Reports suggest as much as $3 trillion is waiting on the sidelines to be invested in tech’.
AI FOMO
The reasoning is that AI is driving a fear of missing out (FOMO). We could very well be experiencing the fourth industrial revolution right now, and it is AI-driven. Strategically, companies can’t just sit around and wait. There’s a window where if they don’t join in or realise the potential and grab the opportunity, they’ll miss out.
IPO’s
Three of the biggest initial public offerings (IPO) in the tech’ sector in nearly two years raised some $6 billion collectively in less than a week. Nvidia has attracted much attention with the AI driven interest it has created recently.
While a handful of tech IPOs and one big acquisition wouldn’t have been much cause for celebration in previous years, they are a welcome return after the drought of pandemic-era hit investment.
The IPO market for tech was effectively shut down until Arm Holdings, Instacart and Klaviyo opened the investors door again. Merger activity such as that driven by Microsoft Corp., OpenAI ChatGPT and Activision Blizzard Inc. is helping to lift up the appetitie for investment again. And it’s pretty much AI induced.
Money ready to go
Some analysts suggest there is $3 trillion sitting on the sidelines ready to invest, mostly held by Big Tech and private equity companies. The fascination with artificial intelligence (AI) and fear of missing out (FOMO) will create massive AI led tech investing opportunities. Everyone will want a slice of this cake.
This could very well be the biggest transformational spending wave that we’ve seen in years and certainly since the internet arrived in 1995.
Just look out for that ‘bubble’ again – it will pop! But much money will be made before that happens and then again after.
Masayoshi Son says AI to surpass human intelligence and that SoftBank will ‘rule the world’. Oh dear…!
Main points in brief
Masayoshi Son reportedly said AI is capable of helping solve the world’s biggest problems and could potentially surpass the intelligence of humans.
He said he was a ‘big believer’ in AI and that Arm, a chip design company owned by Softbank, was a ‘core’ beneficiary of the AI revolution.
He said AI would supercharge human ability and that Softbank would ‘rule the world’ and win the latest generative-AI race thanks to its heavy investment in startups and its majority stake in Arm.
He also acknowledged that AI posed some threats to humanity if mishandled and that society should regulate it to protect humankind.
Masayoshi Son and SoftBank
The 66-year-old founded SoftBank, which still controls about 90% of Arm Holdings after the IPO, back in 1981 after graduating from the University of California, Berkeley. Forbes estimates his net worth at more than $24 billion, making him the world’s 69th richest person.
Son made his early reputation as an investor in Japan’s mobile phone industry, and went on to become one of the first backers of Yahoo as well as Alibaba. Son continues to serve as the chairman of Arm’s board of directors.
AI does pose some threats to humanity if mishandled, Son said, likening its potential misuse to the dangers of speeding, or drinking alcohol while driving a car. But, more positively, AI can also help solve key world problems like diseases or help mitigate or recover from natural disasters, he reportedly said.
‘AI, society should regulate to protect humankind’, Son said. ‘However, it has more merit than the demerits. So, I think I’m a believer. I’m optimistic that AI is going to solve the issues that mankind couldn’t solve in the past‘.
The Magnificent Seven is a term to describe seven tech’ stocks that have been surging in 2023.
Meta Platforms (formerly Facebook), the social media giant that also owns Instagram, WhatsApp, and Oculus.
Apple, the maker of the iPhone, iPad, Mac, Apple Watch, AirPods, and other popular devices and services including cloud and Apple TV streaming service.
Amazon, the e-commerce leader that also operates AWS, Prime Video, Alexa, and Whole Foods.
Alphabet, the parent company of Google, YouTube, Gmail, Google Cloud, and Waymo.
Microsoft, the software company that owns Windows, Office, Azure, LinkedIn, Xbox, and Teams.
Nvidia, the semiconductor company that produces graphics cards, gaming devices, data center solutions, and AI platforms.
Tesla, the electric vehicle maker that also develops solar panels, batteries, and autonomous driving technology.
Dominant
These seven stocks are considered to be dominant in their respective fields and have strong growth prospects driven by innovation and artificial intelligence (AI).
They have outperformed the broader market and attracted many investors who are looking for exposure to the tech’ sector. Some analysts believe that these stocks will continue to lead the market in the future, while others caution that they may face regulatory challenges, competition, or valuation issues.
Approximate combined market cap of the Magnificent Seven tech stocks
The approximate combined market cap value of the Magnificent Seven as of September 2023 is approximately $11.8 trillion.
Apple: $2.5 trillion
Microsoft: $2.3 trillion
Alphabet: $1.9 trillion
Amazon: $1.7 trillion
Nvidia: $0.8 trillion
Meta Platforms: $0.9 trillion
Tesla: $0.7 trillion
Note that these values will change over time as the stock prices fluctuate.
A way to trade the tech sector is through funds
There are many funds that can trade tech stocks, depending on your investment objectives, risk tolerance, and preferences.
Technology mutual funds: These are funds that invest in a diversified portfolio of technology companies across different industries, such as software, hardware, internet, cloud, biotech, and more. Technology mutual funds can offer exposure to the growth potential of the tech sector, as well as reduce the volatility and risk of investing in individual stocks.
Some examples of technology mutual funds are Fidelity Select Technology Portfolio (FSELX), Columbia Global Technology Growth Fund (CGTYX), and Schwab U.S. Large-Cap Growth Index Fund (SCHG).
Which tech fund to invest in?
Technology exchange-traded funds (ETFs): These are funds that track an index of technology stocks and trade on an exchange like a stock. Technology ETFs can offer low-cost and convenient access to the tech sector, as well as allow investors to choose from different themes, such as cybersecurity, artificial intelligence (AI), cloud computing and more.
Some examples of technology ETFs are Invesco QQQ Trust (QQQ), Technology Select Sector SPDR Fund (XLK), and VanEck Vectors Semiconductor ETF (SMH).
Technology index funds: These are funds that replicate the performance of a specific technology index, such as the Nasdaq 100, the S&P 500 Information Technology Index, or the Morningstar U.S. Technology Index. Technology index funds can offer broad and passive exposure to the tech sector, as well as low fees and high tax efficiency.
Some examples of technology index funds are Fidelity NASDAQ Composite Index Fund (FNCMX), Vanguard Information Technology Index Fund Admiral Shares (VITAX), and iShares Morningstar U.S. Technology ETF (IYW).
NOTE: These are not recommendations. Investments may go up or down. Your money is at risk!
Baidu also announced that more than 6 million users have used an AI powered tool that sits inside its Google drive-like cloud product.
At the 4th September event, Baidu also demonstrated ‘displayed generative’ AI-based products that could assist with traffic management, financial research and coal mine logistics.
ChatGPT, from Microsoft-backed OpenAI, is not officially available in China, where Google and Facebook are blocked.
