A week in Generative AI: Arc, Google & Vision Pro

News for the week ending 4th February 2024

cyberpunk news presenter, male, long hair, behind desk, facing camera, in clean pixel art style, neon colors --ar 16:9

It’s been a big week for Google, with lots of new GenAI releases and of course, it’s been the launch week for the Vision Pro too. I wasn’t expecting any interesting GenAI features to be available on the Vision Pro from day one, but Adobe have pulled out the stops with Firefly AI. Act II of the Arc browser is really interesting and worth checking out too.

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Meet Act II of Arc Browser | A browser that browses for you

I’m not sure what to make of this TBH - I love the idea and the concept. This launch video really resonated with me as it’s so difficult to actually read a webpage these days with all the cooke notices, email sign ups and ads clustering the content you’re actually there for. But, I think it will take users time to get used to a new browsing experience. Worth giving a go though!

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Google launches

Lots of GenAI launches from Google this week. We’ve got an AI-powered image generator, GenAI tools for music creation and Google’s Bard has been updated so that all global users now get access to Gemini Pro.

There was also surprise when Gemini Pro beat GPT-4 in the Chatbot Arena Leaderboard, taking the 2nd spot behind GPT-4 Turbo. It will be very interesting to see if Gemini Ultra can surpass GPT-4 Turbo when it’s released!

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Adobe unveils Firefly AI for Vision Pro with limited-time free text to image creation

One of the early ‘killer’ features of the Vision Pro is for productivity when it’s connected to a MacBook and you’re able to use a virtual screen alongside other Vision Pro apps. So seeing Adobe bringing its professional products to the device is no surprise. Be interesting to see this space evolve in the coming months/years.

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Amazon debuts 'Rufus,' an AI shopping assistant in its mobile app

GenAI and shopping were always going to come together at some point, and it was always going to be Amazon that got their first. However, it will be a fine balance between wanting to shop around yourself and just going with what ‘Rufus’ recommends/surfaces for you. Ultimately, I suspect the technology isn’t there yet as shopping is a very personal thing and the technology isn’t at a point where it’s fully personalised yet and to learn your tastes and preferences.

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AI Ethics News

• EU's AI Act passes last big hurdle on the way to adoption

• OpenAI and Other Tech Giants Will Have to Warn the US Government When They Start New AI Projects

• ChatGPT is violating Europe’s privacy laws, Italian DPA tells OpenAI

• Building AI guardrails should be part of the process

• Building an early warning system for LLM-aided biological threat creation

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“The future is already here, it’s just not evenly distributed.“

William Gibson