Useful AI News

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Last update:  Friday 4/26/24
This weekly news page provides links to reports about major innovations in generative AI. The page is not for AI experts. It's for (1) computer savvy proessionals who want to be alert to genAI's potential impact on their careers, and (2) computer savvy citizens who want to be alert to genAI's potential impact on our society.

Most of the links on this page refer to reports published after the "AI Big Bang", i.e., after Sam Altman's dismissal from and return to OpenAI, i.e., after November 20, 2023. The previous edition of this page can be found here ➡ PreBigBang 


A. OpenAI | B. Microsoft | C. Google | D. Other Models | E. LLM News | 
F. SLM News | G. Public Policy | H. Misc | I. Hacks | J. Basics
Top 3 stories in past week ...  
  1. Misc
    Big Tech quarterly reports ... Q1 (Jan Feb, Mar 2024) *** 
    -- "Alphabet Beats Revenue Estimates as AI Fuels Cloud Growth", Julia Love and Davey Alba, Bloomberg, 4/26/24
    ---- Alphabet Q1 also covered by Reuters, The Information, ... and Alphabet

    -- "Microsoft Earnings Jump on AI Demand", Tom Dotan, Wall Street Journal, 4/26/24
    ---- Microsoft Q1 also covered by The Information, NY Times, ... and Microsoft

    -- "Meta plunges 16% on weak revenue guidance even as first-quarter results top estimates", Ashley Capoot, CNBC, 4/24/24 ... Zuckerberg's "guidance" warned that Meta would be making huge AI capital investments in Q2
    ---- Meta Q1 also covered by Bloomberg, Business Insider, NY Times ... and Meta

    -- Amazon will publish its Q1 2024 report on 4/30/24 
    -- Apple will publish its Q2 2024 (Jan, Feb, Mar) repoort on 5/2/24

  2. SLM News
    "Microsoft Makes a New Push Into Smaller A.I. Systems", Karen Weise and Cade Metz, NY Times, 4/23/24 *** 
    -- This story also covered by The Verge, Engadget, Ars Technica, ZDNet ... and AI Revolution YouTube Video... and Microsoft ➡ Microsoft benchmarks pdf

  3. Misc
    "Rabbit’s AI Assistant Is Here. And Soon a Camera Wearable Will Be Too", Julian Chokkattu,     Wired, 4/24/24 *** 
    -- This story also covered by The Verge, CNET, TechCrunch, and     Rabbit
Evolving context: Links to our newest stories are printed in red font. From time to time, links to older news stories (black font) whose content has been overcome by events will be deleted. However, enough older links will be retained so that readers can get a quick sense of where we are and how we got here by skimming the headlines of the remaining articles in chronological order. No section will ever include more than 12 stories.

A. OpenAI
B. Microsoft 
C. Google 

D. Amazon, Facebook, and other Big Tech models
  • "Amazon Takes a Big Stake [$4 billion] in the A.I. Start-Up Anthropic", Adam Satariano and Cade Metz, NY Times, 9/25/23 
    -- This story also covered by Engadget, Gizmodo, VentureBeat, BBC News, Bloomberg, Reuters, 
    -- Description of Anthropic in Wikipedia ➡ HERE

  • Amazon's re:Invent 2023 conference (Nov 27-Dec 1, Las Vegas, NV) 
    -- Overview "Here’s everything Amazon Web Services announced at AWS re:Invent", Christine Hall, TechCrunch, 11/29/23
    -- Amazon Q, an AI-powered chatbot for AWS customers ..."Amazon Introduces Q, an A.I. Chatbot for Companies", Karen Weise, NY Times, 11/28/23 ... This story also covered by Bloomberg, VentureBeat, Gizmodo, 
    --     Image generator "Amazon joins AI image creation fray with new model", Emilia David, The Verge, 11/29/23 ... This story also covered by Bloomberg, Engadget, Gizmodo

  • "Elon Musk’s Grok Represents a Serious Threat to ChatGPT",  Shirin Ghaffary, Bloomberg, 12/14/23 
    -- This story also covered by Wired, Fast Company, VentureBeat, TechCrunch, 

  • "Adobe’s latest AI experiment generates music from text", Will Shanklin, Engadget, 3/1/24 ... Includes YouTube demo of music generation 
    -- This story also covered by The Verge, Gizmodo, TechCrunch,

  • "In Latest A.I. War Escalation, Elon Musk Releases Chatbot Code", Kate Conger and Cade Metz, NY Times, 3/17/24 
    -- This story also covered by TechCrunch, The Verge, Wired, VentureBeat, Mashable, ... and xAI

  • "Apple Finally Unveils MM1, a Multimodal Model for Text and Image Data", by K L Krithika, AIM, 3/20/24