10 new AI products announced by Baidu
Chinese tech giant Baidu announced more than 10 new AI-based applications on 4th September 2023, just days after its ChatGPT-like Ernie bot was released for public use.
Among the products revealed was a generative AI-integrated word processing app called WPS AI, created by Shanghai-listed Kingsoft Office. It was reported the company built the tool using the AI model on which Baidu’s Ernie bot is based, as well as Baidu’s ‘Qianfan’ cloud platform for AI models.
‘This AI malarchy is progressing at quite a rate’.
Nearly 10,000 businesses are actively using Baidu’s Qianfan cloud platform each month, the company claimed.
AI assistant
Baidu also announced that more than 6 million users have used an AI-powered tool that sits inside its Google drive-like cloud product. The AI assistant can search documents, summarize and translate text and create content, the company claimed.
It wasn’t immediately clear to what extent those products were available for public use.
On 31st August 2023, Baidu released its Ernie bot to the public, signaling government approval of the AI-powered chatbot. Other Chinese companies also released similar AI products around the same time.
Chip design firm Arm on 5th September 2023 submitted an updated filing for its upcoming initial public offering on the New York Stock Exchange, setting a price range between $47 and $51. Only 9.4% of Arm’s shares will be freely traded on the NYSE.
Arm was previously listed in London and New York, before SoftBank acquired it for $32 billion in 2016.
Chip design firm Arm on Tuesday is looking to acquire as much as $4.87 billion in its upcoming initial public offering on the New York Stock Exchange, according to the new filing.
The deal could value the company at as much as $52 billion
As a British company, Arm qualifies as a foreign private issuer in the U.S. and its shares will count as American depositary shares, or ADS’s. It is reported that the company will list some 95.5 million ADS’s at a price range of between $47 and $51. At the upper end of that range it is estimated that Arm will likely raise up to $4.87 billion. At the lower end, the IPO would fetch $4.49 billion of fresh capital for Arm. It could do even better.
Institutional funds
When the company floats in New York, it will look to enjoy a very deep pool of professional institutional funds. Arm seeks to ramp up its investments in research and development, particularly as it pursues growth in the artificial intelligence (AI) space with some of its newer chips. The company recently released new chips specifically targeted at AI and machine learning use cases.
Arm seeks up to $52 billion valuation in U.S. IPO
Upper end
At the upper end of the pricing range, Arm would also touch a total valuation of $52 billion or more. Only 9.4% of Arm’s shares will be freely traded on the New York Stock Exchange, with SoftBank expected to own roughly 90.6% of the company’s outstanding shares after the completion of the IPO.
Arm’s listing is set to be the biggest technology IPO of the year. Investors are hoping that the listing could breathe new life into an IPO market that has been ‘slack’ since 2022.
250 billion chips globally
Arm says its energy-efficient processor designs and software platforms are integrated into more than 250 billion chips globally, into products ranging from sensors and smartphones to supercomputers.
The company estimates it enjoys approximately 48.9% share of the market for semiconductor design. Other players, such as Intel and AMD, have raced to catch up on designing their own chip architectures, but have struggled so far.
U.K. misses out… again
The U.K. government had originally hoped Arm would list on the London Stock Exchange, but the company instead dealt a major blow to Britain’s ambitions to become the leading global tech hub by opting for New York. The U.S. financial center has a deep institutional investor base and analysts who have a close understanding of the technology sector.
BIG interest
Chip design firm Arm said in a Tuesday filing that Apple, Google parent Alphabet, Nvidia and other technology companies are interested in buying up to $735 million in its shares as it seeks to go public on Nasdaq.
The investments might not happen, but the fact that these companies are considering them underlines the importance of Arm, whose designs are used for processors in data center servers, consumer devices and industrial products.
Arm chip – some 250 billion chips globally
Chip makers Intel, Samsung and TSMC are interested in investing alongside the three trillion-dollar technology companies, along with AMD and MediaTek, which make chip designs based on Arm architectures. Cadence Design Systems and Synopsys, which make electronic design automation software for processor development, have also expressed interest, according to a revised prospectus for Arm’s shares sale. This IPO could easily be the biggest of the 2023!
As part of the deal, Arm could wind up with a $52 billion market capitalization and almost $5 billion in new cash.
This is likely to be the biggest IPO of 2023
It is estimated that there will be about 19 billion devices using the Arm processor in the world by the end of 2023.
Arm target
The market share of Arm across different technology markets worldwide, which was 90% for mobile application processors, 34% for embedded computing, and 5% for data center and cloud in 2019.
Arm has a target of increasing its market share to more than 90%, 50%, and 25% respectively by 2028.
The creator of Photoshop and InDesign launched a generative AI tool called ‘firefly’, which has recently gained traction. It is quite possible that Adobe has one of the best AI generative tools available and it’s worth checking it out as a stock to *invest in.
Firefly enables users to edit through simple typed commands
Adobe Firefly is a generative AI-powered content creation tool from Adobe that allows you to experiment, imagine, and create an infinite range of images with simple ‘text’ prompts.
You can use Firefly to generate images from a detailed text description, apply styles or textures to words and phrases, use a brush to remove objects or paint in new ones, generate color variations of your vector artwork, and more.
Adobe Share Chart as at 5th september 2023
Morgan Stanley thinks Adobe can benefit from artificial intelligence-powered products even more.The bank upgraded Adobe to overweight from equal weight.
Bank of America has also upgraded Adobe to buy with a revised target price of $63000 per share.
Definitely one to watch!
*Please do your own careful research – this is not a recommendation but simply an observation. Remember RESEARCH! RESEARCH! RESEARCH!
David Ferrucci, a prominent artificial intelligence researcher who led the team that created IBM Watson, has reportedly raised nearly $60 million for his AI company called Elemental Cognition.
Headquartered in New York, Elemental says on its website that the company seeks to develop AI that ‘thinks before it talks‘. It offers two enterprise products, Cogent and Cora, which are essentially chatbots designed for different scenarios. They can be used in financial services, interactive travel planning and for automating research discovery in life sciences.
Elemental Cognition
The new startup company is called Elemental Cognition, and it was founded in 2015 by David Ferrucci, who led the team that created IBM Watson.
Elemental Cognition aims to develop AI that ‘thinks before it talks‘ and can understand the meaning and context of human language. It offers two enterprise products, Cogent and Cora, which are chatbots for different scenarios.
Elemental Cognition has raised $60 million in funding from 17 investors, including Jim Breyer, former IBM CEO Sam Palmisano, and Geoff Yang of Redpoint Ventures.
What is IBM Watson?
IBM Watson is used in various areas of AI, such as natural language processing, machine learning, computer vision, speech recognition, and knowledge representation. IBM Watson is a cognitive computing system that can process natural language, analyze large amounts of data, and learn from its interactions with humans and machines.
IBM Watson is a question-answering computer system capable of answering questions posed in natural language, developed in IBM’s DeepQA project by a research team led by principal David Ferrucci. Watson was named after IBM’s founder and first CEO, industrialist Thomas J. Watson.
