UsefulAINewsBackupPreBigBang20Nov23


Last update:Wdnesday 11/22/23
This weekly news page only reports initiatives that address the flaws in current LLM technologies and efforts to correct these flaws. All other new product announcements will be ignored ... Exceptions ➡ Major AI innovations in Big Tech products and services will also be noted.



Note:  This news page will be updated every day, but announcements of TL;DR and podcast summaries of top stories will be posted on the blog's @neoskeptics account on X/Twitter and its editor's LinkedIn account on Sundays and Mondays.

A. OpenAI/Microsoft | B. OtherLLMs | C. Focused LLMs | D. Policy |
E. OtherNews |F. OpEds | G. Uses | H. EdUses | I. Hacks | J. Basics

Top stories  ...


Editor's note: From time to time older articles in each of the following sections whose content has been overcome by events will be deleted, but enough will remain 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 and Microsoft
     ... GPT-4 System Card = OpenAI's own assessment of GPT-4
  • Click HERE for links to initial announcements from Open AI ... up until May 2023

  • "You can now train ChatGPT on your own documents via API", Benj Edwards, Ars Technica, 8/23/23
  • "OpenAI launches long-awaited ChatGPT for Enterprise — but is it playing catch-up?", Sharon Goldman, VentureBeat, 8/28/23
    -- This story also covered by Bloomberg, Wall Street Journal, TechCrunch, ZDNet, 

  • "OpenAI launches a red teaming network to make its models more robust", Kyle Wiggers, Tech Crunch, 9/19/23 
  • "ChatGPT Can Now Generate Images, Too", Cade Metz and Tiffany Hsu, NY Times, 9/20/23 
    -- This story also covered by Ars Technica, The Verge, Gizmodo, Wired, 

  • "ChatGPT Can Now Respond With Spoken Words", Cade Metz, Brian X. Chen and Karen Weise, NY Times, 9/25/23 
    -- This story also covered by Mashable, ZDNet, Engadget, Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, Wall Street Journal, TechCrunch, VentureBeat,     CNET,

  • "ChatGPT: Everything you need to know about the AI-powered chatbot", Alyssa Stringer and Kyle Wiggers, TechCrunch, 10/17/23 

  • "OpenAI is opening up DALL-E 3 access", Umar Shakir,, The Verge, 10/19/23
    -- This story also covered by ZDNet, VentureBeat

  • "OpenAI forms new team to assess ‘catastrophic risks’ of AI", Emma Roth, The Verge, 10/26/23 
    -- This story also covered by Bloomberg Tech, TechCrunch, 

  • "Silicon Valley’s Big, Bold Sci-Fi Bet on the Device That Comes After the Smartphone", Erin Griffith, Tripp Mickle and Photographs and Videos by Kelsey McClellan, NY Times, 11/10/23  
    --     This story also covered by ZDNet, TechCrunch, Wired, Forbes Tech, The Verge
     
  • OpenAI's First Developer Day Conference ((Nov 6, San Francisco, CA)).
    -- Overview: "Biggest Moments From OpenAI's Dev Day", Maxwell Zeff, Gizmodo, 11/6/23 ... Overview also provided by ZDNet
    -- GPT-4 Turbo: "GPT-4 Turbo is OpenAI’s most powerful large language model yet", Pranav Dixit, Engadget, 11/6/23 ... GPT-4 Turbo also covered by VentureBeat, TechCrunch
    -- App store: "App Store for AI: OpenAI’s GPT Store lets you build (and monetize) your own GPT", Devin Coldewey, TechCrunch, 11/6/23
    -- Build your own Chatbot: "OpenAI Lets Mom-and-Pop Shops Customize ChatGPT", Cade Metz, NY Times, 11/9/23 ... BYO chatbots also covered by ZDNet, HardFork podcast,

  • 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 for 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


B. Other major producers of comprehensive Large Language Models (LLMs)

1. Click HERE for links to initial announcements from Big Tech ... up until May 2023

2. Significant Big Tech Innovations
  • "Google DeepMind has launched a watermarking tool ["SynthID"] for AI-generated images", Melissa Heikkilä, MIT TechReview, 8/29/23 
    -- This story also covered by Google DeepMind, Gizmodo, The Verge, Engadget, Mashable, Washington Post, 

