transforms a single video into multiple novel-view videos from eight different angles (Stability AI).
Kling AI is now internationally available (Tom’s Guide).
13. On-demand GPU
Lambda is launching 1-Click Clusters, allowing customers to access Nvidia H100 GPUs and Quantum 2 InfiniBand clusters on demand, enabling companies to use only the computing power needed without long-term contracts (VentureBeat).
14. Explain AI
MIT researchers have developed MAIA, an automated multimodal agent that interprets AI models by designing and conducting experiments, improving our understanding of AI mechanisms, detecting biases, and enhancing model robustness (MIT).
15. Weather forecast
Google AI’s NeuralGCM model, which combines traditional weather-forecasting technology with machine learning, can quickly and accurately predict both short-term weather and long-term climate trends (Nature).
Other Innovations
1. HIV drug
A study suggests that twice-yearly injections of the drug lenacapavir offer 100% protection against HIV, as demonstrated in a trial involving about 5,000 young women and girls in South Africa and Uganda, with no reported infections among those who received the shots (NBC).
2. Nuclear reactor
China has unveiled the world’s first meltdown-proof nuclear reactor, a High-Temperature Gas-Cooled Reactor Pebble-Bed Module (HTR-PM) with a capacity of 105 MW (New Atlas).
3. Green paint
Cyanoskin has developed a cost-effective, living photosynthetic paint that absorbs CO2 and transforms urban surfaces into carbon-capturing greenery, offering an affordable and maintenance-free solution for cleaner cities and improved local environments (Springwise).
4. Navigation
A new navigation system utilizing cellphone signals demonstrated high accuracy in tracking a plane’s position during test flights, offering a potential GPS backup (IEEE Spectrum).
5. Robots
Vayu Robotics has unveiled its first delivery robot, the One, which autonomously navigates using a novel low-cost vision system and AI, and is being deployed by a large e-commerce company in San Ramon, California to deliver goods from stores to customers at speeds up to 20 mph (New Atlas).
6. Drug susceptibility test
An ultra-rapid antimicrobial susceptibility testing (AST) method bypasses traditional blood culture, reducing the turnaround time for drug susceptibility profiles by over 40-60 hours, achieving 100% species identification and 94.90% agreement in clinical isolates with an average processing time of 13 hours (Nature).
