Alphabet GOOGL is firing on all cylinders in the booming AI space on the back of its continuous efforts. Its division, Google, is leaving no stone unturned to make the most of Microsoft MSFT in the generative AI game.
The latest introduction of its new, advanced, powerful, large language model (“LLM”), namely Gemini, is a testament to the same.
Alphabet’s shares rallied 5%, closing at $136.93 on Dec 7, following the launch of Gemini.
Gemini is available in three different sizes, Gemini Ultra, which is its largest and most capable one; Gemini Pro, which is designed to offer scalability across various applications; and Gemini Nano, which is designed for specific tasks and mobile devices.
Gemini Ultra is expected to be launched next year and is based on a combination of 57 subjects, such as math, physics, history, law, medicine and ethics, to name a few. It is marked as the first model to outperform human experts in massive multitask language understanding.
Meanwhile, Gemini Pro and Gemini Nano will be licensed through Google Cloud so that they can be easily accessible to developers and enterprise customers from Dec 13.
GOOGL has powered its Bard chatbot and Search Generative Experience (“SGE”) with Gemini Pro. Gemini Nano is likely to turn out to be very useful for Android developers. Pixel 8 Pro models will include Gemini Nano features.
Google plans to power its upcoming Bard Advanced with Gemini Ultra.
Per an Allied Market Research report, the global generative AI market’s value is likely to hit $191.8 billion by 2032, witnessing a CAGR of 34.1% between 2023 and 2032.
A Fortune Business Insights report shows that the global generative AI market size is expected to reach $667.96 billion by 2030, seeing a CAGR of 47.5% between 2023 and 2030.
We believe Alphabet remains well-poised to capitalize on this upbeat scenario on the back of Google’s latest move as well as other endeavors. Currently, Alphabet carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.
Google, which forayed at the beginning of this year by unveiling its chatbot Bard, recently rolled out consulting services to bolster generative AI efforts. The new offerings include advice and tools through which Google Cloud strives to aid clients in adopting generative AI techniques.
These tools are designed to help customers boost automation in their business operations by generating content and summarizing information with the power of AI.
Google is set to add an AI-powered “Help me write” feature to Chrome for Desktop use. The new feature can adjust its writing style, including “Shorten” or “Elaborate” options, as well as “Casual” or “Formal” options.
Also, it is set to add a “Help me create a list” feature to its Keep Notes app for Android, assisting users in generating lists for various tasks, including planning, packing, grocery shopping and task completion.
Google’s recent expansion of SGE across 120 countries to boost the reach of its AI-powered conversational search feature globally remains positive.
Google to Take on Microsoft
The search giant had already entered into a cut-throat competition with Microsoft on the back of Bard, a counter to ChatGPT, a chatbot from the Microsoft-backed startup OpenAI.
Now, Google is set to elevate its game with Gemini, which it expects to take down OpenAI’s next-generation LLM — GPT-4. Gemini Pro has already outperformed GPT-3.5.
On the other hand, Microsoft continues to make strong efforts to boost its generative AI capabilities. Its integration of GPT-4 into its search engine Bing and browser Edge to deliver a ChatGPT-like experience to users remains noteworthy.
Microsoft Azure offers the Azure OpenAI Service, which enables the seamless application of LLM and generative AI techniques in various use cases.
It recently announced OpenAI’s DALL-E 3 AI image-synthesis model, fully integrated with ChatGPT, which challenges previous models by rendering images with complex descriptions and handling in-image text generation.
How Are Others Placed?
In addition to Microsoft, Google’s strong generative AI efforts pose a competitive threat to companies like Meta PlatformsMETA, Amazon AMZN and Adobe ADBE, which are also making concerted efforts to capitalize on the abovementioned prospects.
Meta forayed into the space of LLMs with its state-of-the-art foundational language model known as Large Language Model Meta AI (“Llama”). In collaboration with Microsoft, Meta unveiled the next generation of Llama, called Llama 2. The social media giant also released Code Llama, an LLM that can use text prompts to generate and discuss code.