  • "Google to Require ‘Prominent’ Disclosures for AI-Generated Election Ads", Davey Alba, Bloomberg, 9/6/23
    --     This story also covered by Washington Post, Politico, Axios, BBC, 

  • "DeepMind’s New AI Can Predict Genetic Diseases", Amit Katwala, Wired, 9/18/23 
    -- This story also covered by Wall Street Journal, BBC News, Financial Times, Washington Post, 
  • "Amazon Takes a Big Stake 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

  • Three major AI announcements at  "Meta Connect 2023"
    -- "Meta debuts AI Studio to let developers build custom chatbots", Kyle Wiggers, TechCrunch. 9/27/23 
    -- "The Meta AI Chatbot Is Mark Zuckerberg's Answer to ChatGPT", Khari Johnson, Wired, 9/27/23 
    -- "Meta's new AI chatbots let you ask celebrities your most burning questions", Sabrina Ortiz, ZDNet, 9/27/23

  • "Google Has Your Back If Its AI Lands You in Copyright Trouble", Maxwell Zeff, Gizmodo, 10/13/23 
    -- This story also covered by ZDNet

  • "Bard Experiment -- Updates", Google, 9/27/23 
    -- Google is currently testing Med-PaLM 2, a limited LLM that focuses on healthcare. A brief overview is provided by "Google’s Medical AI Chatbot: The Future of Healthcare Conversations", Walter Shields, LinkedIn, 7/15/23

  • "Google can help you fact-check photos. Here's where to start.", Chase DiBenedetto, Mashable, 10/25/23 
    -- This story also covered by Gizmodo, Wired, TechCrunch, The Verge
3. Open Source Large Language Models (LLMs) -- GPT4ALL, Open Assistant, StableLM, Alpaca, etc
  • ''The open-source AI boom is built on Big Tech’s handouts. How long will it last?", Will Douglas Heaven, MIT Tech Review, 5/12/23 

  • "In Battle Over A.I., Meta Decides to Give Away Its Crown Jewels", Cade Metz and Mike Isaac, NY Times, 5/18/23  
C. Focused LLMs = Limited to specific sources and/or subject matter
  • "Adobe is so confident its Firefly generative AI won’t breach copyright that it’ll cover your legal bills", Chris Stokel-Walker, Fast Company, 6/8/23 
    -- This story also covered by TechCrunch, The Verge, VentureBeat, 

  • "Merlyn Mind launches education-focused LLMs for classroom integration of generative AI", Victor Dey, VentureBeat, 6/26/23 
  • "Textbook Giant [Pearson] Brings an AI Study Buddy to Its Service for Back-to-School Season", Kyle Barr, Gizmodo, 8/1/23 

  • "AI startup Anthropic gets $100M to build custom LLM for telecom industry", Shubham Sharma, VentureBeat, 8/14/23 .. Note: This is a focused LLM; it does not know "everything" 
    -- This story also covered by TechCrunch

  • "Consulting giant McKinsey unveils its own [focused] generative AI tool for employees: Lilli", Carl Franzen, VentureBeat, 8/16/23 
    -- This story also covered by ZDNet

  • "Getty is going to offer AI-generated images after all", Devindra Hardawar, Engadget, 9/25/23 
    -- This story also covered by Bloomberg, Gizmodo, The Verge, 

  • "Getty Images CEO Craig Peters has a plan to defend photography from AI" ... video and transcript of interview, Nilay Patel, The Verge, 10/5/23 
  • "Adobe Firefly can now generate more realistic images", Frederic Lardinois, TechCrunch, 10/10/23 
    -- This story also covered by Gizmodo, The Verge, 

  • "Forbes now has its own AI search engine", Emilia David, The Verge, 10/26/23

D. Public Policy Considerations 
  • "In Sudden Alarm, Tech Doyens Call for a Pause on ChatGPT", Will Knight and Paresh Daveand, Wired, 3/29/23   
    -- "Pause Giant AI Experiments: An Open Letter" ... from Elon Musk and others, Future of Life, 3/29/23
    -- This story also covered by The Verge,     Gizmodo, TechCrunch

