AI: Weekly Summary

Feb 03, 2024

Welcome to the Saturday weekly AI summary here on ‘AI: Reset to Zero’.

FRIDAY WEEK OF FEBRUARY 2, 2024

Big Tech AI driven Earnings Season Momentum continues: Meta took the investor crown with its quarterly results, with the stock up almost 20%, with Amazon also seeing a double digit positive reaction. Microsoft, logged some gains initially post announcement gains, but gave them up later in the wee. Apple and Google had modestly muted reactions, Apple for weakness in China, and Google for continued concerns on AI impact on its Search business. Lots in the weeds to parse for each of the ‘Magnificent 7’, but overall, the AI sentiment tailwind continue. My deeper take on Microsoft and Google results here.

Apple Vision Pro Reactions: Overall feedback on Apple’s Vision Pro ‘Spatial Computing’ platform launch was mostly positive, in both the written and video reviews of the product. On the plus side, the uniquely immersive experience of web browsing, working on large virtual screens, and watching movies registered high. Indeed many reviewers noted how going back to these activities on regular computers and smartphones was like stepping back to a far duller experience. On the negative side of course were the price and weight of the device, and the relatively small initial impact expected on Apple’s business in the early years. Vanity Fair did a profile on Tim Cook with him wearing the device on the cover. My takes on Vision Pro significance for Apple in the longer term here.

Amazon plans a Generative AI multimodal shopping experience: Amazon announced Rufus, a Generative AI driven shopping experience with a conversational context. It’s designed to help in both pre-purchase and follow up shopping experiences. An example of mainstream online experiences being augmented with LLM AI. Consistent with other shopping sites like Shopify and others rolling out AI powered tools and AI search features for their customers as well.

Meta CodeLlama launched: Meta introduced open-source LLM Code Llama, an AI tool for coders, based on a code-specialized version of its popular Llama-2. It’s being released in three sizes as well, with 7, 13, and 34 billion parameters. It’s designed to close the gap with GPT-4 driven tools like Microsoft’s Copilot for Github and others, with strong metrics vs competitors. AI based coding tools is seeing high traction with millions or developers, and remains one of the strongest early application areas for LLM Ai models.

EU AI Act sees vote to confirm the final text of draft law: The EU AI Act crossed another milestone to passage with this vote, following the political agreement reached in December. Next steps now include the European Parliament getting a final vote on the compromise text. There remain a number of outstanding issues and likely months before passage into law. Industry reactions, including from European AI company Mistral and others, still need to be factored into the final versions. Europe remains ahead of other jurisdictions on AI regulations and oversight. Mistral remains a key example of France’s ambitions for AI leadership.

AI: Reset to Zero