  • "Inside the Creation of the World’s Most Powerful Open Source AI Model", Will Knight,  Wired, 3/27/24 
    -- Model is called DBRX ... 136 billion parameters
    -- This story also covered by The Information, Business Insider ... and Databricks

  • "Amazon Adds $2.75 Billion to Its Stake in the A.I. Start-Up Anthropic",Karen Weise, NY Times, 3/27/24 
    -- This story also covered by Bloomberg, VentureBeat, The Information, Wall Street Journal, TechCrunch

  • "Elon Musk announces Grok-1.5, nearing GPT-4 level performance", Shubham Sharma, VentureBeat, 3/29/24 
    -- This story also covered by TechCrunch, Wall Street Journal, Reuters, Endgadget,  ... and xAI (Musk)

  • "Meta’s battle with ChatGPT begins now", Alex Heath, The Verge, 4/18/24
    -- This article focuses on Meta's chatbot, the "Meta AI assistant". The chatbot runs on Facebook's new Llama 3 family of open source models. The smaller members of the family are described in greater detail in articles in section "F. Small Language Model news" (below). The huge model has not been released yet.
    -- Meta AI is also discussed by Mashable, TechCrunch, Engadget, Wall Street Journal, NY Times,
    -- A NY Times tech writer's low rating for MetaAI
    "Meta’s A.I. Assistant Is Fun to Use, but It Can’t Be Trusted", Brian X. Chen, NY Times, 4/24/24

E. Large Language Model (LLM) news
  • "Generative AI isn’t a home run in the enterprise", Kyle Wiggers, TechCrunch, 1/11/24
  • "Here are the key differences between the Samsung Galaxy S24 phones", Sheena Vasani, The Verge, 1/18/24  
    -- This story also covered by Mashable,  CNET, The Verge, Wired, Bloomberg     ... and Samsung

  • "A.I. Start-Up Anthropic Challenges OpenAI and Google With New Chatbot", Cade Metz, NY Times, 3/4/24 
    -- This story also covered by TechCrunch, CNBC, CNET, Bloomberg,

  • "Amazon, Google Quietly Tamp Down Generative AI Expectations", Aaron Holmes and Anissa Gardizy, The Information, 3/12/24

  • "DeepMind researchers discover impressive learning capabilities in long-context LLMs", Ben Dickson, VentureBeat, 4/24/24
F. Small Language Model (SLM) news 
Note: News reports are classified in this category if and only if they explicitly refer to models with less than 70 billion (70B) parameters. 
  • "Europe’s largest seeded startup Mistral AI releases first model, outperforming Llama 2 13Bx", Shubham Sharma, VentureBeat, 9/27/23 ... Mistral 7B
    -- This story also covered by Mistral

  • "Microsoft releases Phi-2, a small language model AI that outperforms Llama 2, Mistral 7B", Carl Franzen, VentureBeat, 12/12/23 
    -- This story also covered by ZDNet, TechRepublic, Medium, Computerworld ... and Microsoft

  • "Allen Institute for AI releases ‘truly open source’  LLM to drive ‘critical shift’ in AI development", Sharon Goldman, VentureBeat, 2/1/24 ... OLMo 7B parameters
    -- This story also covered by TechCrunch ... and Allen Institute

  • "Google goes 'open AI'" with Gemma, a free, open-weights chatbot family", Benj Edwards, Ars Technica, 2/21/24 ...7B and 28B
    -- This story also covered by Reuters, Fast Company, Hugging Face, Fortune, NY Times ... and Google

  • "Generative AI and the big buzz about small language models", Clint Boulton, VentureBeat, 2/29/24

  • "Meta releases Llama 3, claims it’s among the best open models available", Kyle Wiggers, TechCrunch, 4/18/24 
    -- Meta's announcement of Llama 3 ➡ HERE
    -- Another Big Tech's opinion: "Elon Musk’s ‘not bad’ review thrusts Meta’s Llama 3 AI into spotlight", Michael Nuñez, VentureBeat, 4/19/24

  • "Microsoft Makes a New Push Into Smaller A.I. Systems", Karen Weise and Cade Metz, NY Times, 4/23/24 *** 
    -- This story also covered by The Verge, Engadget, Ars Technica, ZDNet ... and AI Revolution YouTube Video... and Microsoft ➡ Microsoft benchmarks pdf

  • "Apple’s new AI model hints at how AI could come to the iPhone", Emilia David, The Verge,  4/24/24 
    -- This story also covered by VentureBeat, ... and Apple

G. Public policy and legal considerations  
  • "AI cannot be patent 'inventor', UK Supreme Court rules in landmark case", Reuters, 12/20/23