  • "Ethicists fire back at ‘AI Pause’ letter they say ‘ignores the actual harms’", Devin Coldewey, TachCrunch, 3/31/23 
    -- "Statement from the listed authors of Stochastic Parrots on the “AI pause” letter", Timnit Gebru (DAIR), Emily M. Bender (University of Washington), Angelina McMillan-Major (University of Washington), Margaret Mitchell (Hugging Face), DAIR, 3/31/23

  • "OpenAI lobbied the EU to avoid harsher AI regulations", Jess Weatherbed, The Verge, 6/20/23 
    -- This story also covered by Mashable, Time,
      
  • "The White House's 'AI Cyber Challenge' aims to crowdsource national security solutions", Andrew Tarantola, Engadget, 8/9/23 ... a DARPA Chalenge  
    -- This story also coveed by TechCrunch, Axios, 

  • "US judge: Art created solely by artificial intelligence cannot be copyrighted", Jon Brodkin, Ars Technica, 8/21/23 
    -- This story also covered by ZDNet, Politico, Engadget, NY Times, Reuters, 

  • "ChatGPT-maker OpenAI accused of string of data protection breaches in GDPR complaint filed by privacy researcher", Natasha Lomas, TechCrunch, 8/30/23 
  • "Six Months Ago Elon Musk Called for a Pause on AI. Instead Development Sped Up", Will Knight, Wired, 9/28/23 
  • "‘Our life’s work’: Chorus of creative workers demands AI regulation at FTC roundtable", Sharon Goldman, VentureBeat, 10/5/23  

  • "The ‘World Cup’ of AI policy: will USA win?", Sharon Goldman, VentureBeat, 10/31/23 ... This article applies a soccer championship metaphor to three overlapping AI "Big Policy" events  

    a.     "Joe Biden’s Big AI Plan Sounds Scary—but Lacks Bite", Matt Laslo, Wired, 10/31/23  ...  This event also coveed by NY Times, VentureBeat, Forbes, 

    b. "World leaders are gathering at the U.K.’s AI Summit. Doom is on the agenda.", Cat Zakrzewski, Anthony Faiola and Gerrit De Vynck, Washington Post, 10/31/23      ... The "Bletchley Declaration" that emerged from this meeting was discussed by ZDNet, Wired

    c. "G7 to agree AI code of conduct for companies", Foo Yun Chee, Reuters, 10/29/23   ...  This event also coveed by Forbes, VentureBeat
E. Other news 
  • "The tech industry was deflating. Then came ChatGPT.", Gerrit De Vynck, Washington Post, 6/5/23 
  • "In the Age of A.I., Tech’s Little Guys Need Big Friends", Cade Metz, NY Times, 7/8/23 
  • "Michael Chabon, Other Literary Giants Sue OpenAI Over Alleged Copyright Infringement", Cyrus Farivar, Forbes, 9/11/23 
    -- This story also covered by The Verge, 

  • "Spotify is going to clone podcasters’ voices — and translate them to other languages", Amrita Khalid, The Verge, 9/26/23
    -- This story also covered by Ars Technica, CNBC 

  • "Big Tech Struggles to Turn AI Hype Into Profits", Tom Dotan and Deepa Seetharaman, Wall Street Journal, 10/9/23 
  • "An Industry Insider Drives an Open Alternative to Big Tech’s A.I.", Steve Lohr, NY Times, 10/19/23
  •  "Wall Street is demanding financial results that support all the AI hype. Microsoft’s latest earnings finally delivered", Rachyl Jones, Fortune, 
    -- This story also covered by Microsoft, NY Times, CNN, Forbes, 

  • "Alphabet [Google] shares drop as cloud miss overshadows better-than-expected overall results", Jennifer Elias, CNBC, 10/25/23 
    -- This story also covered by NY Times, 

  • "Elon Musk Announces Grok, a ‘Rebellious’ AI With Few Guardrails", Will Knight, Wired, 11/6/23 
    -- This story also covered by ZDNet, Mashable, CNBC, FastCompany