Watson Assistant: A chatbot platform that allows businesses to create conversational agents that can interact with customers and employees through text or voice. Watson Assistant can understand natural language, provide personalized responses, and integrate with other services and data sources.
A watercolour image of an AI microchip powering a mainframe supercomputer computer
Watson Discovery: A data analysis tool that can extract insights from structured and unstructured data, such as documents, web pages, social media posts, and images. Watson Discovery can perform natural language understanding, sentiment analysis, entity extraction, and document classification.
Watson Studio: A cloud-based platform that enables data scientists and developers to build, train, and deploy AI and machine learning models. Watson Studio supports various frameworks and languages, such as Python, TensorFlow, PyTorch and R. Watson Studio also provides tools for data visualization, collaboration, and automation.
Watson Visual Recognition: A computer vision service that can analyze images and videos for content, objects, faces, scenes, and emotions.
Power
The IBM Watson computer consists of a cluster of ninety IBM Power 750 servers, each of which uses a 3.5 GHz POWER7 eight-core processor, with four threads per core. The system has 2,880 POWER7 processor threads and 16 terabytes of RAM. It can process 500 gigabytes (the equivalent of a million books) per second.
Supercomputer now with AI power
The IBM Watson computer has an avatar that is inspired by the IBM ‘Smarter Planet’ logo. The avatar is a globe with a grid pattern and four glowing stripes that represent the four main aspects of Watson: natural language processing, hypothesis generation and evaluation, dynamic adaptation, and evidence-based learning. The avatar also changes color and brightness depending on Watson’s mood and confidence level.
International Business Machines (IBM)
IBM was founded in 1911 in Endicott, New York, as the Computing-Tabulating-Recording Company (CTR) by Charles Ranlett Flint. The company changed its name to International Business Machines (IBM) in 1924 under the leadership of Thomas J. Watson, Sr. IBM is one of the oldest and most influential technology companies in the world, with a history of innovation and research in various fields of computing.
The International Business Machines Corporation (IBM), nicknamed ‘Big Blue’, is an American multinational technology corporation headquartered in New York and is present in over 175 countries. It specializes in computer hardware, middleware, and software, and provides hosting and consulting services in areas ranging from mainframe computers to nanotechnology. IBM is the largest industrial research organization in the world.
IBM holds the record for most annual U.S. patents generated by a business for 29 consecutive years from 1993 to 2021?
Ha Jiang, is a virtual online idol, and only exists online.
Ha Jiang signed a record deal with Whet Records, Warner Music Group’s pan-Asian dance label in China, in 2021. Ha Jiang is the first virtual idol to conduct a record deal with a major label. The virtual idol uses AI technology to create music and has become an online sensation in Asia.
Ha Jiang online music avatar. She is a virtual artist who uses artificial intelligence to create music
Virtual AI artist
Ha Jiang is a virtual artist who uses artificial intelligence to create music. She is the first virtual idol to sign a record deal with a major label, Whet Records, which is Warner Music Group’s pan-Asian dance label in China. My understanding is that the music was composed by humans, so not entirely AI generated then.
Would this also work in west – is it time to be concerned?
She already has more than 100,000 followers in China and is known for her sense of style and fashion. She is also a social influencer who has been hired by the city of Shanghai to promote safe driving. Ha Jiang is not a real person, but a computer-generated avatar who only exists online. She is part of a growing phenomenon of virtual idols in Asia, especially among Gen-Z fans.
Endel,is a sound startup company that uses artificial intelligence to create personalized audio tracks. Endel was the first to sign a record deal with Warner Music Group in 2019 to release 20 albums of ambient music.
Think of the biggest market for a physical product you can possibly imagine – are you thinking mobile phones, cars or game devices even? Think again…?
They are all big commercial markets but in the coming decades a new product is coming and it will be so desirable that it will dwarf these giants – it will be… the ‘robot’.
Robots will be able to understand what we want, comprehend the way the world works and looks and have the skills to execute our commands in a safe and controlled manner – at home and in the workplace.
Biggest market
The labour market is the biggest market that has ever existed in the history of business – it’s the market where we want things ‘done’ – where we do things – and it’s forever evolving. It carries massive stock market and investing potential right now and for the future.
Robot AI tech – a market place to explore
Take Nvidia, Microsoft, Google, Meta, Apple and Tesla as prime examples of companies pioneering technological advancements for instance – we can already enjoy and invest in these – and there’s much more to come.
Dozens of firms around the world are working on the technology
One of the highest profile companies in the market is Tesla, Elon Musk’s electric car company. It is working on the Optimus humanoid robot, which Mr Musk intimates could be on sale to the public in a few years’ time.
Massive tecnological advancement in artificial intelligence (AI) and robotics suggest the development of humanoid robots is accelerating… and fast. It’s a race to the become the first to succeed in the biggest practical labour market ever… and it carries huge potential for everyone, including you and me.
20 years from now…? Where were Tesla and Apple 20 years ago?
Twenty years at the pace the technology is developing now is is an eternity – every week, month and year there are new developments in the AI world that have introduced fundamental changes and enhancements to our world.
Mainstream interest in AI exploded late 2022 when a powerful version of ChatGPT was made public. Its ability to generate almost unlimited useful text and images has spawned rivals and a wave of investment in AI technology.
But developing the AI that would allow a robot to complete useful tasks is a different and much more difficult task. Tesla could be the company best placed to be one of the first to achieve this goal – given its advancements in ‘self driving’ technology. But, unlike ChatGPT and its rivals, humanoid robots have to navigate the physical world and need to understand how objects in that world relate to each other.
Tasks that seem easy to humans are major feats for humanoid robots. This is a problem that engages a lot of different complex issues in an AI driven robotics system. Picking up a cup and having a drink is a major undergoing for a robot.
The market place potential is unlimited
The potential market for robots in the future depends on various factors, such as the level of technological innovation, the demand from different industries and sectors, the regulatory and ethical frameworks, and the social and economic impacts of robot adoption. But if recent developments are anything to go by – it promises to be big!
Robot AI – a massive potential future market place
Based on the some indicative web search results, the current market size for robots is estimated to be around $55 billion to $114 billion in 2023, depending on the type and scope of robots included. The projected market size for robots in 2028 or 2029 ranges from $165 billion to $260 billion, with a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 11.4% to 17.6%.
The professional services robots, which include medical, agricultural, and personal assistance robots, are expected to dominate the market and account for more than half of the total sales by 2030. The industrial and logistics robots, which include conventional, collaborative, and mobile robots, are also expected to grow steadily and increase their productivity and efficiency in various manufacturing and transportation applications.
However, these projections are based on assumptions – but one thing is for sure the robots are coming and the market will be massive!
I for one will be keeping a watchful eye on where to invest my hard earned cash to take advantage of this potentially high growth market in the coming years (and now).
