ThursdAI - The top AI news from the past week

By: From Weights & Biases Join AI Evangelist Alex Volkov and a panel of experts to cover everything important that happened in the world of AI from the past week
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  • Summary

  • Every ThursdAI, Alex Volkov hosts a panel of experts, ai engineers, data scientists and prompt spellcasters on twitter spaces, as we discuss everything major and important that happened in the world of AI for the past week. Topics include LLMs, Open source, New capabilities, OpenAI, competitors in AI space, new LLM models, AI art and diffusion aspects and much more.

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    Alex Volkov
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Episodes
  • 📆 ThursdAI - Oct 3 - OpenAI RealTime API, ChatGPT Canvas & other DevDay news (how I met Sam Altman), Gemini 1.5 8B is basically free, BFL makes FLUX 1.1 6x faster, Rev breaks whisper records...

    📆 ThursdAI - Oct 3 - OpenAI RealTime API, ChatGPT Canvas & other DevDay news (how I met Sam Altman), Gemini 1.5 8B is basically free, BFL makes FLUX 1.1 6x faster, Rev breaks whisper records...
    Oct 4 2024
    Hey, it's Alex. Ok, so mind is officially blown. I was sure this week was going to be wild, but I didn't expect everyone else besides OpenAI to pile on, exactly on ThursdAI. Coming back from Dev Day (number 2) and am still processing, and wanted to actually do a recap by humans, not just the NotebookLM one I posted during the keynote itself (which was awesome and scary in a "will AI replace me as a podcaster" kind of way), and was incredible to have Simon Willison who was sitting just behind me most of Dev Day, join me for the recap! But then the news kept coming, OpenAI released Canvas, which is a whole new way of interacting with chatGPT, BFL released a new Flux version that's 8x faster, Rev released a Whisper killer ASR that does diarizaiton and Google released Gemini 1.5 Flash 8B, and said that with prompt caching (which OpenAI now also has, yay) this will cost a whopping 0.01 / Mtok. That's 1 cent per million tokens, for a multimodal model with 1 million context window. 🤯 This whole week was crazy, as last ThursdAI after finishing the newsletter I went to meet tons of folks at the AI Tinkerers in Seattle, and did a little EvalForge demo (which you can see here) and wanted to share EvalForge with you as well, it's early but very promising so feedback and PRs are welcome! WHAT A WEEK, TL;DR for those who want the links and let's dive in 👇 * OpenAI - Dev Day Recap (Alex, Simon Willison)* Recap of Dev Day* RealTime API launched* Prompt Caching launched* Model Distillation is the new finetune* Finetuning 4o with images (Skalski guide)* Fireside chat Q&A with Sam* Open Source LLMs * NVIDIA finally releases NVML (HF)* This weeks Buzz* Alex discussed his demo of EvalForge at the AI Tinkers event in Seattle in "This Week's Buzz". (Demo, EvalForge, AI TInkerers)* Big Companies & APIs* Google has released Gemini Flash 8B - 0.01 per million tokens cached (X, Blog)* Voice & Audio* Rev breaks SOTA on ASR with Rev ASR and Rev Diarize (Blog, Github, HF)* AI Art & Diffusion & 3D* BFL relases Flux1.1[pro] - 3x-6x faster than 1.0 and higher quality (was 🫐) - (Blog, Try it)The day I met Sam Altman / Dev Day recapLast Dev Day (my coverage here) was a "singular" day in AI for me, given it also had the "keep AI open source" with Nous Research and Grimes, and this Dev Day I was delighted to find out that the vibe was completely different, and focused less on bombastic announcements or models, but on practical dev focused things. This meant that OpenAI cherry picked folks who actively develop with their tools, and they didn't invite traditional media, only folks like yours truly, @swyx from Latent space, Rowan from Rundown, Simon Willison and Dan Shipper, you know, newsletter and podcast folks who actually build! This also allowed for many many OpenAI employees who work on the products and APIs we get to use, were there to receive feedback, help folks with prompting, and just generally interact with the devs, and build that community. I want to shoutout my friends Ilan (who was in the keynote as the strawberry salesman interacting with RealTime API agent), Will DePue from the SORA team, with whom we had an incredible conversation about ethics and legality of projects, Christine McLeavey who runs the Audio team, with whom I shared a video of my daughter crying when chatGPT didn't understand her, Katia, Kevin and Romain on the incredible DevEx/DevRel team and finally, my new buddy Jason who does infra, and was fighting bugs all day and only joined the pub after shipping RealTime to all of us. I've collected all these folks in a convenient and super high signal X list here so definitely give that list a follow if you'd like to tap into their streamsFor the actual announcements, I've already covered this in my Dev Day post here (which was payed subscribers only, but is now open to all) and Simon did an incredible summary on his Substack as well The highlights were definitely the new RealTime API that let's developers build with Advanced Voice Mode, Prompt Caching that will happen automatically and reduce all your long context API calls by a whopping 50% and finetuning of models that they are rebranding into Distillation and adding new tools to make it easier (including Vision Finetuning for the first time!)Meeting Sam AltmanWhile I didn't get a "media" pass or anything like this, and didn't really get to sit down with OpenAI execs (see Swyx on Latent Space for those conversations), I did have a chance to ask Sam multiple things. First at the closing fireside chat between Sam and Kevin Weil (CPO at OpenAI), Kevin first asked Sam a bunch of questions, and then they gave out the microphones to folks, and I asked the only question that got Sam to smileSam and Kevin went on for a while, and that Q&A was actually very interesting, so much so, that I had to recruit my favorite Notebook LM podcast hosts, to go through it and give you an overview, so here's that Notebook LM, with the transcript of the whole Q&A (maybe i'll ...
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    1 hr and 45 mins
  • OpenAI Dev Day 2024 keynote

