Microsoft's new AI 'Recalls' everything

PLUS: Anthropic maps AI's 'black box'

Author

Rowan Cheung
May 22, 2024

Welcome, AI enthusiasts.

Microsoft just kicked off its Build event, unveiling the Copilot+ Recall feature, a new multimodal model, a slew of partnerships, and even AI agents.

But despite the massive potential and mind-blowing unlocks — is a privacy-focused world ready to embrace an always-watching AI? Let’s dig deeper…

In today’s AI rundown:

  • Microsoft’s new AI era

  • Scale AI scores massive $1B funding

  • Anthropic’s optimized prompt generator

  • Research: Mapping the ‘mind’ of an LLM

  • 7 new AI tools & 4 new AI jobs

  • More AI & tech news

Read time: 4 minutes

LATEST DEVELOPMENTS

MICROSOFT

Image source: The Verge

The Rundown: Microsoft just kicked off its Build developer event, providing details on new AI features like Copilot+ Recall, a slew of new partnerships, a new multimodal Phi-3 model, the introduction of agent capabilities, and more.

The details:

  • CEO Satya Nadella expanded on the new Recall feature, which will run locally and take constant screenshots to remember user actions on Copilot+ PCs.

  • A new Phi-3-vision multimodal model is now available, along with the general availability of previously unveiled Phi-3-small and Phi-3-medium.

  • The company introduced Team Copilot, an AI agent to assist users in Microsoft apps, and Copilot Studio, a tool for developers to create and deploy AI agents.

  • Microsoft also announced a deal with Khan Academy, granting access to AI tools for all U.S. educators.

Why it matters: Microsoft continues its major week, continuing to deliver direct shots at Apple in its quest to take down the MacBook’s dominance. The ‘Recall’ feature feels like the biggest wildcard — with massive potential, but also requiring major trust from customers to embrace an always-watching AI.

For more info on Microsoft’s announcements, check out Monday’s newsletter.

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SCALE AI

Image source: Scale AI

The Rundown: AI data-labeling startup Scale AI, which provides clean data to companies training advanced AI models, just raised a whopping $1B in Series F funding — valuing the company at nearly $14B.

The details:

  • Scale provides labeled data for AI training in sectors including autonomous vehicles, defense, and major GenAI models.

  • The round was led by existing investor Accel, with participation from new investors, including Amazon, Meta, and others.

  • Scale AI's revenue tripled in 2023 and is expected to reach $1.4B by the end of 2024.

  • Scale said the new raise will help ‘accelerate the abundance of frontier data’ that will pave the road to AGI.

Why it matters: Scale’s rapid growth shows that AI is nothing without usable data — and as systems continue to improve, that need will only grow. With an eye-popping company valuation, Scale is yet another example of how many different avenues to success are available for building in the AI boom.

AI TRAINING

The Rundown: Anthropic recently launched an incredible prompt engineering tool that generates optimized prompts to start a chat, based on a user’s specific goals.

Step-by-step:

  1. Head over to Anthropic’s Console and sign up/log in.

  2. Select the ‘Generate a prompt’ option to access the prompt creation interface.

  3. Clearly describe your goal or task in the provided text box and click ‘Generate Prompt’ to let Anthropic craft your optimized prompt.

  4. Select ‘Start Editing’, replace {variables} with your specific details, and click ‘Run’ once your prompt is ready.

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  • Discover the latest applications and best practices shaping the future of AI

  • Engage in dedicated AI content and networking opportunities

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AI RESEARCH

Image source: Anthropic

The Rundown: Anthropic just published new research that successfully identified and mapped millions of human-interpretable concepts, called “features”, within the neural networks of Claude.

The details:

  • Researchers used a technique called ‘dictionary learning’ to isolate patterns that corresponded to concepts, from objects to abstract ideas.

  • By tweaking the patterns, the researchers showed the ability to change Claude’s outputs, potentially leading to more controllable systems.

  • The team mapped concepts related to AI safety concerns, like deception and power-seeking — providing glimpses into how models understand these issues.

Why it matters: Despite how fast AI is accelerating, we still don’t have a strong understanding of what’s going on beneath the hood of LLMs. This research is a major step towards making AI more transparent — enabling better understanding, control, and safeguarding of these powerful tools.

NEW TOOLS & JOBS

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QUICK HITS

Google shared new demos of upcoming releases, including its Project Astra multimodal agents solving math equations and a series of outputs from its Veo video generation model.

Elon Musk’s xAI is reportedly progressing towards multimodal capabilities for its Grok chatbot, which was teased in a blog post last month as part of the upcoming 1.5V model release.

French AI startup H announced $220M in funding to develop advanced AGI that can automate complex business tasks, with investors including Bernard Arnault and Eric Schmidt.

Europe’s landmark AI Act passed its final hurdle after endorsement by the EU, which will bring comprehensive rules, strict fines, and new restrictions on high-risk AI apps.

Suno raised $125M in funding for its AI music generation platform, aiming to increase product development and expand the company.

Google announced that its new data analysis feature in Gemini Advanced is now live, allowing users to upload Google Sheets, CSVs, and Excel files for data exploration.

THAT’S A WRAP

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