Software’s Gutenberg Moment, ‘Magic’ AI, the Economic Impact of AI, and 6 AI Productivity Tools
AI Bytes: Volume CI, Issue #15
Get smarter faster with AI Bytes: 3 articles, 2 podcasts, and 1 video.
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READING
III. Society’s Technical Debt and Software’s Gutenberg Moment
There is a potential for a collapse in the cost of software production due to the emergence of Large Language Models (LLMs) and their ability to automate programming tasks. The economic implications of such a collapse, including the potential for massive labor disruption and a productivity spike resulting from the payoff of technical debt might lead to software industry where anyone can write software easily and cheaply resulting in a transformative moment that could unleash a wave of innovation and creativity.
II. Canva Launches ‘Magic’ AI Tools For Its Design Software’s 125 Million Users
Canva has announced a range of AI features, including Magic Design, Magic Presentation, and Magic Write, as well as AI software to identify places in images to add or remove elements and for translation into additional languages. Canva now has over 125 million users, up 35 million in the past six months, and annualized revenue of $1.6 billion. The company has also unveiled brand-focused features for its 6 million team accounts, making it easier for companies to set their preferred colors, fonts, and other controls.
I. Character.AI is now a Unicorn
Character.AI, the 16-month-old chatbot startup founded by two former Google employees, has raised $150 million in a new funding round led by Andreessen Horowitz, valuing the company at $1 billion. The company allows users to create and interact with chatbots that role-play as characters or famous people. Although it doesn’t generate revenue, it may offer a premium subscription service in the future. The new funds will allow Character.AI to hire more engineers and expand its chatbots’ capabilities.
LISTENING
II. Avi Goldfarb — The Economic Impact of AI
Avi Goldfarb, a professor at the University of Toronto’s Rotman School of Management and co-author of two bestselling books on AI, sat down with Patrick O’Shaughnessy to discuss the economic impact of AI. Goldfarb’s most recent book, “Power and Prediction,” is a must read for its insightful explanation of how AI may reshape business models, systems, and products. The conversation was recorded before the release of GPT-4 and highlights Goldfarb’s ideas on AI’s impact.
I. Watermarking Large Language Models to Fight Plagiarism with Tom Goldstein
This episode features Tom Goldstein, an associate professor at the University of Maryland who conducts research at the intersection of machine learning and optimization. The conversation focuses on his recent work on watermarking LLM output, exploring the motivations behind it, and how it works. Also discussed are the political and economic incentives for adopting watermarking and future directions for that line of work, as well as Tom’s research into data leakage in stable diffusion models.
WATCHING
I. 6 AI Tools I Use to Boost My Productivity
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AI Tool Tracker
I’m sharing a Notion page with the various AI tools I’ve been trying out. You can access it here.