  • "The New York Times sued Microsoft and OpenAI for alleged copyright infringement, touching off a legal fight over generative-AI technologies, with implications for the future of the news business", Alexandra Bruell, Wall Street  Journal, 12/27/23 
    -- A related story (podcast) ➡ "How Adobe is managing the AI copyright dilemma, with general counsel Dana Rao", Nilay Patel, TheVerge, 1/9/24

  • "F.C.C. Bans A.I.-Generated Robocalls", Cecilia Kang, NYTimes, 2/8/24  
    -- This story also covered by NY Times, CNN, Forbes, NPR ... and the FCC

  • "OpenAI and Other Tech Giants Will Have to Warn the US Government When They Start New AI Projects", Will Knight, Wired, Will Knight, 1/27/24
    -- This story also covered by Mashable

  • "Forced to Change: Tech Giants Bow to Global Onslaught of Rules", Adam Satariano and David McCabe, NY Times, 3/4/24
  • "World’s Most Extensive AI Rules Approved in EU Despite Criticism", Jillian Deutsch, Bloomberg, 3/13/24  
    -- This story also covered by TechCrunch, BBC, Wall StreetJournal, VentureBeat, The Information, Mashable ... and European Parliament

  • "France Fines Google Amid A.I. Dispute With News Media", Adam Satariano, NY Times, 3/20/24
  • "The White House knows the risks of AI being used by federal agencies. Here's how they're handling it.", Cecily Mauran, Mashable, 3/28/24
  • "Europe’s A.I. ‘Champion’ Sets Sights on Tech Giants in U.S.", Liz Alderman and Adam Satariano, NY Times, 4/12/24

H. Misc = Opinions, other news, rumors, long reads
  • Two interviews with Demis Hassabis, CEO of Google DeepMind
    --  "    Inside Google’s big AI shuffle — and how it plans to stay competitive, with Google DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis", Nilay Patel, The Verge, 7/10/23 ... audio and transcript of interview erge
    -- "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 

  • "Nvidia is now worth more than Amazon and Alphabet", Amrita Khalid, The Verge, 2/14/24
    -- This story also covered by Reuters, Bloomberg
    -- 2/23/24 Nvidia's stock/revenue surge continues as per Bloomberg, BBC, Reuters, NY Times,  

  • "Inside the Funding Frenzy at Anthropic, One of A.I.’s Hottest Start-Ups",  Erin Griffith and Cade Metz, NY Times, 2/20/24
  • "In One Key A.I. Metric, China Pulls Ahead of the U.S.: Talent", Paul Mozur and Cade Metz,  NY Times,3/20/24

  • A trio NY Times audio interviews from Ezra Klein about generative AI. 
    -- 1. "How Should I Be Using A.I. Right Now?", Guest = Ethan Mollick (professor at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania), Ezra Klein (NY Times podcast + transcript), 4/2/24 

    -- 2. "Will A.I. Break the Internet or Save It?", Guest = Nilay Patel (Editor of The Verge), Ezra Klein (NY Times podcast + transcript), 4/5/24 

    --  3. "What if Dario Amodei is Right About A.I.", Guest = Dario Amodei (CEO of Anthropic), Ezra Klein (NY Times podcast + transcript), 4/12/24 

  •  "To Unlock AI Spending, Microsoft, OpenAI and Google Prep ‘Agents’", Aaron Holmes, The Information, 4/18/24

  • "The Atlas Robot Is Dead. Long Live the Atlas Robot", Carlton Reid, Wired, 4/17/24   
    -- Here's a quote: "Old Atlas moved like a clunky chunky human; the latest iteration swivels and turns like a freaky crab crossed with an unfeasibly double-jointed contortionist." ... Clunky? Watch the Old Atlas video (below)
    -- YouTube videos ==> Old Atlas vs. New Atlas
    --     This story also covered by Mashable, Engadget, VentureBeat, TechCrunch, 

  • "Nvidia drops 10% as investors see risk in Big Tech shares", George Steer, Financial Times, 4/19/24
  • "Generative A.I. Arrives in the Gene Editing World of CRISPR", Cade Metz, NY Times, 4/22/24
  • "Rabbit’s AI Assistant Is Here. And Soon a Camera Wearable Will Be Too", Julian Chokkattu, Wired, 4/24/24 *** 
    -- This story also covered by The Verge, CNET, TechCrunch, and Rabbit

  • "‘To the Future’: Saudi Arabia Spends Big to Become an A.I. Superpower", Adam Satariano and Paul Mozur, NY Times, 4/25/24