  • "Silicon Valley’s Big, Bold Sci-Fi Bet on the Device That Comes After the Smartphone", Erin Griffith, Tripp Mickle and Photographs and Videos by Kelsey McClellan, NY Times, 11/10/23 ... Funded by Microsoft, OpenAI, SalesForce and others
    --     This story also covered by ZDNet, TechCrunch, Wired, Forbes Tech, The Verge
    -- The videos in the Times' article provide the best descriptions of this extraordinary device

  • "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

  • "OpenAI Ousts CEO Sam Altman", Will Knight, Wired, 11/17/23 
    -- This story also covered by Mashable, Computerworld, Reuters, VentureBeat, Bloomberg, Engadget, Wall Street Journal, Forbes, BBC, 
    -- On Sunday morning 11/19/23, a senior NY Times tech reporter and two colleagues posted an article that referenced rumors from well-connected sources that the OpenAi board was in discussions with Altman about Altman's possible return ➡ "Sam Altman Is Said to Be Discussing Return to OpenAI With Company’s Board", Cade Metz, Mike Isaac and Erin Griffith, NY Times, 11/19/23

F. Opinions, rumors, and long reads
  • "‘The Godfather of A.I.’ Leaves Google and Warns of Danger Ahead", Cade Metz, NY Times, 5/1/23 
    -- This story also covered by The Verge, Engadget, Gizmodo, Wired, Ars Technica, Mashable, MIT Tech Review, VentureBeat, MIT EmTech interview video 

  • "We Have No Moat, And Neither Does OpenAI", Dylan Patel and Afzal Ahmad, The Verge, 5/4/23
    -- This internal leaked Google memo received commentary in The Verge, Tech Crunch, MIT Tech Review, 

  • "Beyond the ‘Matrix’ Theory of the Mind", Ezra Klein, NY Times, 5/28/23   
  • 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 
    -- "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 

  • "Meet the $4 Billion AI Superstars That Google Lost", Parmy Olson, Bloomberg, 7/13/23 
  • "Hollywood’s Deal With Screenwriters Just Rewrote the Rules Around A.I.", Adam Seth Litwin, NY Times, 9/29/23 
  • "Apple’s job listings suggest it plans to infuse AI in multiple products", Ivan Mehta, TechCrunch, 10/23/23

  • Civil war breaks out among AI experts ... open vs. closed platforms
    -- Open platform ... Yann LeCun's manifesto on X/Twitter, 10/29/23
    -- Closed platform ... "Google DeepMind boss hits back at Meta AI chief [Yann LeCun] over ‘fearmongering’ claim", Ryan Browne, CNBC, 10/31/23

  • "Forget ChatGPT, why Llama and open source AI win 2023", Sharon Goldman, VentureBeat, 11/3/23 
  • "Apple CEO Tim Cook says AI is a fundamental technology, confirms investments in generative AI", Sarah Perez, TechCrunch, 11/3/23 
  • "Why the Godfather of A.I. Fears What He’s Built", Joshua Rothman, The New Yorker, 11/13/23 
  • "How Microsoft is reducing its dependence on OpenAI", Ben Dickson, VentureBeat, 11/17/23

G. Use/abuse cases for large language models (LLMs)
  • "A.I. Is Coming for Lawyers, Again", Steve Lohr, NY Times, 4/10/23 
    -- An earlier discussion can be found on  Wired
  • "The ChatGPT Cheat Sheet" for producing better prompts, u/fozrok, 4/16/23 
  • "Auto-GPT, BabyAGI, and AgentGPT: How to use AI agents", Cecily Mauran, Mashable, 4/19/23 
  • "A.I. Is Getting Better at Mind-Reading", Oliver Whang, NY Times, 5/1/23 

  • "Here’s What Happens When Your Lawyer Uses ChatGPT", Benjamin Weiser, NY Times, 5/26/23 
    --     "Lawyers fined $5K for using ChatGPT to file lawsuit filled with fake cases",  Matt Binder, Mashable,  6/23/23 
     -- This story also covered by Gizmodo

  • "How to use Chat GPT to write code", Julian Horsey, Geeky Gadgets, 6/2/23 
  • "My two favorite ChatGPT Plus plugins and the remarkable things I can do with them", David Gewirtz, ZDNet, 9/20/23 
  • "AI Could Usher in a New Age of Bioweapons, RAND Report Warns", Kevin Hurler, Gizmodo, 10/17/23
H. Education Uses in hybrid/online courses
Note: The editor of this blog has extensive experience with online and hybrid courses; hence he has a special interest in applications of LLMs to education. Note that the addition of an LLM-based "tutor" or "study buddy" will convert a face-to-face course into a hybrid (face-to-face plus online) course.
  • "Building the New Model for Teaching and Learning", Ray Schroeder, UPCEA, 6/1/23 ... "OpenAI, assisted by Khan Academy, is building a new model for teaching and learning, to be called OpenAI Academy."