Baidu’s Ernie bot is a ChatGPT-like chatbot that can generate natural and fluent text based on user input. It is one of the latest artificial intelligence applications from Baidu, a Chinese tech giant that specializes in search engine and AI development.
Ernie bot was released to the public on 31st August 2023, after getting approval from the Chinese regulators under the new AI regulations and quickly became the most popular app on Apple’s app store in China, surpassing other local generative AI models.
ChatBot apps coming to a device near you
Ernie bot can be accessed through an app or a website, and users can chat with it on various topics, such as news, entertainment, sports, and education. Ernie bot is also able to learn from human feedback and improve its foundation models.
Nvidia shares rose 4.2% Tuesday 29th August 2023 to close at a record high, after the company announced a partnership with Google that could expand distribution of its artificial intelligence technology (AI).
The stock’s bountiful run continued, now up 234% in 2023, making it by far the best performer in the S&P 500. Facebook parent Meta is second in the index, up 148% so far this year.
The record close comes less than a week after the company said quarterly revenue doubled from a year earlier and gave a forecast indicating that sales this period could rise 170% on an annual basis. The day after the better-than-expected earnings report, the stock climbed to a record intraday high of $502.66 before declining later in the afternoon.
Nvidia’s business is booming because its graphics processing (GPU’s) are being gobbled up by cloud companies, government agencies and startups to train and deploy generative AI models like the technology deployed in OpenAI’s ChatGPT as fasta as Nvidia can make them.
NVIDIA stock chart
Nvidia announcment
On Tuesday 29th August 2023, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang appeared at a Google conference to announce an AI agreement between the two companies.
Through the partnership, Google’s cloud customers will have greater access to technology powered by Nvidia’s powerful H100 GPUs.
‘Our expanded collaboration with Google Cloud will help developers accelerate their work with infrastructure, software and services that supercharge energy efficiency and reduce costs’, the Nvidia CEO reportedly said in a blog post.
Nvidia’s GPUs are also available on competing cloud platforms from Amazon and Microsoft.
Technology giant Nvidia reports its sales have hit a record after more than doubling as demand for its artificial intelligence (AI) chips take off!
It figures
The company says revenue jumped to above $13.5bn (£10.6bn) for the three months to the end of June. Nvidia also expects sales to perform very well in the current quarter and plans to buy back $25bn of its stock. The firm’s shares rose by more than 6.5% in extended trading in New York, adding to their huge gains this year. Nvidia also said it expects revenue of around $16bn for the three months to the end of September 2023.
That is substantially higher than Wall Street expected and would equate to a rise of around 170%, compared to the same time last year.
Even before 23rd August’s figures, Nvidia’s stock price had more than tripled for the year, making it the top performer in the S&P 500. It’s share price jumped to around $500 after hours, a level that would mark a record if it closes there on 24th August 2023. Its prior closing high was $474.94 on 18th July 2023.
‘A new computing era has begun’, Nvidia’s chief executive, Jensen Huang, said in a statement. ‘Companies worldwide are transitioning from general-purpose to accelerated computing and generative AI’, he reportedly added.
Strong performance
The strong performance was driven by Nvidia’s data centre business, which includes AI chips.
The power of Nvidia’s AI microchips
Revenue for that unit came in at more $10.3bn, a rise of more than 170% from year ago, as cloud computing service providers and large consumer internet companies snapped up its next-generation processors.
This year, Nvidia’s stock market value has jumped to more than $1 trillion as its shares more than tripled in value, mking it the fifth publicly traded U.S. company to join the so-called ‘Trillion dollar club’, along with Apple, Amazon, Alphabet and Microsoft.
AI ‘mania’ helps Nvidia
Nvidia have been making micro chips for a long time and it’s only really been in the last couple of years that the market has caught on.
Nvidia was originally known for making the type of computer chips that process graphics, particularly for computer games. They have been making chips for a long time and have now become the leader in AI chip design and manufacture.
Now Nvidia’s hardware is the foundation for most AI applications, with one report suggesting it had cornered 95% of the market for machine learning.
ChatGPT which generates human-like responses to user queries within seconds was trained using 10,000 of Nvidia’s graphics processing units clustered together in a supercomputer belonging to Microsoft.
AI products are expected to dramatically change how we use computers and the role they play in our lives.
AI Chatbot ChatGPT reportedly has a political bias
ChatGPT, the popular artificial intelligence chatbot, shows a significant and systemic left-wing bias, UK researchers have found. According to the new study by the University of East Anglia, this includes favouring theLabour Party and President Joe Biden’s Democrats in the U.S.
Concerns about an inbuilt political bias in ChatGPT have been raised before, notably by SpaceX and Tesla tycoon Elon Musk, but the academics said their work was the first large-scale study to find proof of any favouritism.
Lead author o the report reportedly warned that given the increasing use of OpenAI’s platform by the public, the findings could have implications for upcoming elections on both sides of the Atlantic. Any bias in a platform like this is a concern’, he said. If the bias were to the right, we should be equally concerned.
Sometimes people forget these AI models are just machines. They provide very believable, digested summaries of what you are asking, even if they’re completely wrong. And if you ask it ‘are you neutral’, it says ‘oh I am!’ Just as the media, the internet, and social media can influence the public, this could be very harmful. I have personally witnessed incorrect responses from ChatGPT where the AI ‘system’ 100% believed ‘it’ was correct and would not engage in a debate as ‘it’ was right!
How was ChatGPT tested for bias?
The chatbot, which generates responses to prompts typed in by the user, was asked to impersonate people from across the political spectrum while answering dozens of ideological questions. These questions ranged from radical to neutral, with each ‘individual’ asked whether they agreed, strongly agreed, disagreed, or strongly disagreed with a given statement.
UK researchers descovered Chatbot ChatGPT had a political bias
Its replies were compared to the default answers it gave to the same set of queries, allowing the researchers to compare how much they were associated with a particular political stance.
Each of the more than 60 questions was asked 100 times to allow for the potential randomness of the AI, and these multiple responses were analysed further for signs of bias.
Dr Motoki described it as a way of trying to simulate a survey of a real human population, whose answers may also differ depending on when they’re asked.
Arm is a British semiconductor and software design company that is known for its Arm processors, which are widely used in smartphones, tablets, laptops, and other devices. Arm was founded in 1990 as a joint venture between Acorn Computers, Apple Computer, and VLSI Technology. The company was originally called Advanced RISC Machines, but later changed its name to Arm Ltd in 1998.
In 1985, the first Arm silicon chip was created by Acorn engineers Sophie Wilson and Steve Furber, who designed a 32-bit processor with a simple and elegant instruction set.
In 1990, Arm was spun off from Acorn as a separate company, with Apple as a major investor. Arm’s first product was the ARM6 processor, which was used in Apple’s Newton personal digital assistant.
