UPP News: What's new in the AI field? (Part 3)

Source: The Verge

Google’s Chrome web browser is getting an infusion of AI technology in the latest release. The company has announced it’s soon adding a trio of new AI-powered features, including a way to smartly organize tabs, customize themes, and help users with writing forum posts, online reviews and more on the web.

Chrome’s traditional Tab Groups feature allows users who keep many tabs open to manage them by organizing them into groups, but curating them can be a manual process. With the new Tab Organizer, Chrome will automatically suggest and create groups based on the tabs already opened, which is particularly useful for tasks like online shopping, research, or trip planning that involve numerous open tabs.

The Chrome theme store is also getting an AI upgrade as users will be able to pick an image, a style, a colour, and a few other things, and Chrome will automatically generate a browser theme to match.

The third new AI feature in Chrome, which is coming next month, is also a good hint of what’s to come for the browser. Google is adding its “Help me write” feature to every site on the web; you just right-click on any text box anywhere, select the feature, and Google’s AI will ask you what you want to write and then generate a first draft for you. Google suggests you might use “Help me write” to write reviews and emails or RSVP to parties.

The integration of these AI features reflects Google's commitment to enhancing the Chrome browsing experience. The company envisions a future where Chrome becomes a powerful platform for seamless integration of AI and machine learning features, promising users a more efficient and expedient browsing experience.

Source: mint

During a podcast with Bill Gates, Sam Altman from OpenAI highlighted the significance of enhanced reliability in GPT-4's responses and forecasted the integration of speech, images, and videos within the next two years.

Altman revealed that GPT-5, OpenAI's next-generation language model, would boast better reasoning capabilities, improved accuracy, and video support. The CEO explained on the podcast that GPT-5 would be fully multimodal, accommodating speech, image, code, and video support.

Addressing a common issue with current AI models, Altman discussed the problem of hallucinations, where the models generate incorrect information. He assured that GPT-5 would address this reliability concern, aiming for increased precision and accuracy in responses.

In the forthcoming major update of GPT-4.5 or GPT-5, significant transformations are anticipated in personalization and customizability. The CEO envisioned a deeper level of integration in the future, where GPT-5 could be more attuned to users' individual preferences, incorporating data from emails, calendars, and external sources. These improvements, he believes, will be pivotal in enhancing user experience.

Updates about GPT-5 are expected later this year.

Source: TechCrunch

Google has announced that Gemini, its family of multimodal large language models, now powers the conversational experience within the Google Ads platform. With this new update, it will be easier for advertisers to build and scale Search ad campaigns quickly.

The conversational experience is designed to help build Search campaigns through a chat-based tool. The tool uses users' website URLs to create Search campaigns by generating relevant ad content, including keywords. It suggests images tailored to your campaign using generative AI and images from your website. Advertisers then approve the images and text before the campaign goes live.

The beta version of the conversational experience in Google Ads is now accessible to all English-language advertisers in the U.S. and U.K. Global access will gradually expand to encompass all English-language advertisers in the coming weeks, with plans for further language integration in the months ahead.

The new tool will join Google’s other AI-powered tools for advertisers. Google has already introduced a suite of generative AI product imagery tools for advertisers in the U.S. called “Product Studio.” The tools allow merchants and advertisers to use text-to-image AI capabilities to create new product imagery for free by typing in a prompt describing what they would like to see, allowing advertisers to improve low-quality images and remove distracting backgrounds.

Google's emphasis on AI integration across its products is demonstrated in this recent announcement. The company has already revealed three new AI-driven features for Chrome, enhancing tab organization, theme customization, and assistance in writing online content like reviews or forum posts. This move underscores the company's commitment to incorporating AI into various platforms, providing users with enhanced and intelligent experiences.

Source: TechCrunch

Microsoft has introduced Reading Coach, an AI-driven tool offering personalized reading practice to learners, available for free to individuals with a Microsoft account.

In a blog post, Microsoft emphasizes the crucial role of reading in a student's academic success, citing studies that highlight how proficient readers are four times more likely to graduate high school and secure better job opportunities. Leveraging the latest AI technology, Microsoft aims to provide learners with engaging and transformative reading experiences through Reading Coach.

Reading Coach works by having learners identify words they struggle with the most and presenting them with tools to support independent, individualized practice.

The tool's “choose your own story” feature, powered by Microsoft’s Azure OpenAI Service, allows learners to use AI to generate their narrative adventure. The feature has learners select a character, setting and reading level and have AI create content based on these selections and the learner’s most challenging words.

Moreover, the Reading Coach provides feedback on pronunciation, listening to the learner read the story and awarding badges that unlock new characters and scenes as they progress. This multifaceted approach aims to make reading practice not only personalized but also enjoyable and rewarding for learners leveraging the capabilities of AI technology.

Source: TechCrunch

DeepMind, the Google AI R&D lab, unveiled AlphaGeometry — a system that the lab claims can solve as many geometry problems as the average International Mathematical Olympiad gold medalist. AlphaGeometry can solve 25 Olympiad geometry problems within the standard time limit.

“Solving Olympiad-level geometry problems is an important milestone in developing deep mathematical reasoning on the path toward more advanced and general AI systems,” Trieu Trinh and Thang Luong, Google AI research scientists, wrote in a blog post. “We hope that AlphaGeometry helps open up new possibilities across mathematics, science and AI.”

Why the focus on geometry? DeepMind asserts that proving mathematical theorems, or logically explaining why a theorem (e.g. the Pythagorean theorem) is true, requires both reasoning and the ability to choose from a range of possible steps toward a solution. This problem-solving approach could turn out to be useful in general-purpose AI systems someday.

“Our long-term goal remains to build AI systems that can generalize across mathematical fields, developing the sophisticated problem-solving and reasoning that general AI systems will depend on, all the while extending the frontiers of human knowledge,” Trinh and Luong write. “This approach could shape how the AI systems of the future discover new knowledge, in math and beyond.”

Source: Etsy

Etsy launched “Gift Mode,” an AI-powered feature designed to match users with tailored gift ideas based on specific preferences.

Gift Mode is essentially an online quiz that asks users who they're shopping for (sibling, parent, child), the occasion (birthday, anniversary, get well), and the recipient’s interests. At launch, the feature has 15 interests to choose from, including crafting, fashion, sports, video games, pets, and more. It then generates a series of gift guides inspired by users' choices, pulling options from the over 100 million items listed on the platform. The gift guides are centred around more than 200 different personas.

For instance, “The Music Lover,” “The Video Gamer,” “The Adventurer” and “The Pet Parent.” Over time, the company plans to add new interests and personas in response to “emerging trends,” according to Tim Holley, Etsy’s VP of Product.

Holley explains that the new feature leverages a combination of machine learning, human curation, and OpenAI’s GPT-4. AI has powered the platform’s search features for years, and the company recently increased its focus in the area, particularly generative AI.