Fast Company’s Post

This interview holds greater significance than it may initially appear. At its core, it addresses fundamental questions about the role and nature of artificial intelligence (AI) in our lives: What do we want AI to do? Nadella’s insights provide a nuanced perspective on the future of human-AI interaction, emphasizing the necessity of maintaining clear boundaries and realistic expectations regarding AI capabilities. Are we, however, effectively maintaining these boundaries? And is it necessary to do so? Nadella does not endorse the term "Artificial Intelligence." Nonetheless, the term underscores the importance of understanding AI as a system designed to achieve similar outcomes to human efforts, albeit through different mechanisms. Nadella suggests that a more fitting term might be "different intelligence," highlighting the complementary nature of AI in relation to human cognition. What are your thoughts on this? The trust and safety issues inadvertently showcased this week represent an entirely separate conversation. While I am intrigued by the technology, there is also the issue of access to a vast trove of personal data.

Is Microsoft's new mini-LLM the real deal? Or more fluff? The newly released Phi-2 claims to beat Llama 2, Mistral, Gemini Nano, and others in benchmarks. But we've seen many companies (ahem, Google!) exaggerate their claims and manipulate scores. Microsoft claims that Phi-2 is special because it is smaller and can be deployed with less resources. What do the experts out there think? (it is currently not available for commercial use, only experimental. Enjoy my content? Join my newsletter: https://lnkd.in/dHZUWMet

The SAMMO approach recently announced by Microsoft is fascinating. It introduces a compiler-like method that represents prompts as graphs (with nodes and edges) and optimizes them, which is an intriguing approach. https://lnkd.in/gCVnmK_c

Here a very interesting paper from Microsoft researchers about a framework ("AutoGen) that makes it easier to develop LLM applications by using multiple agents that can converse with each other to solve tasks. It is like a team of experts who can work together to solve complex problems. Each expert has its own strengths and weaknesses, but together they can achieve more than any one expert could on their own. The possibilities are endless! https://lnkd.in/gnDZSmud

Microsoft Researchers Introduce a Theoretical Framework Using Variational Bayesian Theory Incorporating a Bayesian Intention Variable In decision-making, habitual behavior has always been seen as separate from goal-directed behavior. Habitual behaviors are automatic responses, deeply ingrained through experience. Like riding a bike or reaching for your coffee cup in the morning, t... https://lnkd.in/em7gfw4G #AI #ML #Automation

Real-time chatbots, visual content, talking heads, and AI are just a few buzzwords taking over the tech industry. Microsoft's AI research is also leading the charge. But with great power comes great responsibility. As impressive as these advancements are, they also have the potential to be used for identity spoofing scams. It's essential to keep a watchful eye on these developments and stay informed about the risks. #realtimechatbots #visualcontent #talkingheads #AI #microsoft #AIresearch

🚨 Important Update for Microsoft 365 Users! 🚨 Covenant Technology Solutions, Inc. Microsoft expert Mike Hughes shares why #Microsoft is removing #NaturalLanguageSearch from Microsoft 365. This change is part of the shift towards #GenerativeAI and #semanticsearch, enhancing how we access information. Key Points: - Evolution of Search: From keywords to GenAI. - Strategic Shift: Building a semantic index for all Microsoft 365 tenants. - Broader Impact: Improved search and smart device interactions. Discover how these advancements will shape your Microsoft 365 experience. 👉 Read Mike's blog post here: https://bit.ly/3Vcr9kM and stay informed! #Microsoft365 #TechUpdate #GenAI #Innovation #MikeHughes #CTS

Here’s a probable outcome if/when Sam Altman and hundreds of OpenAI employees join Microsoft: 1. More efficient use of resources; fewer hardware constraints, accelerating AI development. 2. Integration into MS tools with existing vendor relationships at heavily regulated companies, enabling smoother adoption of AI solutions across enterprises. 3. Combination of tier one AI talent, near limitless resources, and relative autonomy of the new subsidiary will lead Microsoft to win the AGI race. Contrary to what I thought on Friday afternoon, this move could accelerate the adoption of AI everywhere.

Microsoft’s VASA-1 is a groundbreaking AI framework designed to generate lifelike talking faces from a single static image and a speech audio clip. Here’s a detailed description of its benefits and challenges: Benefits of VASA-1: a) Realism and Liveliness: VASA-1 produces hyper-realistic talking face videos with precise lip-audio synchronization and captures a wide spectrum of emotions, facial nuances, and natural head movements. This contributes to a perception of authenticity and liveliness that is unparalleled in current technologies. b) Controllability: The model accepts optional signals as conditions, such as main eye gaze direction, head distance, and emotion offsets. This allows for the generation of talking faces under different scenarios and emotional states, providing a high degree of control over the generated content c) Out-of-Distribution Generalization: VASA-1 can handle inputs that are out of the training distribution, such as artistic photos, singing audios, and non-English speech. This demonstrates the robustness and versatility of the model. d) Disentanglement: The latent representation in VASA-1 disentangles appearance, 3D head pose, and facial dynamics. This enables separate attribute control and editing of the generated content, allowing for more creative and precise applications. e) Real-Time Performance: The system supports the online generation of 512x512 videos at up to 40 FPS with negligible starting latency. This makes it suitable for real-time engagements with lifelike avatars that emulate human conversational behaviors. e) Positive Applications: VASA-1 has the potential to enhance educational experiences, assist people with communication challenges, provide companionship, and offer therapeutic support. It can enrich digital communication and increase accessibility for those with communicative impairments. Challenges of VASA-1: a) Ethical Considerations: With the ability to create realistic talking faces, there is a potential for misuse in creating deepfakes or spreading misinformation. It’s crucial to develop ethical guidelines and use cases to prevent harmful applications. b) Technical Limitations: While VASA-1 is advanced, there may still be technical challenges in achieving perfect realism, especially in diverse and complex real-world scenarios where the model might encounter limitations. c) Computational Resources: The generation of high-quality, real-time videos requires significant computational power, which might not be accessible to all users. This could limit the widespread adoption of the technology. Data Privacy: As with any AI system that processes personal data, there are concerns about privacy and the secure handling of the images and audio clips used to generate the talking faces. https://lnkd.in/gntHbXbV

These kinds of statements are ones everyone aught to pay attention too. Exponential growth. Not slowing down. For starters the idea that “this is the worst these model will ever be” really is true if one of the leading model developers (with enormous amounts of access to compute) doesn’t see the ceiling anywhere near. For second, if you are in the camp of “I don’t need to use these tools” or “my business doesn’t really have a use” then you will be left behind. The writing the on the wall here, compute is increasing and we aren’t getting to the point of diminishing returns which means models only get more powerful and smarter. You can use the tools. Figure it out. You can be more efficient. Figure it out. Start now Start free But please just start today!