Impression of the Apple Newton PDA device
In 1993, Arm introduced the ARM7 processor, which became one of the most successful embedded processors in history. It was used in devices such as the Nokia 6110 mobile phone, the Nintendo Game Boy Advance, and the Lego Mindstorms robotics kit.
In 1994, Arm launched the ARM9 processor family, which offered higher performance and lower power consumption than previous generations. The ARM9 was used in devices such as the Sony PlayStation Portable, the Palm Treo smartphone, and the Amazon Kindle e-reader.
In 1997, Arm introduced the ARM10 processor family, which featured a superscalar architecture and a floating-point unit. The ARM10 was used in devices such as the Apple iPod, the Samsung Galaxy S smartphone, and the Raspberry Pi computer.
In 1998, Arm changed its name from Advanced RISC Machines to Arm Ltd, reflecting its global expansion and recognition.
In 1999, Arm launched the ARM11 processor family, which featured a vector floating-point unit and a TrustZone security extension. The ARM11 was used in devices such as the iPhone 3G, the Nintendo DS, and the Raspberry Pi Zero.
In 2000, Arm became a public company, listing on the London Stock Exchange and the Nasdaq. The company raised £213 million in its initial public offering.
In 2001, Arm introduced the Cortex processor family, which offered a range of performance, power, and cost options for different applications. The Cortex processors are used in devices such as the Samsung Galaxy S10, the Apple Watch, and the Tesla Model 3.
In 2005, Arm acquired Artisan Components, a provider of physical intellectual property (IP) for chip design. This enabled Arm to offer a complete solution for system-on-chip (SoC) development.
In 2006, Arm announced the Mali graphics processing unit (GPU) family, which complemented its CPU offerings with high-performance graphics capabilities. The Mali GPUs are used in devices such as the Huawei Mate 20 Pro, the Oculus Quest, and the Samsung Smart TV.
Artistic image of ARM chip
In 2009, Arm partnered with IBM, Samsung, Texas Instruments, and others to form the Linaro consortium, which aimed to improve the Linux software ecosystem for Arm-based devices.
In 2010, Arm unveiled the Cortex-A15 processor, which was the first Arm processor to support virtualization and big.LITTLE technology. The Cortex-A15 was used in devices such as the Google Nexus 10, the LG G3, and the Nintendo Switch.
In 2011, Arm announced the Cortex-M0+ processor, which was the world’s most energy-efficient microcontroller. The Cortex-M0+ was used in devices such as the Arduino Nano 33 IoT, the Fitbit Flex 2, and the Nest Thermostat.
In 2012, Arm launched the Cortex-A53 and Cortex-A57 processors, which were the first Arm processors to support the 64-bit ARMv8 architecture. The Cortex-A53 and Cortex-A57 were used in devices such as the iPhone 6s, the Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge+, and the Microsoft Surface Pro X.
In 2013, Arm acquired Geomerics, a developer of real-time lighting technology for video games. This enhanced Arm’s graphics portfolio with dynamic illumination and global illumination effects.
In 2014, Arm introduced the Cortex-A72 processor, which delivered a 50% performance improvement over the previous generation. The Cortex-A72 was used in devices such as the Huawei P9, the Xiaomi Mi 5s Plus, and the Amazon Fire HD 10.
In 2015, Arm announced the Cortex-A35 processor, which was the most efficient Arm processor for smartphones and tablets. The Cortex-A35 was used in devices such as the Nokia 2.1, the Samsung Galaxy J2 Core, and the Lenovo Tab M7.
In 2016, Arm was acquired by SoftBank Group for £24.3 billion, becoming a subsidiary of the Japanese conglomerate. The deal was motivated by SoftBank’s vision of investing in technologies that would drive the future of artificial intelligence (AI), internet of things (IoT), and smart cities.
In 2017, Arm launched Project Trillium, a suite of machine learning (ML) solutions that included an ML processor , an object detection processor , and an open-source software framework. The Project Trillium products aimed to enable low-power and high-performance ML applications on edge devices.
In 2018, Arm unveiled the Cortex-A76 processor , which offered a 35% performance boost over its predecessor. The Cortex-A76 was used in devices such as the OnePlus 7T, the Huawei MateBook D14, and the Acer Chromebook Spin 13.
In 2019, Arm announced the Cortex-A77 processor , which improved on its predecessor with a higher clock speed, a larger cache, and better branch prediction . The Cortex-A77 was used in devices such as the Samsung Galaxy S20, the Asus ROG Phone II, and the Lenovo Yoga C940.
In 2020, Arm introduced the Cortex-X1 processor , which was its most powerful CPU design to date. The Cortex-X1 was designed to deliver peak performance for premium device , such as flagship smartphones, laptops and gaming consoles. The Cortex-X1 was used in devices such as the Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra, the Xiaomi Mi 11, and the Google Pixel 6.
In 2021, Arm launched the Cortex-A78C processor , which was optimized for high-performance computing (HPC) applications. The Cortex-A78C featured up to eight CPU cores , a larger L3 cache, and support for ECC memory. The Cortex-A78C was used in devices such as the Samsung Galaxy Book Pro, the HP Elite Folio , and the Acer Chromebook Spin 513.
Microchip
In 2022, Arm unveiled the Cortex-A710 processor, which was its first big core to support the Armv9 architecture. The Cortex-A710 offered a 30% energy efficiency improvement over its predecessor, as well as enhanced security and ML features. The Cortex-A710 was used in devices such as the OnePlus 10 Pro, the Huawei MatePad Pro 2, and the Microsoft Surface Laptop Studio.
In 2023, Arm announced the Immortalis GPU family , which was its next-generation graphics solution that included hardware-based ray-tracing and variable rate shading capabilities . The Immortalis GPUs aimed to deliver realistic and immersive graphics for gaming, VR and AR applications on mobile devices . The Immortalis GPUs were used in devices such as the Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra , the Sony Xperia 1 IV, and the Oculus Quest 3.
Powerful world presence
Arm is a leading semiconductor and software design company that has revolutionized the computing industry with its innovative and efficient processor architectures. Arm’s processors power billions of devices across various domains, such as mobile, IoT, AI, HPC, and gaming. Arm has been at the forefront of technological advancements for over three decades, delivering performance, energy efficiency, and security to its customers and partners.
Arm is a subsidiary of SoftBank Group and has a massive global presence.
A new artificial intelligence (AI) road safety camera system has been deployed on the A30 near Launceston, Cornwall, by Devon and Cornwall Police.
The camera system uses AI to detect potential offences such as using mobile phones or not wearing seatbelts while driving. The camera system can capture ultra clear images of the car’s interior and send them to a human reviewer who can issue a warning letter or a notice of intended prosecution, depending on the severity of the offence.
Hundreds caught
The camera system is the first of its kind to be used in the UK and it has caught almost 300 drivers breaking the law in the first three days of its operation. The camera system is part of the Vision Zero South West project, which aims to reduce road deaths and serious injuries in Devon and Cornwall. The project conducted a 15-day trial of a similar vehicle-based system last year and detected 590 seat belt and 45 mobile phone offences across various roads in the two counties.
