Google goes all in AI

PLUS: major update for Ben's Bites, unofficial AI launch day

May 11, 2023

Hey folks, looks like everyone just decided to launch everything all together. Google’s IO launches, Langchain with new agents, Scale AI with new platforms. Join others like Airtable and Raycast, adding AI to their tools.

We thought we should join an 🥁🥁Now everyone can post on Ben’s Bites News🥁🥁.

Let’s get to the good stuff then.

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🤌 Our Picks

Highlights if you've only got 2 minutes

It’s big time we find out what Google has been up to whilst OpenAI and others have been slaving over language models. There was so much going on inthe Google IO yesterday, that we’ve decided to do a Google special today, so strap in…

1/

PaLM2 is now their latest publically unveiled model. According to them, it’s better at reasoning, maths, and logic, and in many cases, also does better than OpenAI’s GPT-4. You can check the technical report if you fancy that.

Well, for coding according to Mark, it’s frequently better than ChatGPT (and yes, that’s with GPT-4).

As with all LLMs, it comes in different sizes, which are weirdly named after animal constellations: Gecko, Otter, Bison, and Unicorn. A new multimodal LLM called Gemini is under training, don’t know when that’ll come.

2/

Let’s talk about Bard—Google’s equivalent of ChatGPT, it is officially available for everyone to use, so no more boring waitlists. Bard will also start running on PaLM 2 now.

In Bard announcements, there is a clear theme of exporting. Export to Google Docs, to Sheets, to Replit, to Gmail, and more. And trust me, I’ve never heard a better cheer from the crowd than I did for dark mode in Bard.

Taking on the ChatGPT plugins, they are bringing “tools” to Bard. Things like show places on Maps, input with images and creating images with Adobe Firefly. Who saw this coming?

3/

The next thing for us (and the main thing for Google) is search. That’s where the $$ are. Google is adding an AI snapshot that answers your query taking content from top links. Just like the featured snippet sections but bigger and expandable. Traditional links below that, sponsored ads above that.

You can ask follow-up questions through the snapshot, which takes you into conversation mode. There was a live demo of this and the presenter was happy this time the demo didn’t cause a $100B stock crash.

4/

Enter Workspace AI sidekick (called Duet AI). It has automatic prompt suggestions. It can do a shedload of things like text to tables in Sheets, find info in Gmail threads, and create images in Slides. Another one is help me write in Gmail and Docs. Similar prompt box that writes what you want, in different lengths.

These are big imo because it kills all those Gmail extensions, chat with document apps. No one cares about giving Google their data, but they care about giving a new tool that data. Check out this link for loads more info on this.

5/

A whole bunch of other stuff

I’ve completely lost track at this point and have run out of snappy category headers, but hey ho.

Oh and TechCrunch, if you wanna chuck us some money for all the clicks you’re gonna be getting from today’s email then we won’t say no!

🛠️ Cool Tools

Product launches, updates and demos

  • Transformer Agents from HuggingFace - A natural language API for talking to Transformers and Diffusers. (link)

  • Ask, imagine, guess - Guess what image is that by asking questions to an AI. (link)

  • Recipease - An AI powered iOS recipe app. (link)

  • Hear hear - Transform your meetings into actionable insights. (link)

  • Openlayer - Test, fix, and improve your ML models. (link)

  • Blubi - Securely store and intelligently remix your social content. (link)

  • Raycast Pro - Unlock a new level of productivity with AI, cloud sync and more. (link)

  • Centenarian - Unlock greatness with personalised sleep coaching for optimal energy, focus & longevity. (link)

  • DataSquirrel - Fastest way to get from csv/xls to dashboard report. (link)

  • YOYA - Build your own personalized generative AI apps without code. (link)

  • PDF AI - Chat with any document from legal agreements to financial reports. (link)

🤓 Miscellaneous

News, podcasts, videos, blogs etc

  • LeMUR from Assembly AI - Leveraging large language models to understand recognised speech. (link)

  • Scale AI launches Donovan and EGP, two new platforms for defence and enterprise AI. (link)

  • Interview with Sam Altman about AI risk and OpenAI's success. (link)

  • Airtable AI makes modern AI accessible across the enterprise. (link)

  • The AI friend zone with Reid Hoffman and Mustafa Suleyman. (link)

  • Plan and execute agents in Langchain for more complex long term planning. (link)

  • Learnings exploring the GPT/ LLM space. (link)

  • The moral machine - Could AI outshine us in ethical decision-making? (link)

  • The leverage of LLMs for individuals. (link)

  • GPT-4’s maze navigation - A deep dive into react agent and LLM’s thoughts. (link)

  • China has its DrakeGPT moment as AI singer goes viral. (link)

  • AI2 incubator’s new $30M fund triples down on early stage AI startups. (link)

  • HumanRF: High-fidelity neural radiance fields for humans in motion. (link)

  • Sam Altman plans to testify to Congress on May 16 about AI oversight. (link)

🎓 Learn

How-to’s and resources

👋 Too many links?! I created a database for all links mentioned in these emails. Refer 1 friend using this link and I'll send over the link database.

📰 Unclassifieds

Short, sponsored links 

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