MC.39: From GPT-4 to AGI

Updates

Leopold Aschenbrennert: SITUATIONAL AWARENESS — The Decade Ahead
This is a must-read. It’s well thought out. We can disagree, but what seemed like marketing nonsense—"AGI is coming in the next 6 months to 3 years"—is turned into a step-by-step essay on how it can happen and how current trends are supporting it. MORE

Microsoft: Microsoft to invest $3.2 bln in Swedish cloud, AI
Microsoft is investing $3.2 billion to expand its cloud and AI infrastructure in Sweden, driven by the demand for generative AI. This aligns with the idea that massive investments this decade will push us closer to AGI, bringing more computational power to solve complex problems. MORE

Allen Pike: LLMs Aren’t Just “Trained On the Internet” Anymore
LLM trainers have hit a data wall, leading companies to pay for private datasets. This shift shows the value and scarcity of high-quality data in AI development. Leopold Aschenbrennert and Allen Pike discuss this: deep learning has always found a way, and synthetic data and private datasets might solve this problem. MORE

OpenAI: Licensing Deals with Atlantic and Vox Media
The Atlantic and Vox Media have signed licensing deals with OpenAI, despite OpenAI having already scraped the internet. This likely aims to avoid legal issues and secure future data access. MORE

Nvidia: market value surges closer to Apple
Nvidia's market value is nearing Apple's, driven by the AI boom and its high-performance chips. Nvidia's rapid growth and critical role in AI advancements are impressive. Another signal mirroring the takeaways from the Situational Awareness essay. MORE

Ethan Mollick: Doing Stuff with AI
Ethan Mollick pushes people to experiment with AI for fun. It's a good time to try, especially with AI music tools who have improved the models a lot lately. MORE

Google: What happened with AI Overviews
It was a necessary step for Google to address the inefficiencies of their AI overview feature. It's a good feature; people have tried to undermine Google with fake screenshots and nonsensical queries. For most of us who want fast and accurate answers, it’s a valuable tool, even better than ChatGPT, because it is grounded in links and recent content. MORE

OpenAI: PwC signs 100,000 of its employees to ChatGPT enterprise
ChatGPT’s enterprise tier had around 600,000 users, which, according to Hasslacher, includes 93% of all Fortune 500 companies. It's a big deal for OpenAI. In the same tie, PwC becomes their first reseller. Another interesting move, PwC has the customer base to sell licenses faster than OpenAI. MORE

Sony Pictures: Will Cut Film Costs 'Using AI, Primarily'
Sony Pictures plans to use AI to reduce the high costs of film production. This could lead to more efficient filmmaking but also raises concerns about job security in Hollywood. MORE

WSJ: The AI Revolution Is Already Losing Steam
Despite claims that AI is slowing down due to a data shortage, ongoing research and new data sources suggest otherwise. It’s intriguing to see how the market is adapting to these challenges. MORE

FineWeb: decanting the web for the finest text data at scale
A detailed blog post about creating a high-quality dataset for large language models. It's inspiring to see the work behind such datasets. MORE

Reuters Institute: Generative AI and News Audiences
Many people know about generative AI like ChatGPT, but only a few use them often. Between 19% and 30% of the online population in the six countries surveyed have not heard of any popular generative AI tools. It reminds me that while some of us are deep into AI, many others are just starting out. MORE