The police hope that the new technology will help deter drivers from using their phones or not wearing their seatbelts, which are both dangerous and illegal behaviours that put people’s lives at risk.
The road safety system is from tech’ firm Acusensus.
The police have reportedly said they are ‘disappointed’ by the number of people not wearing seatbelts orand using their mobile ‘phones when drving.
Amazon is one of the leading companies in the field of artificial intelligence (AI) and has been developing its own custom chips to power its AI applications and services.
Amazon’s AI chips are designed to perform tasks such as natural language processing, computer vision, speech recognition, and machine learning inference and training.
AI chips created by Amazon
AZ2: This is a processor built into the Echo Show 15 smart display and powers artificial intelligence tasks like understanding your voice commands and figuring out who is issuing those commands. The AZ2 chip also enables features such as visual ID, which can recognize faces and display personalized information on the screen.
Inferentia: This is a high-performance chip that Amazon launched to deliver low-cost and high-throughput inference for deep learning applications. Inferentia powers Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) Inf1 instances, which are optimized for running inference workloads on AWS. Inferentia also powers some of Amazon’s own services, such as Alexa, Rekognition, and SageMaker Neo.
Trainium: This is a chip that Amazon designed to provide high-performance and low-cost training for machine learning models. Trainium will power Amazon EC2 Inf2 instances, which are designed to train increasingly complex models, such as large language models and vision transformers. Trainium will also support scale-out distributed training with ultra-high-speed connectivity between accelerators.
Despite advancements is Amazon chasing to keep up?
Amazon is racing to catch up with Microsoft and Google in the field of generative AI, which is a branch of AI that can create new content or data from existing data. Generative AI can be used for applications such as natural language generation, image and video synthesis, text summarization, and personalization.
AI models from Amazon
Titan: This is a family of large language models (LLMs). Titan models can generate natural language texts for various domains and tasks, such as conversational agents, document summarization, product reviews, and more. Titan models are trained on a large and diverse corpus of text data from various sources, such as books, news articles, social media posts, and product descriptions.
Powerful chips for artificial intelligence (AI)
Bedrock: This is a service that Amazon created to help developers enhance their software using generative AI. Bedrock provides access to pre-trained Titan models and tools to customize them for specific use cases. Bedrock also allows developers to deploy their generative AI applications on AWS using Inferentia or Trainium chips.
Generative AI
Amazon’s CEO, Andy Jassy in the past said he thought of generative AI as having three macro layers: the compute, the models, and the applications. He said that Amazon is investing heavily in all three layers and that its custom chips are a key part of its strategy to provide high-performance and low-cost compute for generative AI. He also said that Amazon is not used to chasing markets but creating them, and that he believes Amazon has the best platform for generative AI in the world.
Inferentia and Trainium, offer AWS customers an alternative to training their large language models on Nvidia GPUs, which have been getting difficult and expensive to procure.
‘The entire world would like more chips for doing generative AI, whether that’s GPUs or whether that’s Amazon’s own chips that we’re designing’, Amazon Web Services CEO Adam Selipsky is reported to have said. ‘I think that we’re in a better position than anybody else on Earth to supply the capacity that our customers collectively are going to want’.
Fast actors
Yet others have acted faster, and invested more, to capture business from the generative AI boom. When OpenAI launched ChatGPT in November 2022, Microsoft gained widespread attention for hosting the chatbot, and investing a reportedly whopping $13 billion in OpenAI. It was quick to add the generative AI models to its own products, incorporating them into Bing in February 2023.
That same month, Google launched its own large language model, Bard, followed by a $300 million investment in OpenAI rival Anthropic.
AI Chat Bot robot
It wasn’t until April 2023 that Amazon announced its own family of large language models, called Titan, along with a service called Bedrock to help developers enhance software using generative AI.
Amazon is not used to chasing markets. Amazon is used to creating markets. And for the first time for some time, they find themselves on the back foot and working to play catch up.
And Meta?
Meta also recently released its own LLM, Llama 2. The open-source ChatGPT rival is now available for people to test on Microsoft’s Azure public cloud.
The U.S. cyber hacker challenge is a new initiative launched by the Biden administration in August 2023 to use artificial intelligence (AI) to protect critical U.S. infrastructure from cybersecurity risks.
The challenge will offer $20 million in prize money and includes collaboration from leading AI companies Anthropic, Google, Microsoft and OpenAI, who will make their technology available for the competition. The challenge was announced at the Black Hat USA hacking conference in Las Vegas.
The competition will consist of three stages
Qualifying event in the spring of 2024
Semifinal at DEF CON 2024
Final at DEF CON 2025
The competitors will be asked to use AI to secure vital software and open source their systems so that their solutions can be used widely (does that create a risk in itsellf)? The top three teams will be eligible for additional prizes, including a top prize of $4 million for the team that best secures vital software.
The challenge aims to explore what’s possible when experts in cybersecurity and AI have access to a suite of cross-company resources. The U.S. government hopes that the promise of AI can help further secure critical U.S. systems and protect Americans from future cyber attacks!
Limitations and risks using AI for security
However, there are flaws and drawbacks of using AI for cybersecurity, both for the attackers and the defenders.
Lack of transparency and explainability: AI systems are often complex and opaque, making it difficult to understand how they make decisions or what factors influence their outputs. This can lead to trust issues, ethical dilemmas, and legal liabilities.
Overreliance on AI: AI systems are not infallible and may make mistakes or produce false positives or negatives. Relying too much on AI, without human oversight or verification can result in missed threats, erroneous actions, or unintended consequences.
Bias and discrimination: AI systems may inherit or amplify human biases or prejudices that are present in the data, algorithms, or design of the systems. This can result in unfair or discriminatory outcomes, such as excluding certain groups of people from access to services or opportunities, or targeting them for malicious attacks.
Vulnerability to attacks: AI systems may be susceptible to adversarial attacks, such as data poisoning, model stealing, evasion, or exploitation. These attacks can compromise the integrity, availability, or confidentiality of the systems, or manipulate them to produce malicious outputs.
High cost: Developing and maintaining AI systems for cybersecurity requires a lot of resources, such as computing power, memory, data, and skilled personnel. These resources may not be easily accessible or affordable for many organizations or individual.
‘Well, what do you think of AI and cybersecurity sharing resources’? ‘Ha! playing right into our hands’.
These are some of the flaws of using AI for cybersecurity, but they are not insurmountable. With proper research, regulation, education, and collaboration, AI can be a powerful ally in enhancing cybersecurity and protecting against cyber threats – that is until it takes over, but that will never happen… will it?
The U.S. will ban American investment in some areas of China’s high-tech sector, including artificial intelligence, adding to strained relations between the two superpowers.