Amazon’s AWS recently announced the general availability of its fully managed service called Amazon Bedrock. It provides seamless access to high-performing foundation models (“FM”) from AI companies through an API. The company also made the Amazon Titan Embeddings model generally available. It added Meta’s Llama 2 to Amazon Bedrock as a new model, which will be available through API.
The e-commerce giant’s investment plans in Anthropic remain noteworthy. Amazon will invest $4 billion to acquire a minority stake in Anthropic. This investment will allow AWS to provide access to Anthropic’s future FMs to its customers. These FMs will be available through Amazon Bedrock.
Meanwhile, Adobe recently announced the commercial release of its family of creative, generative AI models — Firefly.
Adobe Firefly supports text prompts in over 100 languages, helps creators make several changes to their content, creates endless variations seamlessly and bolsters image generation capabilities.
Top 5 ChatGPT Stocks Revealed
Zacks Senior Stock Strategist, Kevin Cook names 5 hand-picked stocks with sky-high growth potential in a brilliant sector of Artificial Intelligence. By 2030, the AI industry is predicted to have an internet and iPhone-scale economic impact of $15.7 Trillion.
Today you can invest in the wave of the future, an automation that answers follow-up questions … admits mistakes … challenges incorrect premises … rejects inappropriate requests. As one of the selected companies puts it, “Automation frees people from the mundane so they can accomplish the miraculous.”
Although no one likes a know-it-all, they dominate the Internet.
The Internet began as a vast repository of information. It quickly became a breeding ground for self-proclaimed experts seeking what most people desire: recognition and money.
Today, anyone with an Internet connection and some typing skills can position themselves, regardless of their education or experience, as a subject matter expert (SME). From relationship advice, career coaching, and health and nutrition tips to citizen journalists practicing pseudo-journalism, the Internet is awash with individuals—Internet talking heads—sharing their “insights,” which are, in large part, essentially educated guesses without the education or experience.
The Internet has become a 24/7/365 sitcom where armchair experts think they’re the star.
Not long ago, years, sometimes decades, of dedicated work and acquiring education in one’s field was once required to be recognized as an expert. The knowledge and opinions of doctors, scientists, historians, et al. were respected due to their education and experience. Today, a social media account and a knack for hyperbole are all it takes to present oneself as an “expert” to achieve Internet fame that can be monetized.
On the Internet, nearly every piece of content is self-serving in some way.
The line between actual expertise and self-professed knowledge has become blurry as an out-of-focus selfie. Inadvertently, social media platforms have created an informal degree program where likes and shares are equivalent to degrees. After reading selective articles, they’ve found via and watching some TikTok videos, a person can post a video claiming they’re an herbal medicine expert. Their new “knowledge,” which their followers will absorb, claims that Panda dung tea—one of the most expensive teas in the world and isn’t what its name implies—cures everything from hypertension to existential crisis. Meanwhile, registered dietitians are shaking their heads, wondering how to compete against all the misinformation their clients are exposed to.
More disturbing are individuals obsessed with evangelizing their beliefs or conspiracy theories. These people write in-depth blog posts, such as Elvis Is Alive and the Moon Landings Were Staged, with links to obscure YouTube videos, websites, social media accounts, and blogs. Regardless of your beliefs, someone or a group on the Internet shares them, thus confirming your beliefs.
Misinformation is the Internet’s currency used to get likes, shares, and engagement; thus, it often spreads like a cosmic joke. Consider the prevalence of clickbait headlines:
You Won’t Believe What Taylor Swift Says About Climate Change!
This Bedtime Drink Melts Belly Fat While You Sleep!
In One Week, I Turned $10 Into $1 Million!
