Al large language models are old hat, Meta Chief AI Scientist Yan LeCun told a private breakfast organized by the Joint European Disruptive Initiative (JEDI) during VivaTech, Europe’s largest tech conference. Focus on what’s next, he urged participants. “Every single interaction will be mediated by AI assistants,” personalized bots that help you work, create, or communicate better, and interface with the digital world on your behalf, he said. Meta has already launched an AI assistant on its platforms Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp across more than a dozen countries. Google and its AI division DeepMind, as well as Microsoft-backed OpenAI, along with Microsoft itself and other tech companies, are all racing to offer AI personal assistants to everyone from consumers to business users to teachers. In the past week Google and Open AI simultaneously announced a series of upgraded AI tools that are multimodal, which means they can interpret voice, video, images, and code in a single interface, and carry out complex tasks like live translations or planning a family vacation. Microsoft this week announced an upgraded version of Copilot, its AI assistant, an AI assistant for work teams, and a partnership with tutoring organization Khan Academy to provide a Generative AI assistant to all teachers in the U.S. for free. Apple is also expected to be a major player in this race. During the May 23 breakfast meeting Meta’s LeCun talked about the many new opportunities AI assistants will offer for the tech industry. Along with actually creating the bots there will be a need to develop low power kits to run AI systems on eyeglasses or pocket devices, new chips to power the devices and new types of batteries, he said. But, as with all new AI developments, the potential impact on society must be taken into consideration, says a Google DeepMind white paper on the ethics of advanced AI assistants, published on May 19. Read on to learn more about this story and other important technology news impacting business. |