Daily Digest: Gemini Leaks

Plus: Poison Images and Goodbye from Reddit

October 24, 2023

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Daily Digest #269

Hello folks, here’s what we have today;

PICKS

  1. LEAK: Google has a secret AI tool - Google’s Gemini is the next awaited model in the AI space. But according to a leak, there might be a new tool called Stubbs on Google Makersuite for easily building basic AI prototype apps visually with no code required.🍿Our Summary (also below)

  2. Artists can poison AI models - A new tool called Nightshade allows artists to add invisible changes to the pixels in their art before posting it online. This "poisons" the images so they damage AI models if scraped for training data without permission.🍿Our Summary (also below)

  3. Reddit wants to block search crawlers - Reddit wants generative AI companies like OpenAI to pay for scraping Reddit content to train AI models. If deals aren't reached, Reddit may block search engine crawlers altogether (not just AI crawlers).🍿Our Summary (also below)

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NEWS
QUICK BITES

Google’s Gemini is the next awaited model in the AI space. But according to a leak, Gemini is not the only AI thing Google is working on at the moment. There might be a new tool called Stubbs on Google Makersuite for easily building basic AI prototype apps visually with no code required.

What is going on here?

Leaks show that Google will launch an AI app generator with its multimodal LLM Gemini.

What does this mean?

Stubbs could allow users to prototype AI apps with a visual builder. Publish, share and remix options are also in the leaked screenshots meaning you might be able to share prototypes and edit Stubbs shared by others.

Multimodal Gemini may power Makersuite and Google’s Vertex AI, before getting into Bard. It has an answer with an image option which might be generating images (or just including web images in its answers like Bard does). Another product Jetway, which might be just a sub-model of Gemini, could also be able to output HTML content.

Why should I care?

If you ask any developer building on top of LLMs, they’ll tell you that it’s way easier to work with Open AI’s API. The leaked images of Stubbs show a straightforward platform for creating GenAI apps. This could bring much-needed developer attention to Google’s AI models. Other than that, let’s wait because all of these are just leaks.

QUICK BITES

A new tool called Nightshade allows artists to add invisible changes to the pixels in their art before posting it online. This "poisons" the images so they damage AI models if scraped for training data without permission.

What is going on here?

Artists can now make their work AI-hostile to prevent AI companies from using it without consent.

What does this mean?

Nightshade exploits vulnerabilities in AI image models trained on vast scraped data. It alters uploaded art (without changing the visuals) to make models learn incorrect associations. For example, poisoned dog images could get models to output cats instead. This forces companies to find and remove every corrupted sample, which is challenging.

Poison spreads too - altering "fantasy art" also affects related concepts like "dragons". Larger models need more poisoned data for major damage. The researchers behind Nightshade claim it tips the power balance back towards artists.

Why should I care?

From one POV, Nightshade might pressure AI companies to respect artist rights and pay royalties. Artists can now confidently share work publicly again.

But somewhere at the back of my mind, this also feels like adding spikes to the road, so cars can’t drive. Bad data samples can decrease the model performance significantly.

But the implications are clear - data models can no longer rely on good old scraping to get data. If they do, they are shooting themselves in the foot.

QUICK BITES

Reddit is considering blocking Google and Bing's web crawlers from accessing its content, in an effort to get AI companies to pay for using Reddit data.

Reddit wants generative AI companies like OpenAI to pay for scraping Reddit content to train AI models. If deals aren't reached, Reddit may block search engine crawlers altogether (not just AI crawlers).

What is going on here?

Reddit may block Google and Bing from crawling its content if it can't reach deals with AI companies to pay for scraping Reddit data.

What does this mean?

This would mean Reddit posts and comments would no longer show up in Google or Bing search results. When Reddit communities went private in protest over API changes - many Reddit results in Google just linked to private communities. Blocking crawlers would create a similar effect, making Reddit content unavailable through search engines.

While previous Reddit API pricing changes impacted third-party Reddit apps, the company framed those changes as a way to get AI companies to pay for training data. Blocking crawlers feels like another tactic to achieve that same goal of monetizing Reddit data used for AI training.

Why should I care?

Reddit is one of the most visited websites globally, so no longer having Reddit results in web searches would be a major shift in how folks find information online. You all who use "site:reddit.com", pack up, hacker days might be over.

The question for Reddit is: how much of its traffic comes from search engines and how much do users like using it by directly logging into the app? Beyond traffic sources, no search for Reddit might break the content flywheel of the site.

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