Titles that make outrageous claims are how the content creator gets reads and views, which generates revenue via affiliate marketing, product placement, and pay-per-click (PPC) ads. Clickbait headlines are how you end up watching a TikTok video by a purported nutrition expert adamantly asserting you can lose belly fat while you sleep by drinking, for 14 consecutive days, a concoction of raw eggs, cinnamon, and apple cider vinegar 15 minutes before going to bed.
Our constant search for answers that’ll explain our convoluted world and our desire for shortcuts to success is how Internet talking heads achieve influencer status. Because we tend to seek low-hanging fruits, we listen to those with little experience or knowledge of the topics they discuss yet are astute enough to know what most people want to hear.
There’s a trend, more disturbing than spreading misinformation, that needs to be called out: individuals who’ve never achieved significant wealth or traded stocks giving how-to-make-easy-money advice, the appeal of which is undeniable. Several people I know have lost substantial money by following the “advice” of Internet talking heads.
Anyone on social media claiming to have a foolproof money-making strategy is lying. They wouldn’t be peddling their money-making strategy if they could make easy money.
Successful people tend to be secretive.
Social media companies design their respective algorithms to serve their advertisers—their source of revenue—interest; hence, content from Internet talking heads appears most prominent in your feeds. When a video of a self-professed expert goes viral, likely because it pressed an emotional button, the more people see it, the more engagement it receives, such as likes, shares and comments, creating a cycle akin to a tornado.
Imagine scrolling through your TikTok feed and stumbling upon a “scientist” who claims they can predict the weather using only aluminum foil, copper wire, sea salt and baking soda. You chuckle, but you notice his video got over 7,000 likes, has been shared over 600 times and received over 400 comments. You think to yourself, “Maybe this guy is onto something.” What started as a quest to achieve Internet fame evolved into an Internet-wide belief that weather forecasting can be as easy as DIY crafts.
Since anyone can call themselves “an expert,” you must cultivate critical thinking skills to distinguish genuine expertise from self-professed experts’ self-promoting nonsense. While the absurdity of the Internet can be entertaining, misinformation has serious consequences. The next time you read a headline that sounds too good to be true, it’s probably an Internet talking head making an educated guess; without the education seeking Internet fame, they can monetize.
TORONTO – A new survey says a majority of software engineers and developers feel tight project deadlines can put safety at risk.
Seventy-five per cent of the 1,000 global workers who responded to the survey released Tuesday say pressure to deliver projects on time and on budget could be compromising critical aspects like safety.
The concern is even higher among engineers and developers in North America, with 77 per cent of those surveyed on the continent reporting the urgency of projects could be straining safety.
The study was conducted between July and September by research agency Coleman Parkes and commissioned by BlackBerry Ltd.’s QNX division, which builds connected-car technology.
The results reflect a timeless tug of war engineers and developers grapple with as they balance the need to meet project deadlines with regulations and safety checks that can slow down the process.
Finding that balance is an issue that developers of even the simplest appliances face because of advancements in technology, said John Wall, a senior vice-president at BlackBerry and head of QNX.
“The software is getting more complicated and there is more software whether it’s in a vehicle, robotics, a toaster, you name it… so being able to patch vulnerabilities, to prevent bad actors from doing malicious acts is becoming more and more important,” he said.
The medical, industrial and automotive industries have standardized safety measures and anything they produce undergoes rigorous testing, but that work doesn’t happen overnight. It has to be carried out from the start and then at every step of the development process.
“What makes safety and security difficult is it’s an ongoing thing,” Wall said. “It’s not something where you’ve done it, and you are finished.”
The Waterloo, Ont.-based business found 90 per cent of its survey respondents reported that organizations are prioritizing safety.
However, when asked about why safety may not be a priority for their organization, 46 per cent of those surveyed answered cost pressures and 35 per cent said a lack of resources.
That doesn’t surprise Wall. Delays have become rampant in the development of tech, and in some cases, stand to push back the launch of vehicle lines by two years, he said.
