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- Google's 'Jarvis' is coming
Google's 'Jarvis' is coming
PLUS: Altman calls 'Orion' reports 'fake news'
Rowan Cheung
October 28, 2024
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Welcome, AI enthusiasts.
Google reportedly has a new agentic AI assistant coming soon, and Tony Stark’s Iron Man would be proud.
‘Jarvis’ is the tech giant’s take on an AI model that can navigate your browser — but is it playing catch-up after Anthropic’s latest release? Let’s get into it…
In today’s AI rundown:
Google ‘Jarvis’ AI browser assistant is coming
Altman calls ‘Orion’ frontier model rumors ‘fake news’
Improve your business strategy with AI Coaching
AI transcripts create dangerous errors
6 new AI tools & 4 new AI jobs
More AI & tech news
Read time: 4 minutes
LATEST DEVELOPMENTS
Image source: Midjourney
The Rundown: Google is reportedly developing an AI agent codenamed ‘Project Jarvis’ that can control web browsers to complete everyday tasks for users, and a possible preview could come as early as December, according to The Information.
The details:
The system captures and interprets browser screenshots to navigate websites and input information.
Jarvis will initially focus on consumer tasks like online shopping, research, and travel booking.
The agent is specifically optimized for web browsers (not full computer use) and reportedly currently operates with a few-second delay between actions.
The release is expected to coincide with Google's launch of its next-gen Gemini AI model before the end of the year.
Why it matters: Google’s ‘Jarvis’ news may have been a bit more exciting if the release (still months away) didn’t come immediately on the heels of Anthropic’s live computer use feature. The launch, coming alongside a Gemini upgrade, could give Google some momentum heading into the new year — or disappoint after the longer wait.
TOGETHER WITH BEAGO
The Rundown: BeaGo is an ultra-fast, AI-powered app that goes beyond traditional search engines by delivering precise direct answers—enhancing your searches with speed and accuracy, providing answers with clear text and rich images
With BeaGo, you can:
Receive high-quality answers directly, skipping the usual list of links
Effortlessly access precise text and image-based answers with multimodal AI
Experience real-time results powered by cutting-edge AI
Download BeaGo now and start getting your answers faster today.
OPENAI
Image source: Ideogram
The Rundown: OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has seemingly pushed back against reports claiming the company plans to release a powerful new AI model codenamed ‘Orion’ in December, tweeting "fake news out of control.”
The details:
A report revealed that OpenAI would release its new ‘Orion’ frontier model by December, with Microsoft and other huge companies getting access before individuals.
Altman responded directly to the report on X, posting “fake news out of control” directly to The Verge.
An OpenAI spokesperson clarified that they have no plans for an "Orion" release this year but plan to release “a lot of other great technology.”
However, Altman previously tweeted a cryptic message about being ‘excited for the winter constellations to rise soon,’ fueling additional speculation.
Why it matters: There have been plenty of rumblings about the major AI firms preparing some major fireworks for the end of 2024. While Altman and Co. deny the Orion report, it would be surprising not to see a big release — and the continued speculation shows that OpenAI still knows how to keep the industry on its toes.
AI TRAINING
The Rundown: HeyGen’s new Interactive Avatars allow you to have personalized AI-driven insights through immersive, real-time conversations.
Step-by-step:
Go to HeyGen and navigate to "Labs" in the left sidebar.
Select "Interactive Avatar" and choose "Sofia - Business Coach" from the templates.
Click on Sophia's avatar and select "Start new chat" (or "Connect to Zoom" for team sessions).
Enable your microphone/camera and begin your AI coaching session.
Pro tip: Create your own AI avatar for a specific use case by selecting the option “All Avatars” instead of a template one.
PRESENTED BY IBM
The Rundown: Meet IBM’s new third generation of Granite with new open, compact, and efficient 2B and 8B language models.
Designed to give enterprises more ways to embed and scale AI in their businesses, these new 2B and 8B compact models are:
Trained with carefully curated data;
Cost-efficient;
Designed to run high-performance solutions.;
AI RESEARCH
Image source: Associated Press
The Rundown: Several researchers raised concerns after finding that OpenAI's Whisper transcription tool suffers from frequent hallucinations and invents text that never appears in recordings despite being deployed extensively in healthcare settings.
The details:
A Michigan researcher found fabricated text in 80% of examined transcriptions, while another reported hallucinations in ‘nearly every’ Whisper output.
Hallucinations ranged from non-existent medical treatments to racial commentary and violent content.
Over 30,000 medical professionals use Whisper-based tools despite OpenAI's warnings against high-risk applications, according to the AP report.
Whisper was also the most popular open-source speech model according to Hugging Face, with over 4.2M downloads in the last month alone.
Why it matters: Hallucinations are currently an unfortunate fact of life in AI systems — and until they are reliably 100% solved, deployment into high-risk environments could be a recipe for disaster. However, commercial pressures seem to be outpacing proper safeguards, with every industry rushing to take advantage of the AI wave.
NEW TOOLS & JOBS
💻 Claude Computer Use - Give Claude the power to view your screen, click, type, and execute tasks
🤑 Pricing Maker - AI pricing generator for your product or SaaS
💪 Supafit - AI personal training and fitness tracking app
📝 Fill Genius - Automate form filling in seconds with AI
🎥 Loomos - Convert rough Loom recordings into professional videos
📱 The Rundown - Social Media Manager
🚗 Waymo - Technical Lead Manager, Simulation
💻 Glean - Web Developer
📊 Anyscale - Product Manager, Observability
QUICK HITS
The AI Bill of Rights with Section & the White House’s Dr. Alondra Nelson. How do we ensure a future of ethical AI development? RSVP free.*
Perplexity CEO Aravind Srinvas revealed in a post on X that the AI search platform now handles over 100M weekly queries.
Meta landed its first AI news deal, partnering with Reuters to provide real-time news responses through its AI chatbot across the company’s Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, and Messenger platforms.
Coinbase launched ‘Based Agent,’ a tool allowing users to create AI-powered crypto trading bots with on-chain capabilities in under three minutes using OpenAI and Replit integration.
Disney is reportedly preparing to unveil a major AI initiative focused on post-production and VFX workflows, which will mark the content giant’s first major embrace of the tech.
Meta also released NotebookLlama, an open-source version of Google’s NotebookLM that converts PDFs into podcasts using text-to-speech technology.
*Sponsored listing
THAT’S A WRAP
That's it for today!Before you go we’d love to know what you thought of today's newsletter to help us improve The Rundown experience for you. |
See you soon,
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