    OpenAI Dev Day 2024 keynote
    Oct 1 2024
    Hey, Alex here. Super quick, as I’m still attending Dev Day, but I didn’t want to leave you hanging (if you're a paid subscriber!), I have decided to outsource my job and give the amazing podcasters of NoteBookLM the whole transcript of the opening keynote of OpenAI Dev Day.You can see a blog of everything they just posted hereHere’s a summary of all what was announced:* Developer-Centric Approach: OpenAI consistently emphasized the importance of developers in their mission to build beneficial AGI. The speaker stated, "OpenAI's mission is to build AGI that benefits all of humanity, and developers are critical to that mission... we cannot do this without you."* Reasoning as a New Frontier: The introduction of the GPT-4 series, specifically the "O1" models, marks a significant step towards AI with advanced reasoning capabilities, going beyond the limitations of previous models like GPT-3.* Multimodal Capabilities: OpenAI is expanding the potential of AI applications by introducing multimodal capabilities, particularly focusing on real-time speech-to-speech interaction through the new Realtime API.* Customization and Fine-Tuning: Empowering developers to customize models is a key theme. OpenAI introduced Vision for fine-tuning with images and announced easier access to fine-tuning with model distillation tools.* Accessibility and Scalability: OpenAI demonstrated a commitment to making AI more accessible and cost-effective for developers through initiatives like price reductions, prompt caching, and model distillation tools.Important Ideas and Facts:1. The O1 Models:* Represent a shift towards AI models with enhanced reasoning capabilities, surpassing previous generations in problem-solving and logical thought processes.* O1 Preview is positioned as the most powerful reasoning model, designed for complex problems requiring extended thought processes.* O1 Mini offers a faster, cheaper, and smaller alternative, particularly suited for tasks like code debugging and agent-based applications.* Both models demonstrate advanced capabilities in coding, math, and scientific reasoning.* OpenAI highlighted the ability of O1 models to work with developers as "thought partners," understanding complex instructions and contributing to the development process.Quote: "The shift to reasoning introduces a new shape of AI capability. The ability for our model to scale and correct the process is pretty mind-blowing. So we are resetting the clock, and we are introducing a new series of models under the name O1."2. Realtime API:* Enables developers to build real-time AI experiences directly into their applications using WebSockets.* Launches with support for speech-to-speech interaction, leveraging the technology behind ChatGPT's advanced voice models.* Offers natural and seamless integration of voice capabilities, allowing for dynamic and interactive user experiences.* Showcased the potential to revolutionize human-computer interaction across various domains like driving, education, and accessibility.Quote: "You know, a lot of you have been asking about building amazing speech-to-speech experiences right into your apps. Well now, you can."3. Vision, Fine-Tuning, and Model Distillation:* Vision introduces the ability to use images for fine-tuning, enabling developers to enhance model performance in image understanding tasks.* Fine-tuning with Vision opens up opportunities in diverse fields such as product recommendations, medical imaging, and autonomous driving.* OpenAI emphasized the accessibility of these features, stating that "fine-tuning with Vision is available to every single developer."* Model distillation tools facilitate the creation of smaller, more efficient models by transferring knowledge from larger models like O1 and GPT-4.* This approach addresses cost concerns and makes advanced AI capabilities more accessible for a wider range of applications and developers.Quote: "With distillation, you take the outputs of a large model to supervise, to teach a smaller model. And so today, we are announcing our own model distillation tools."4. Cost Reduction and Accessibility:* OpenAI highlighted its commitment to lowering the cost of AI models, making them more accessible for diverse use cases.* Announced a 90% decrease in cost per token since the release of GPT-3, emphasizing continuous efforts to improve affordability.* Introduced prompt caching, automatically providing a 50% discount for input tokens the model has recently processed.* These initiatives aim to remove financial barriers and encourage wider adoption of AI technologies across various industries.Quote: "Every time we reduce the price, we see new types of applications, new types of use cases emerge. We're super far from the price equilibrium. In a way, models are still too expensive to be bought at massive scale."Conclusion:OpenAI DevDay conveyed a strong message of developer empowerment and a commitment to pushing the boundaries of AI capabilities. With ...
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    6 mins
  • 📅 ThursdAI - Sep 26 - 🔥 Llama 3.2 multimodal & meta connect recap, new Gemini 002, Advanced Voice mode & more AI news