  • "New A.I. Chatbot Tutors Could Upend Student Learning", Natasha Singer, NY Times, 6/8/23 
    --  "Sal Khan, the founder of Khan Academy — and of Khan Lab School, a separate nonprofit organization — said he hoped the chatbot would democratize student access to individualized tutoring."

  • "Not Just Math Quizzes: Khan Academy’s Tutoring Bot Offers Playful Features", Natasha Singer, NY Times, 6/10/23
  • "Georgia Tech Is Trying to Keep a ChatGPT-Powered Teaching Assistant From ‘Hallucinating’", Jeffrey R. Young, EdSurge, 6/23/23 

  • "Instructors Rush to Do ‘Assignment Makeovers’ to Respond to ChatGPT", Jeffrey R. Young , EdSurge, 7/27/23
  • "Coursera’s CEO Wants its Chatbot to Become Your Personal Tutor", Irina Anghel, Bloomberg, 8/2/23 
  • "Chegg is getting a generative AI makeover just in time for back-to-school season", Sabrina Ortiz, ZDNet, 8/8/23  ... CheggMate 

  • "Despite Cheating Fears, Schools Repeal ChatGPT Bans", Natasha Singer, NY Times, 8/24/23 
  • "Generative AI Goes Back to School ... Where Things Stand in Fall 2023", Dylan Ruediger, Claire Baytas, and Danielle Miriam Cooper, ITHAKA-SR, 9/21/23 
  • "Will Teachers Listen to Feedback From AI? Researchers Are Betting on It", Olina Banerji, EdSurge, 9/25/23
  • "Is Your University Building a Custom AI Platform?", Claire Baytas and Danielle Miriam Cooper, ITHAKA-SR, 9/28/23 
  • "AI Buzz Dominates Annual Ed-Tech Conference", Lauren Coffey, Inside higher Ed, 10/12/23 
I.  LLM flaws, hacks, and remedies
  • "Prompt injection: What’s the worst that can happen?", Simon Wilson, Weblog, 4/14/23
  • "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
    -- An earlier study with similar findings was reported by Wired

  • "Stanford study challenges assumptions about language models: Larger context doesn’t mean better understanding", Matt Marshall, VentureBeat, 7/21/23  

  • "There’s no AI without the cloud, says AWS CEO Adam Selipsky ", Nilay Patel, The Verge, 8/8/23 
    --The editor of this blog apologizes to his readers for his failure to call their attention to this important podcast when it was first published by The Verge back in August 2023
  • "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

  • "Researchers Tested AI Watermarks—and Broke All of Them", Kate Knibbs, Wired, 10/3/23 
  • "Uh-oh! Fine-tuning LLMs compromises their safety, study finds", Ben Dickson, VentureBeat, 10/13/23 
  • "Researchers develop ‘Woodpecker’: A groundbreaking solution to AI’s hallucination problem", Michael Nuñez, VentureBeat, 10/25/23
  • "Generative AI training data sets are now trackable – and often legally complicated", Jon Gold, Computerworld, 10/26/23 
    -- This story also covered by the Data Provenance Initiative (PDF)
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 
  • "Machine unlearning: The critical art of teaching AI to forget", Matthew Duffin, VentureBeat, 8/12/23 
  • "Exploring the role of labeled data in machine learning", Matthew Duffin, VentureBeat, 10/29/23 
  • "Levels of AGI: Operationalizing Progress on the Path to AGI", Meredith Ringel Morris et al, arXiv, 11/4/23
    -- Nontechnical summary of this article: "Here is how far we are to achieving AGI, according to DeepMind", Ben Dickson, VentureBeat, 11/16/23 
___________________________________
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