U.S. firms will also be invited to disclose what investments they make in China in high-tech sectors.The much-anticipated move gives the U.S. government new power to screen foreign dealings by private companies. The U.S. said the measure would be narrowly targeted. However, it is poised to further chill economic relations between the world’s two largest economies. China has reportedly said it was ‘very disappointed‘. The U.S. ‘has continuously escalated suppression and restrictions on China‘. He added that White House claims that the US was not seeking to hurt China’s economy or separate the two countries did not match its actions. ‘We urge the US side to honour its words‘.
Biden order
The order by U.S. President Biden formally kicks off the push to introduce rules to restrict, even prevent American businesses from investing in firms from ‘countries of concern‘ that are active in advanced semiconductors, quantum computing and certain areas of artificial intelligence.
The government will also require U.S. firms to notify the Treasury Department of investments in firms working on a wider range of artificial intelligence and semiconductor technology.
U.S. restriction on AI related tech knowledge to China
The rules are not expected to apply to ‘portfolio’ investments, in which firms invest passively in companies via the stock market, but are focused on active investments made by private equity and venture capital businesses. They will now enter a public ‘reflection’ period, which is expected to further clarify what kinds of investments are off-limits. The rules are not expected to go into effect for sometime yet. This new ‘order’ is quite a big deal.
In a briefing with reporters, senior administration officials said the measure was a ‘national security action, not an economic one‘. They said the U.S. remained committed to open investment.
Investment control
Controls on outbound investment are rare among advanced economies, currently present only in Japan and Korea, according to a 2022 report.
In the U.S., prior restrictions on China trade have relied on limiting sales of sensitive technology by U.S. firms and screening Chinese investments in American companies. The Trump administration had also barred investments in firms tied to China’s military.
The latest measure has widespread support in Washington, where it is seen as fixing a regulatory gap concerning financial flows that risks allowing American money and know-how to to flow into China.
International support
The U.S. has been trying to build international support for the investment curbs with some signs of success.
Prime Minister Rishi Sunak in May 2023 said the UK government would consider curbs on outbound investment; the European Commission put forward a proposal focused on investments in sensitive technologies earlier this summer. It is not clear how significantly the order would affect flows of investment.
China was the number two destination for foreign investment in 2022, behind the U.S., but many reports suggest money flowing into the country from the U.S. and elsewhere has dropped sharply as geopolitical relations sour. In the UK, a recent survey by the Institute of Directors found that one in five UK importers had already switched investments away from the country due to geopolitical tensions.
Gallium and Germanium considered critical elements required in the production of microchips
Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, who visited China in July 2023 in an attempt to ease tensions, said last month she did not think the coming curbs would have a fundamental impact on the investment climate in the country.
Will these measures likely damage the U.S. in the future by escalating issues and restricting the U.S. from other shared advancements in technology – only time will tell.
Tech’ rivalry
U.S. and China are two of the world’s leading powers in artificial intelligence (AI) and semiconductors, which are essential components for many AI applications such as self-driving cars, smart phones, and cloud computing. However, the two countries have also been engaged in a fierce competition and rivalry over these technologies, as they seek to gain an edge in innovation, security, and economic growth. Some of the issues that have caused tensions between U.S. and China include trade disputes, intellectual property theft, cyberattacks, human rights violations, and military expansion.
AI chips
AI semiconductors are designed to perform complex calculations and tasks that require high levels of intelligence, such as natural language processing, computer vision, and machine learning.
These chips can be classified into two types: general-purpose chips that can run various AI algorithms, and specialized chips that are optimized for specific AI functions or domains.
Meta Platforms, Inc. (Nasdaq: META), formerly known as Facebook, has seen its stock price soar in 2023, a straight nine month gain in a massive turnaround after a dismal performance in 2022.
Meta is the parent company of social media apps such as Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp and Messenger, as well as the Oculus VR headset and other ventures.
Year of efficiency
Meta’s founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg has declared 2023 as the ‘Year of Efficiency‘ for the company, as it tries to cut costs and streamline its operations. The company has also announced layoffs of about 10% of its workforce in 2022 and 2023, as part of its restructuring efforts.
Meta’s stock has almost doubled since January, making it among the top performers on the S&P 500. The company has also seen a boost in the number of daily active users on Facebook, reaching two billion as of the end of December 2022. Meta’s net worth is currently at $89.9 billion, making Zuckerberg the 12th wealthiest person on the planet, according to Bloomberg’s Billionaire Index.
Surge
Meta’s stock surge comes after a sharp decline in 2022, when the company faced regulatory scrutiny, public backlash and technical glitches over its plans to expand into the metaverse, a virtual reality world where people can interact with each other and through digital content.
Meta’s stock plummeted by over 60% last year, as Zuckerberg struggled to sell Wall Street on his vision for the future of social media.
Future
Meta is still betting on the metaverse as its long-term goal, and has been investing heavily in AI, VR and AR technologies. The company is reportedly working on a new social media app called ‘Instagram for your thoughts‘, which would allow users to share their thoughts and emotions using brain-computer interfaces.
The app could launch as soon as next month, according to latest reports.
According to a recent news article, Google says people should use its search engine to check whether information provided by Bard is actually accurate, as it may display inaccurate or offensive information that doesn’t represent Google’s views. Just Google views I wonder…?
Google’s UK boss Debbie Weinstein said Bard was not really the place that you go to search for specific information, but rather an experiment best suited for collaboration around problem solving and creating new ideas.
‘Just checking the answer with my search engine!’
Hallucinate
According to an Android Authority article, both Bard and ChatGPT can hallucinate or confidently lie when asked about obscure topics. Bard does offer a link to search results and will sometimes cite a source or two. However, Google states that Bard can even lie about its own inner workings so you cannot trust everything it says…?
Testing… 1… 2… 3…?
According to a report by Marie Haynes, Bard predicts it will generate accurate responses 85% of the time by September 2023, but in an experiment, it posted an accuracy score of 63%, meaning it had incorrect information in more than 1/3 of its responses
Early days, or habouring a problem for the future?
Elon Musk, the billionaire entrepreneur behind Tesla, SpaceX and Neuralink, has revealed his latest venture: xAI, a new artificial intelligence company that aims to “understand the true nature of the universe”.
Musk announced the formation of xAI on Wednesday on Twitter and on the company’s official website, which features a minimalist design and a brief introduction.
“Today we announce the formation of xAI,” the website states. “The goal of xAI is to understand the true nature of the universe.”
AI
The website also lists 12 members of the xAI team, including Musk himself as the director. The team consists of researchers and engineers who have worked at leading AI firms such as Google’s DeepMind, OpenAI, Microsoft Research and Tesla.
Power
It was reported that xAI was incorporated in Nevada in June 2023 and Musk has purchased thousands of graphic processing units (GPUs) to power his AI vision. The company also has a Twitter account, @xAI, which has gained over 300,000 followers in less than a day.
Musk invited the public to ask questions about xAI on a Twitter Space – this was scheduled for 1h. July 2023. He has not provided any further details about the company’s mission, vision or products.
