Last update: Monday 11/20/23
1) Microsoft's conference for developers and IT professionals, (2) Google Deep Mind's awesome AI weather forecasts, and (3) the sudden seismic firing of Sam Altman by OpenAI's board ... Click the "start" button in the audio control (below) to hear the podcast.
Large language models (LLMs) have dominated the headlines and revitalized the tech sector in recent months, as per our first story about Microsoft's conference
However, our second story reminds us that AI is much broader than chatbots that produce useful, but buggy first drafts of solutions. Another kind of AI, more specifically, another kind of neural network provides tools that yield accurate solutions to the world's most complex scientific problems.
Our third story relays the breathless Friday afternoon breaking news headlines that OpenAI's board of directors had abruptly fired its superstar CEO, Sam Altman, because the board had determined that it could no longer trust him
1. Microsoft's most important announcements at its conference for developers and IT professionals (Nov 14-17, Seattle, WA)
- Rename "Bing Chat" to "Microsoft Copilot"
- Build its own Ai chips rather than buy AI chips from Nvidia
- Enable Microsoft's Azure cloud to support open source LLMs, e.g., Facebook's LLaMa
These three initiatives provide Microsoft with strategic independence. The first removes allusions to OpenAi's ChatGPT and facilitates the possibility that Microsoft might replace Chat GPT's LLM with its own LLM; the second guarantees Microsoft with AI chips in a market where its competitors will be competing for a limited supply from Nvidia; and the third enables Microsoft to earn income from competitors who use open source LLMs.
2. Google DeepMind's awesome AI weather forcaster
The best weather forecasts have traditionally been produced by complex physics-based models that ran on supercomputers. Google DeepMind's new machine learning "GraphCast" model uses current weather patterns to predict future weather patterns. What's amazing is that GraphCast runs on desktop computers, but produces forecasts that are more accurate than the forecasts made by the traditional models running on supercomputers ... :-)
3. Sam Altman's farewell
On Friday 17 November 2023, OpenAI's board issued a terse statement that it had conducted “a deliberative review process” and that Altman “was not consistently candid in his communications with the board, hindering its ability to exercise its responsibilities. The board no longer has confidence in his ability to continue leading OpenAI”
The board provided no specifics, so this is an ongoing story; hence most of the many news reports cited in our "Top stories" section should be regarded as unfounded speculations.
However, on Sunday, November 19th, a senior tech reporter for the New York Times conveyed rumors from well connected sources that Altman and OpenAI's board were currently involved in discussions about his possible return. So this is an ongoing story.
On Monday morning (11/20/23), the NY Times announced that Microsoft had hired Altman
On Monday morning (11/20/23), Hundreds of OpenAI employees threatened to resign and join Microsoft
Top 3 stories in past week ...
Relayed stories worth reading/re-reading ➡ What drove George Hinton and Demis Hassabis to become preeminent AI experts?
- OpenAI/Microsoft
Microsoft's Ignite 2023 conference for developers and IT professionals (Nov 14-17, Seattle, WA)***
-- Overview: "Microsoft Ignite 2023: Copilot AI expansions, custom chips and all the other announcements", TechCrunch, 11/15 & 16/23 ... This page contains TechCrunch summaries of every announcement made by Microsoft. Reports about the most important announcements were also published by:
-- Rename "Bing Chat" to "Microsoft Copilot": The Verge, Ars Technica, ZDNet, Engadget,
-- Custom Ai chips: The Verge, Fortune, CNBC, Financial Times, ZDNet, Bloomberg, Gizmodo, VentureBeat,
-- AI Studio/Custom Ai copilots: The Verge, ZDNet,
-- Copilot for Windows 10: The Verge, CNBC, Ars Technica, Engadget,
-- Teams Copilot: CNBC, The Verge,
-- Support for open source LLMs: VentureBeat - OtherNews
"Courtesy of [Google DeepMind] AI: Weather forecasts for the hour, the week and the century", Devin Coldewey, TechCrunch, 11/14/23 ***
-- This story also covered by Gizmodo, Financial Times, MIT Tech Review, Ars Technica, Wired, ZDNet,
-- These articles describe research published in Nature and Science - OtherNews
"OpenAI Ousts CEO Sam Altman", Will Knight, Wired, 11/17/23 ***
-- This story also covered by NY Times, Mashable, Computerworld, Reuters, VentureBeat, Blomberg, Engadget, Wall Street Journal, Forbes, BBC,
-- On Monday morning (11/20/23), the NY Times announced that Microsoft had hired Altman ➡ "Microsoft Hires Sam Altman Hours After OpenAI Rejects His Return", Mike Isaac, Kevin Roose and Cade Metz, NY Times, 11/20/23
-- "Hundreds of OpenAI employees threaten to resign and join Microsoft", Jacob Kastrenakes and Tom Warren, The Verge, 11/20/23
Relayed stories worth reading/re-reading ➡ What drove George Hinton and Demis Hassabis to become preeminent AI experts?
- "Why the Godfather of A.I. Fears What He’s Built", Joshua Rothman, The New Yorker, 11/13/23 ... a rambling, but insightful piece based on a series of interviews with the man whose neural network research provided the foundation for large language models (LLMs).
- "A.I. Could Solve Some of Humanity's Hardest Problems. It Already Has.". Guest = Demis Hassabis, The Ezra Klein Show (podcast with transcript), 7/11/23 ... a focused, insightful interview with the man whose neural network research provided the foundation for neural networks that solve complex problems in science.
____________________________________
Links to related notes on this blog:
No comments:
Post a Comment
Your comments will be greatly appreciated ... Or just click the "Like" button above the comments section if you enjoyed this blog note.