Battle of The Giants: Which "Big Tech" company's AI is better?

- Simplified AI -
Your gateway to discovering the world of Artificial Intelligence!

Apparently companies are too impatient to wait until the beginning of 2024 to release their "2023 year-in-review-summaries" and I guess the last week of November is the optimal time to share data insights. Spotify released Wrapped this week, their collection of your top played songs of the year and Merriam-Webster released that the word of the year is "authentic". Quick, use authentic in a sentence:

"Whole Foods announced that they want more authentic pizza so they're hiring pizza apprentices.”

So if this whole AI newsletter thing doesn't work out, I can always apply there! Should I put that I've visited Italy on my resume?

A sneak peek of what’s below:

• What's the Turing Test?

• Amazon enters the chat: Meet "Q", their new AI chatbot

• How AI is looking to re-shape education in classrooms

• Get creative as an intergalactic explorer!

What is the Turing Test?

Turning AI topics into a walk in the park, not a mind-boggling maze

Turing Test:

Let's travel back in time to the 1950's when early conversations about AI were springing up. A British man named Alan Turing wanted to know whether a machine could act like a human and exhibit intelligent behavior. His idea was to create a test that could determine if a computer or AI system could "think" - or at least mimic human thinking convincingly.

How the test works: There are three participants in the Turing test:

• A human interrogator

• A human respondent

• A computer (or AI system)

The interrogator starts chatting with both the other human and the computer through text and the goal for the interrogator is to figure out which one is the computer and which one is the real human.

If the interrogator can't consistently tell the computer apart from the human based on their answers, then the computer passes the Turing test with flying colors. In other words, if the computer can mimic human conversation to the point where it's challenging to tell whether you're chatting with a person or a machine, it demonstrates a high level of conversational AI or natural language processing ability.

Why is this important?

The Turing test stood as an early benchmark for evaluating the advancement of AI in natural language understanding and generation. It was really the first AI challenge in the world and it set off some pretty important conversations about AI and human-like intelligence. Without this initial question, the (still somewhat lame) chatbots companies use today wouldn't be as capable and we may not have evolved to have today's tests that focus on deeper topics like these:

• Capability-Based Evaluation: Like a report card for AI. Checking to see if AI can complete specific tasks like understanding different languages, recognizing images, or playing games like a pro. The better it does, the higher the grade.

• Ethical and Responsible AI Assessment: AI needs to play nice, right? This is about whether AI behaves well, follows the rules, and doesn't play favorites. It's like making sure AI is a good robot citizen and doesn't have any sneaky biases. The researchers act as referees in this to ensure fair play.

• User-Centric Evaluation: This one's all about you, the user. It checks whether AI is helpful and friendly when you interact with it. It's like rating an app based on how easy it is to use and whether it makes your life better - it's all about your experience with AI.

Even though we've mostly moved on from the Turing test, it was still an important stepping stone that led us to our current state of AI today. Imagine if the Wright brothers never tried to fly, or if Henry Ford didn't build the Model T using an assembly line, or if the Lumière brothers never filmed their first motion pictures. Each of them took a shot at something new and look at the advancement we've seen in those respective industries. The Turing test was the first chapter of the AI adventure.

AI News Flash

Catch the latest AI news that is making all of the headlines this week!

Amazon Q

We knew it wouldn't be long until Amazon announced they had something up their sleeves related to AI. The company that conquered delivery and logistics, normalized "robots" in your home with Alexa devices, and grew to become one of the biggest entertainment giants surely must be getting into the next big thing…but it might not be exactly what you think.

Don't think of this Amazon leap into AI as similar to ChatGPT…think of it more like an ultra-smart consultant that sits next to your work desk and knows everything about your business because their AI-powered assistant named "Q" is targeted towards professionals leveraging AI inside of the workplace.

Q is going to benefit users of AWS (Amazon Web Services - their cloud computing system) and become a key selling point to companies looking to purchase cloud capabilities for their business. There's already almost 1.5 million companies using AWS, most of them small-medium sized businesses, and this technology promises to propel those business forward by leveraging 17 years of AWS knowledge and experience.

Why does this matter?

One of the main selling points of Amazon Q is their claim that it was built with security and privacy in mind. If you work in a corporate setting, you're probably aware that a lot of AI tools like ChatGPT are blocked from use on your company computers - that's because there are still major security concerns about what's happening with the data you feed into them.

So while Gen AI applications have been great at drawing the public's attention, they haven't been fully adopted in solutions in the workplace - Amazon is looking to address that.

So what does this mean for the landscape of Gen AI? Here's our prediction of how 3 major Gen AI tools will play out in the near future:

• OpenAI ChatGPT - used mainly for public, creative use - think content creation like blogs, stories and artwork

• Microsoft CoPilot - used mainly in companies by professionals looking to enhance productivity related to Word, Excel, PPT, etc., + integrated into Teams

• Amazon Q - used in companies that use AWS cloud services for business insights, improvement of sales processes and CRM systems, and building IT capabilities

Other Stories We're Following:

• An AI robot just discovered 380k+ possible new materials - something that would take a human team years of research

• ChatGPT turns 1 (Happy Birthday!) Here's a long, detailed list of everything that's happened in the past year

AI Company Spotlight

Explore trailblazing companies that are shaping our digital future

Amira

Like many other sectors, the use of AI in education is increasingly important because it has the potential to revolutionize the learning experience. AI can:

• Personalize learning by adapting to individual students' needs, pacing, and learning styles

• Provide immediate feedback and identify areas where students may struggle

• Free up time from grading and lesson generation so educators can focus on meaningful interactions with students

Amira is a company that marries speech recognition and artificial intelligence with the science of reading to deliver personalized and in-the-moment tutoring to early education students as they practice. They have the world's first intelligent reading assistant.

They state that multiple independent analyses demonstrate that students who read with Amira for just 10 minutes a day experience reading growth at a rate 2X the national average. Their software is currently used by +2 million students across 15 countries.

Why does this matter?

By harnessing AI technology, a company like Amira can help to level the playing field for students. For a low cost, students can have a personalized "tutor" and students that may have fallen behind due to tough learning situations during covid times could catch back up. Teachers and other educators can focus on the moments that matter.

If you're interested in bringing Amira to your school/district, you can schedule a demo here.

Get Creative with AI

Practice using AI and unleash creativity with your new collaborator

Copy the prompts below and paste them into ChatGPT, BingAI, Google Bard, or your generative AI tool of choice and let AI work its magic. Share your results with us…and take it a step beyond the initial prompts and see what you can create!

Text-based

• Imagine you're an intergalactic explorer, and your spaceship can travel to any planet in the universe. Your mission: Choose a planet to visit and describe your thrilling journey. What does the planet look like? Who or what lives there? What unexpected challenges or wonders do you encounter on your alien odyssey?

Visual-based*

• Create a delightful, small town where each resident is a master pastry chef. The main street is filled with shops displaying an array of unique and delicious confections. The town square hosts daily competitions of elaborate cakes and detailed sugar art.

Visit us on Instagram and Twitter to see how our examples turned out!

*Visual-based examples are for users of Dall-E, BingAI, or premium users of ChatGPT - may require paid subscription.