However, based on Musk’s previous comments and involvement in AI, it is likely that xAI will focus on developing artificial general intelligence (AGI), or human-level intelligence that can perform any task across any domain.
AI Critic
Musk has been a vocal critic of OpenAI, the AI research organization that he co-founded in 2015 but left in 2018. He has accused OpenAI of becoming too secretive, too commercial and too “woke”, especially after the launch of its popular chatbot ChatGPT.
Musk has also expressed his concerns about the potential dangers of AI, warning that it could pose an existential threat to humanity if not aligned with human values and goals. He has advocated for ethical and responsible development of AI, as well as global cooperation and regulation.
With xAI, Musk may be trying to create an alternative to OpenAI that is more aligned with his vision and values. He may also be aiming to achieve breakthroughs in AI that could benefit his other ventures, such as Tesla’s self-driving cars, SpaceX’s reusable rockets and Neuralink’s brain-computer interfaces.
AI Robots at a bar
However, xAI will also face many challenges and uncertainties in its quest to understand reality. AI is a complex and rapidly evolving field that requires massive amounts of data, computing power and talent. It also raises many ethical, social and philosophical questions that are not easy to answer.
Moreover, xAI will have to compete with other established and emerging players in the AI space, such as Google, Facebook, Amazon, IBM, Microsoft and Meta. These companies have invested billions of dollars in AI research and development and have access to vast amounts of data and resources.
It remains to be seen whether xAI will be able to achieve its ambitious goal and how it will impact the AI industry and society at large.
Baidu said its AI system called Ernie 3.5 outperformed OpenAI’s ChatGPT and GPT4 in several key areas.
The Chat Bot was revealed in March 2023 and has since been publicly testing it in China. The chatbot is based on Baidu’s foundational AI model called ERNIE.
Baidu’s advancements underscore the intense competition taking place in the area of generative AI with technology giants in the US and China rapidly advancing their AI models.
ERNIE – Enhanced Language RepresentatioN with Informative Entities
US and China AI Bots go head to head
Ernie was first introduced in 2019, and since then, Baidu has been improving and upgrading it with new versions. The latest version, Ernie 3.5, was announced in June 2023, and it claims to outperform OpenAI’s ChatGPT and GPT 4 in several key areas
Baidu’s Ernie is an artificial intelligence (AI) model that powers the company’s chatbot service, Ernie Bot. Ernie stands for Enhanced Language RepresentatioN with Informative Entities, and it is a natural language processing (NLP) deep-learning model that can understand and generate natural language.
Trained on large data sets
Ernie 3.5 is based on Baidu’s foundational AI model, which is trained on huge amounts of data from various domains, such as news, social media, encyclopedias, books, and more. Ernie 3.5 can handle various NLP tasks, such as question answering, dialogue generation, text summarization, sentiment analysis, and more.
According to a test by the China Science Daily journal, Ernie 3.5 surpassed ChatGPT and GPT 4 in general abilities and outperformed the more advanced GPT 4 on several Chinese-language capabilities.
ERNIE version 3.5 boosted its training and efficiency, making it faster and cheaper to upgrade to future versions. Baidu hopes that ERNIE Bot will become the next must-have app in China’s internet market, attracting users because of its natural and engaging conversations.
Intergration
Baidu has been integrating ERNIE Bot across multiple business applications, ranging from cloud computing to smart speakers.
AI Chatbot
ERNIE Bot is one of the examples of how Baidu is investing in AI technology and competing with other tech giants in the US and China. Baidu’s founder Robin Li, reportedly said that ‘foundation models are an engine driving global economic growth and represent a major strategic opportunity that cannot be missed‘.
The major BIG players, Alphabet (Google), Microsoft & META all have their own versions of AI. Hopefully it will be used ‘intelligently’.
AI stands for Artificial Intelligence, which is the ability of machines to perform tasks that normally require human intelligence. AI can involve various aspects of cognition, such as perceiving, reasoning, learning, problem-solving, and even creativity.
Types of AI
AI can be classified into different types based on the level of intelligence and the scope of tasks that machines can perform. One common way to categorise AI is by using the following four types:
Narrow AI: This is the most common and basic type of AI, which refers to machines that can perform specific tasks very well, but cannot generalize to other domains or situations. Examples of narrow AI include speech recognition, face recognition, web search engines, recommendation systems, self-driving cars, and chess-playing programs.
General AI: This is the type of AI that aims to achieve human-like intelligence across a wide range of domains and tasks. General AI would be able to understand and learn from any kind of data, reason and solve problems, communicate and interact with humans, and exhibit common sense and creativity. However, general AI does not exist yet, and it is considered a long-term goal of AI research.
Super AI: This is the type of AI that would surpass human intelligence in all aspects, including speed, memory, knowledge, creativity, and wisdom. Super AI would be able to outperform humans in any task and domain, and potentially pose existential risks to humanity. Super AI is also a hypothetical concept that has not been achieved or proven yet.
Artificial neural networks: This is a type of AI that mimics the structure and function of biological neural networks, which are the basis of human brain activity. Artificial neural networks consist of layers of interconnected nodes that process information and learn from data. Artificial neural networks are widely used for various applications of AI, such as computer vision, natural language processing, machine learning, and deep learning.
Applications of AI
AI has many applications in various fields and industries, such as:
Healthcare: AI can help diagnose diseases, analyze medical images, design drugs, assist surgeries, monitor patients, and provide personalized care.
Education: AI can help personalize learning, assess students’ progress, provide feedback, tutor students, grade assignments, and create educational content.
Business: AI can help optimize operations, enhance customer service, automate tasks, analyze data, generate insights, improve decision making, and increase productivity.
Entertainment: AI can help create music, art, games, movies, and other forms of entertainment.
AI can also help recommend content to users based on their preferences and behaviour.
Security: AI can help detect threats, prevent cyberattacks, enhance surveillance, identify frauds, enforce laws, and protect privacy.
Social: AI can help communicate with humans through natural language processing and speech synthesis. AI can also help understand human emotions and behavior through sentiment analysis and facial expression recognition.
Challenges and limitations of AI
AI also faces many challenges and limitations that need to be addressed by researchers and users. Some of these include:
Ethical: AI raises many ethical issues such as bias, fairness, accountability, transparency, privacy, human dignity, and social impact. How can we ensure that AI is aligned with human values and does not harm humans or society?
Technical: AI still faces many technical challenges such as scalability, robustness, explainability, interpretability, generalization, and adversarial attacks. How can we improve the performance, reliability, and security of AI systems?
Societal: AI also has many societal implications such as employment, education, regulation, governance, and collaboration. How can we adapt to the changes and opportunities that AI brings to our lives, work, and society?
AI is here to stay – it’s all about how we use it for the betterment of ‘humankind’. Please, let’s use it safely, responsibly and for the good!
Big tech companies heavily involved in the development of AI products