  • Big Tech quarterly reports ... Q1 (Jan Feb, Mar 2024) *** 
    -- "Alphabet Beats Revenue Estimates as AI Fuels Cloud Growth", Julia Love and Davey Alba, Bloomberg, 4/26/24
    ---- Alphabet Q1 also covered by Reuters, The Information, ... and Alphabet

    -- "Microsoft Earnings Jump on AI Demand", Tom Dotan, Wall Street Journal, 4/26/24
    ---- Microsoft Q1 also covered by The Information, NY Times,  ... and Microsoft

    -- "Meta plunges 16% on weak revenue guidance even as first-quarter results top estimates", Ashley Capoot, CNBC, 4/24/24 ... Zuckerberg's "guidance" warned that Meta would be making huge AI capital investments in Q2
    ---- Meta Q1 also covered by Bloomberg, Business Insider, NY Times,  ... and Meta

    -- Amazon will publish its Q1 2024 report on 4/30/24 
    -- Apple will publish its Q2 2024 (Jan, Feb, Mar) repoort on 5/2/24

I.  Language model flaws, hacks, and remedies
  • "Prompt Injection Attack on GPT-4", William Zhang, Robust Intelligence, 4/31/23
  • "The Security Hole at the Heart of ChatGPT and Bing", Matt Burgess, Wired, 5/25/23 
    -- Prompt-injection hack for plugins covered by Mashable

  • "Computer scientists claim to have discovered ‘unlimited’ ways to jailbreak ChatGPT", Clint Rainey,  FastCompany, 7/27/23 
    -- This story also covered by NY Times,  Mashable, Yahoo Finance, Wired, ZDNet, 
    -- Note: The research reported in these articles was conducted by Carnegie Mellon University

  • "Stanford study challenges assumptions about language models: Larger context doesn’t mean better understanding", Matt Marshall, VentureBeat, 7/21/23  
  • "Hackers Trick AI With ‘Bad Math’ to Expose Flaws and Biases", Katrina Manson, Bloomberg, 8/12/23 
    -- This story also covered by the NY Times

  • "Uh-oh! Fine-tuning LLMs compromises their safety, study finds", Ben Dickson, VentureBeat, 10/13/23 
  • "Patronus AI finds ‘alarming’ safety gaps in leading AI systems", Michael Nuñez, VentureBeat, 12/19/23
  • "Anthropic researchers find that AI models can be trained to deceive", Emilia David, TechCrunch, 1/13/24 
    -- This story also covered by     VentureBeat  ... and Anthropic 

  • "OpenAI's GPT Is a Recruiter's Dream Tool. Tests Show There's Racial Bias", Leon Yin, Davey Alba and Leonardo Nicoletti, TechCrunch, 3/7/24 
  • "Why Two Models Are Better Than One", Stephanie Palazzolo, The Information, 3/28/24
  • "Many-shot jailbreaking", Anthropic, 4/2/24 
    -- This story also covered by video on TechCrunch, 
  • "Measuring the Persuasiveness of Language Models, Anthropic, 4/9"/24
J. Basics 
  • "Watch an A.I. Learn to Write by Reading Nothing but Shakespeare or Harry Potter or Jane Austen or Star Trek or Moby Dick", Aatish Bhatia, NY Times, 4/27/23 
  • "What Is a Large Language Model, the Tech Behind ChatGPT?", Kurt Muehmel, Data Iku, 6/7/23 
  • "Textbooks Are All You Need II: phi-1.5 technical report", Yuanzhi Li, Sébastien Bubeck, Ronen Eldan, Allie Del Giorno, Suriya Gunasekar, Yin Tat Lee, Microsoft Research, September 2023
  • "Phi-2: The surprising power of small language models", Mojan Javaheripi and Sébastien Bubeck , Microsoft Research, 12/12/24

  • WTF are diffusion transformers 
    -- "Stable Diffusion 3.0 debuts new diffusion transformation architecture to reinvent text-to-image gen AI", Sean Michael Kerner, VentureBeat, 2/22/24
    -- "Diffusion transformers are the key behind OpenAI’s Sora — and they’re set to upend GenAI", Kyle Wiggers, TechCrunch, 2/28/24
    -- "Diffusion Transformer Explained", Mario Namtao Shianti Larcher, Towards Data Science, 2/28/24

  • "Compact Guide to Large Language Models", DataBricks, 2023 ... Link to form that enables download of their eBook (9 pages) pdf file.
  • Dozen Basic AI FAQs
    This page contains links to responses by Google's Bard chatbot to 12 questions that should be asked more frequently, but aren't. 

  • "Let's learn about artificial intelligence -- A series about AI, machine learning, ChatGPT, and more", Mark Wiemer, Medium, 3/21/23

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Links to some back issues and TL;DRs/podcasts of this news page:  

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