🤖 ChatGPT-4, A.I. ethics, and Google’s new "A.I. everywhere" strategy

Good morning and welcome to the latest edition of neonpulse!

Here's what we have for you today:

• OpenAI releases ChatGPT-4

• Microsoft lays off their A.I. ethics team

• Google’s new “A.I. everywhere” strategy

Introducing GPT-4

OpenAI has released the much anticipated ChatGPT-4 model this week, a move that the company is calling “the latest milestone in our efforts to scale up deep learning.”

GPT-4 can solve difficult problems with greater accuracy, thanks to its broader general knowledge and problem solving abilities:

• GPT-4 has greatly advanced reasoning capabilities

• GPT-4 scores significantly higher on tests like the bar exam

• GPT-4 can identify images and generate captions

• GPT-4 is capable of handling over 25,000 words of text, allowing for use cases like long form content creation, extended conversations, and document search and analysis.

One of the most impressive aspects of GPT-4 is the “human level” of performance the model scores on a variety of professional and academic tests, including passing a simulated bar exam with a score in the top 10% of test takers, versus scoring in the bottom 10% in the GPT3.5 version.

Yet what I find to be the most impressive feature of GPT4 is the ability to take simple written input and turn that into a fully functioning website, a task that was demonstrated during the developer demo.

Greg Brockman, President of OpenAI, took a photo of a single page of handwritten notes explaining a simple website that would generate jokes, and within seconds GPT-4 was able to create a fully functioning website.

And while this is a simplistic example of the coding capabilities of GPT-4, it was an impressive demonstration of the potential that the new model contains.

Brockman himself explained that “this is all just potential. You can see lots of different applications. We, ourselves, are still figuring out new ways to use this.”

And while we’re still the very early days of this new model, the achievement of human-level performance along with the increased functionality is making GPT-4 look like a game changer in the world of A.I. technology.

“It has these raw capabilities that are so flexible. It doesn’t care if it’s code, it doesn’t care if it’s language. All of these capabilities can be applied towards the problem that you care about, and that’s where I think the power of the system lies,” said Brockman.

“It’s not perfect, but neither are you, and together this is an amplifying tool that will let you reach new heights.”

You can check out the full 25 minute ChatGPT-4 developer demo here.

Who needs ethics

Coinciding with the launch of GPT-4 is the news that Microsoft has laid off its entire ethics and society team, which was tasked with ensuring “ethical, responsible and sustainable outcomes” from the company’s A.I. projects.

And while Microsoft retained its Office of Responsible A.I., employees within the company said that the ethics and society team was the group responsible for making sure Microsoft’s responsible A.I. principles were properly reflected in the companies products.

Insiders said that internal pressure from Microsoft executives, including chief technology officer Kevin Scott and CEO Satya Nadella, may have led to the group being let go, as the company is pushing hard to get the latest OpenAI models live as soon as possible in order to capture market share from Google.

Although the consequences of firing the ethics team remain to be seen, estimates show that for every 1% of market share that Microsoft captures from Google, the company will gain an additional $2 billion dollars in annual revenue.

Google’s “A.I. everywhere” strategy

With Google and Microsoft locked into an A.I. arms race, Google has announced plans to introduce its generative A.I. models into virtually every part of its productivity suite.

From helping you to write emails in Gmail, to helping you find formulas in sheets, to helping you draft documents in Docs, A.I. functionality will be pervasive in the companies products moving forward.

“Google Workspace has been a longtime pioneer in enabling real-time collaboration, where human beings work together in real time in our products,” Google Cloud CEO Thomas Kurian said during a press briefing ahead of today’s announcements. “This next phase is where we’re bringing human beings to be supported with an AI collaborator who is working in real time in concert with them.”

The bad news?

This new A.I. functionality is only currently available to Googles “trusted testers,” with no specific timeline given for when the average user will have access.

And now your moment of zen

That’s all for today folks!

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