Daily Digest: Giants takeover

PLUS: Do you think like AI?

February 21, 2024

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Hello folks, here’s what we have today;

PICKS

  1. Gemini Advanced can now run Python code without having to copy-paste into Colab, or your IDE. You can also edit the code within Gemini’s sandbox.

  2. Adobe announces its own “chat with PDF”. Finally, we covered that Adobe’s working on one in early December. It’s called AI assistant in Acrobat and launched in beta for paying users.🍿More deets (also below)

  3. Scale AI signs a 1-year contract with the Pentagon. Scale AI will help build tools that test and evaluate LLMs and their performance in different domains for defence officials.🍿Our Summary (also below)

  4. Llamaindex is launching two new features:

    • LlamaCloud - Managed parsing, ingestion, and retrieval services to build production-grade applications.

    • LlamaParse - State-of-the-art parsing for complex documents with embedded tables and figures.

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NEWS

Raise n Praise:

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Next Moves:

Deeper Look:

QUICK BITES

At this point chat with PDF tools are the “Hello World” of GenAI apps. So, I asked Adobe’s Scott Belsky in December: why isn’t Adobe on that train? And he replied: already in beta.

Well, now Adobe announced it officially: Meet AI assistant in Acrobat (still in beta).

What is going on here?

Adobe announced its AI assistant in Acrobat, a way to chat with your documents.

What does this mean?

Similar to the other apps where you can use AI to chat with your documents, you can:

  • Get quick section-wise summaries of your documents. Makes going through them easier.

  • Ask questions based on your documents and the assistant replies. Answers are based on your document and cite where it got that info from.

  • Create content from that document's context: emails, key takeaways, meeting notes etc. AI assistant helps you do that too.

Keep in mind that Beta = Limitations. Big files, password protection, and scanned PDFs aren't supported yet. It works in English and on desktop only. Currently AI assistant is free to try for Acrobat subscribers but this will be an add-on subscription once it's generally available.

But instead of sharing your documents with third-party apps, AI assistant works within Adobe’s Acrobat app (coming soon the Reader app). And Adobe is stressing they don't store your data for training and follow responsible practices. Although, they don’t mention whose LLMs they are using. OpenAI? Google? Their own?

Why should I care?

I know the pain of uploading PDFs to AI apps, so getting AI features natively into the default apps is nice. It’s still a beta version. I can understand. If it says anything wrong, (which it likely will) Adobe comes in the line of fire.

Another POV is that big companies hold their PDFs close to heart. The trust is hard to come by. So when big players like Adobe, which they are likely already using come in with AI features, these companies also get on board.

Just like Firefly’s V1 (Adobe’s image generation tool), this doesn’t look the best of what’s out there but you can expect more features and upgrades soon.

QUICK BITES

The Pentagon teaming up with Scale AI to get serious about AI, specifically, the new large language models that write like humans. They're trying to figure out how to actually test and evaluate these LLMs for military use.

What is going on here?

Scale AI is basically building the ultimate AI exam for the Pentagon. They want to know what these models are good at, where they fall short, and how they can be reliably used in military stuff.

What does this mean?

Think of it like an AI driver's license. Scale AI is making a test filled with military lingo and scenarios to see if these AI models understand the specifics of warfighting (and other domains).

They're collecting real feedback from military folks. It's not just about accuracy, it's about whether the AI's output feels useful and relevant to those on the ground.

The goal is automated red flags. Ultimately, they want these AI models to be self-aware enough to signal when they're straying outside their expertise.

Why should I care?

The military is where a lot of cutting-edge tools get their start, especially evaluation, monitoring and that sort of stuff. Tech that works for the Pentagon eventually trickles down to common people and plays a role in how rules and regulations are shaped.

Evaluating generative AI is tricky. But this project shows that the Pentagon is taking it seriously. They're trying to build the testing ground for these AI models and get a sense of how future efforts should be shaped.

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