“We have to make sure that people don’t compromise on safety and security to be able to get products out quicker,” he said.
“What we don’t want to see is people cutting corners and creating unsafe situations.”
The survey also took a peek at security breaches, which have hit major companies like London Drugs, Indigo Books & Music, Giant Tiger and Ticketmaster in recent years.
About 40 per cent of the survey’s respondents said they have encountered a security breach in their employer’s operating system. Those breaches resulted in major impacts for 27 per cent of respondents, moderate impacts for 42 per cent and minor impacts for 27 per cent.
“There are vulnerabilities all the time and this is what makes the job very difficult because when you ship the software, presumably the software has no security vulnerabilities, but things get discovered after the fact,” Wall said.
Security issues, he added, have really come to the forefront of the problems developers face, so “really without security, you have no safety.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 8, 2024.
As online shoppers hunt for bargains offered by Amazon during its annual fall sale this week, cybersecurity researchers are warning Canadians to beware of an influx of scammers posing as the tech giant.
In the 30 days leading up to Amazon’s Prime Big Deal Days, taking place Tuesday and Wednesday, there were more than 1,000 newly registered Amazon-related web domains, according to Check Point Software Technologies, a company that offers cybersecurity solutions.
The company said it deemed 88 per cent of those domains malicious or suspicious, suggesting they could have been set up by scammers to prey on vulnerable consumers. One in every 54 newly created Amazon-related domain included the phrase “Amazon Prime.”
“They’re almost indiscernible from the real Amazon domain,” said Robert Falzon, head of engineering at Check Point in Canada.
“With all these domains registered that look so similar, it’s tricking a lot of people. And that’s the whole intent here.”
Falzon said Check Point Research sees an uptick in attempted scams around big online shopping days throughout the year, including Prime Days.
Scams often come in the form of phishing emails, which are deceptive messages that appear to be from a reputable source in attempt to steal sensitive information.
In this case, he said scammers posing as Amazon commonly offer “outrageous” deals that appear to be associated with Prime Days, in order to trick recipients into clicking on a malicious link.
The cybersecurity firm said it has identified and blocked 100 unique Amazon Prime-themed scam emails targeting organizations and consumers over the past two weeks.
Scammers also target Prime members with unsolicited calls, claiming urgent account issues and requesting payment information.
“It’s like Christmas for them,” said Falzon.
“People expect there to be significant savings on Prime Day, so they’re not shocked that they see something of significant value. Usually, the old adage applies: If it seems too good to be true, it probably is.”
Amazon’s website lists a number of red flags that it recommends customers watch for to identify a potential impersonation scam.
Those include false urgency, requests for personal information, or indications that the sender prefers to complete the purchase outside of the Amazon website or mobile app.
Scammers may also request that customers exclusively pay with gift cards, a claim code or PIN. Any notifications about an order or delivery for an unexpected item should also raise alarm bells, the company says.
“During busy shopping moments, we tend to see a rise in impersonation scams reported by customers,” said Amazon spokeswoman Octavia Roufogalis in a statement.
“We will continue to invest in protecting consumers and educating the public on scam avoidance. We encourage consumers to report suspected scams to us so that we can protect their accounts and refer bad actors to law enforcement to help keep consumers safe.”
Falzon added that these scams are more successful than people might think.
As of June 30, the Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre said there had been $284 million lost to fraud so far this year, affecting 15,941 victims.
But Falzon said many incidents go unreported, as some Canadians who are targeted do not know how or where to flag a scam, or may choose not to out of embarrassment.
Check Point recommends Amazon customers take precautions while shopping on Prime Days, including by checking URLs carefully, creating strong passwords on their accounts, and avoiding personal information being shared such as their birthday or social security number.
The cybersecurity company said consumers should also look for “https” at the beginning of a website URL, which indicates a secure connection, and use credit cards rather than debit cards for online shopping, which offer better protection and less liability if stolen.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 8, 2024.