    📅 ThursdAI - Sep 26 - 🔥 Llama 3.2 multimodal & meta connect recap, new Gemini 002, Advanced Voice mode & more AI news
    Sep 26 2024
    Hey everyone, it's Alex (still traveling!), and oh boy, what a week again! Advanced Voice Mode is finally here from OpenAI, Google updated their Gemini models in a huge way and then Meta announced MultiModal LlaMas and on device mini Llamas (and we also got a "better"? multimodal from Allen AI called MOLMO!)From Weights & Biases perspective, our hackathon was a success this weekend, and then I went down to Menlo Park for my first Meta Connect conference, full of news and updates and will do a full recap here as well. ThursdAI - Recaps of the most high signal AI weekly spaces is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.Overall another crazy week in AI, and it seems that everyone is trying to rush something out the door before OpenAI Dev Day next week (which I'll cover as well!) Get ready, folks, because Dev Day is going to be epic!TL;DR of all topics covered: * Open Source LLMs * Meta llama 3.2 Multimodal models (11B & 90B) (X, HF, try free)* Meta Llama 3.2 tiny models 1B & 3B parameters (X, Blog, download)* Allen AI releases MOLMO - open SOTA multimodal AI models (X, Blog, HF, Try It)* Big CO LLMs + APIs* OpenAI releases Advanced Voice Mode to all & Mira Murati leaves OpenAI * Google updates Gemini 1.5-Pro-002 and 1.5-Flash-002 (Blog)* This weeks Buzz * Our free course is LIVE - more than 3000 already started learning how to build advanced RAG++* Sponsoring tonights AI Tinkerers in Seattle, if you're in Seattle, come through for my demo* Voice & Audio* Meta also launches voice mode (demo)* Tools & Others* Project ORION - holographic glasses are here! (link)Meta gives us new LLaMas and AI hardwareLLama 3.2 Multimodal 11B and 90BThis was by far the biggest OpenSource release of this week (tho see below, may not be the "best"), as a rumored released finally came out, and Meta has given our Llama eyes! Coming with 2 versions (well 4 if you count the base models which they also released), these new MultiModal LLaMas were trained with an adapter architecture, keeping the underlying text models the same, and placing a vision encoder that was trained and finetuned separately on top. LLama 90B is among the best open-source mutlimodal models available— Meta team at launchThese new vision adapters were trained on a massive 6 Billion images, including synthetic data generation by 405B for questions/captions, and finetuned with a subset of 600M high quality image pairs. Unlike the rest of their models, the Meta team did NOT claim SOTA on these models, and the benchmarks are very good but not the best we've seen (Qwen 2 VL from a couple of weeks ago, and MOLMO from today beat it on several benchmarks) With text-only inputs, the Llama 3.2 Vision models are functionally the same as the Llama 3.1 Text models; this allows the Llama 3.2 Vision models to be a drop-in replacement for Llama 3.1 8B/70B with added image understanding capabilities.Seems like these models don't support multi image or video as well (unlike Pixtral for example) nor tool use with images. Meta will also release these models on meta.ai and every other platform, and they cited a crazy 500 million monthly active users of their AI services across all their apps 🤯 which marks them as the leading AI services provider in the world now. Llama 3.2 Lightweight Models (1B/3B)The additional and maybe more exciting thing that we got form Meta was the introduction of the small/lightweight models of 1B and 3B parameters. Trained on up to 9T tokens, and distilled / pruned from larger models, these are aimed for on-device inference (and by device here we mean from laptops to mobiles to soon... glasses? more on this later) In fact, meta released an IOS demo, that runs these models, takes a group chat, summarizes and calls the calendar tool to schedule based on the conversation, and all this happens on device without the info leaving to a larger model. They have also been able to prune down the LLama-guard safety model they released to under 500Mb and have had demos of it running on client side and hiding user input on the fly as the user types something bad!Interestingly, here too, the models were not SOTA, even in small category, with tiny models like Qwen 2.5 3B beating these models on many benchmarks, but they are outlining a new distillation / pruning era for Meta as they aim for these models to run on device, eventually even glasses (and some said Smart Thermostats)In fact they are so tiny, that the communtiy quantized them, released and I was able to download these models, all while the keynote was still going! Here I am running the Llama 3B during the developer keynote! Speaking AI - not only from OpenAIZuck also showcased a voice based Llama that's coming to Meta AI (unlike OpenAI it's likely a pipeline of TTS/STT) but it worked really fast and Zuck was able to interrupt it. And they also showed a crazy animated AI avatar of a creator, that was fully backed by Llama, while the ...
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    1 hr and 47 mins
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