Microsoft's New AI PCs Rival Apple's MacBooks
Plus: Scarlett Johansson sues OpenAI for using her voice in ChatGPT, DINO 1.5 is smarter and faster at object detection.
Hello Engineering Leaders and AI Enthusiasts!
Welcome to the 279th edition of The AI Edge newsletter. This edition brings you Microsoft announces new Copilot plus PCs.
And a huge shoutout to our amazing readers. We appreciate you😊
In today’s edition:
💻 Microsoft's New AI PCs Rival Apple's MacBooks
⚖️ Scarlett Johansson sues OpenAI for using her voice in ChatGPT
🧠 DINO 1.5 is smarter and faster at object detection
📚 Knowledge Nugget: How to Learn to Use AI by
Let’s go!
Microsoft's New AI PCs Rival Apple's MacBooks
Microsoft revealed Copilot+ PCs, a new category of Windows PCs designed for AI. These PCs boast powerful processors, all-day battery life, and AI features like Recall for instant memory, Cocreator for image creation, Live Captions for real-time translations, and Auto Super Resolution for games.
The recall feature, which allows users to search and recall anything they've seen and interacted with on their computer screens with natural language, is especially impressive. The new PCs feature an all-new system architecture with CPU, GPU, and a high-performance Neural Processing Unit (NPU) working together. Starting at $999, Copilot+ PCs are equipped with OpenAI's GPT-4o models.
Why does this matter?
Microsoft claims its new Arm-powered Copilot Plus PCs will outperform the MacBook Air with M3 by over 50% on sustained performance. The tech giant is advancing Arm-based computing by using AI at every level and partnering with Qualcomm. If these machines live up to the hype, they could upset the dominance of Intel-based laptops and challenge Apple's M-series processors.
Scarlett Johansson sues OpenAI for using her voice in ChatGPT
Scarlett Johansson claims OpenAI asked her to voice ChatGPT, but she declined. Later, OpenAI released a voice named "Sky" that sounded eerily similar to her. Johansson was shocked and angered by the similarity and has hired legal counsel to investigate how the "Sky" voice was created.
OpenAI denies that the "Sky" voice was intended to resemble Johansson, has paused using it in its products, and apologizes for not communicating better. Johansson seeks transparency from OpenAI and believes that individual rights must be protected in the era of deep fakes and AI content.
Why does this matter?
Another day, another OpenAI drama. OpenAI already faces lawsuits from authors and news organizations over copyright infringement in training its AI models. Johansson's case shows the limited legal protection actors have against AI mimicking their likeness, and some lawmakers are proposing bills to address the issue.
DINO 1.5 is smarter and faster at object detection
IDEA Research launched the Grounding DINO 1.5 open-world object detection model series, with Grounding DINO 1.5 Pro for high-performance detection and Grounding DINO 1.5 Edge for efficient edge computing. Grounding DINO 1.5 Pro achieves state-of-the-art zero-shot transfer performance on several academic benchmarks, surpassing its predecessor.
The model shows strong detection capabilities across various scenarios, including common objects, long-tailed categories, dense objects, and caption phrase grounding. Grounding DINO 1.5 Pro uses a larger Vision Transformer backbone and is pretrained on the high-quality Grounding-20M dataset.
Why does this matter?
Grounding DINO 1.5 isn't just about raw performance—it's also incredibly versatile. Fine-tuning the model on specific datasets leads to even more impressive results, suggesting that it can lead us to make more reliable robotics, automated systems, and more while requiring less training time and data.
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Knowledge Nugget: How to Learn to Use AI
highlights the importance of learning about AI and how to use it effectively. He suggests that the top AI skill to learn is communicating effectively with Large Language Models (LLMs) through prompt engineering, which involves crafting precise and descriptive prompts to generate desired outcomes.To get started with AI, He recommends gaining a high-level understanding of how AI works and then focusing on learning how to create effective prompts for generative AI tools like ChatGPT. He suggests experimenting with text-output tools, which are the most valuable for most users, and stresses the importance of ongoing learning to keep up with AI.
Why does this matter?
AI is here to stay, and those who understand and know how to use it will have an advantage over those who don't. By investing time in learning AI now, individuals can thrive in an AI-driven world, much like early adopters of past technological advancements.
What Else Is Happening❗
💻 HP is introducing simplified laptop “AI PCs” lineup
HP's new "AI PCs," the OmniBook X AI and EliteBook Ultra AI, feature Snapdragon X Elite 12-core CPUs. HP's AI Companion software provides access to ChatGPT-3.5, while Poly Camera Pro offers AI camera controls. Moreover, the OmniBook X AI starts at $1,199.99 and the EliteBook Ultra AI at $1,699.99. (Link)
💶 Google is investing €1 billion to expand its data center in Finland
This move aims to drive AI business growth in Europe. Nordic countries are popular for data centers due to cooler climate, tax breaks, and abundant renewable power. Moreover, the heat from this data center will be used to warm up local homes and buildings. Google's Hamina data center in Finland already operates with 97% carbon-free energy and aims for net zero emissions by 2030. (Link)
🏭 Dell Technologies expands its generative AI capabilities with the Dell AI Factory
The Dell AI Factory with NVIDIA integrates hardware and software to support advanced use cases like RAG and digital assistants. Dell is also deepening partnership with Hugging Face, Meta, and Microsoft to bring open models and Azure AI services to on-premises deployments. The goal is to make it easy for enterprises to assess and implement gen AI on-premises, close to their data. (Link)
🤖 Intel's Lunar Lake laptop processors are set to launch in Q3 2024
These processors are designed for AI Copilot Plus PCs. They offer 3x the AI performance of its predecessor, Meteor Lake. Intel claims Lunar Lake is 1.4 times faster in Stable Diffusion 1.5 compared to Qualcomm's Snapdragon X Elite. The company aims to ship 40 million AI PC processors by the end of the year, with Lunar Lake featured in over 80 new laptop designs. (Link)
📜 OpenAI CEO Sam Altman apologized for the company's strict off-boarding agreement
This off-boarding agreement could potentially cancel departing employees' vested equity. Meanwhile, departing execs are speaking out about the need for serious AGI safety measures. Altman and co-founder Greg Brockman defended OpenAI's launch procedures, emphasizing their commitment to safety. (Link)
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