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What You May Have Missed #17
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What You May Have Missed #17

Google-Anthropic vs Microsoft-OpenAI / Attacks on OpenAI / 5 generative AI issues that don’t directly involve OpenAI

Alberto Romero's avatar
Alberto Romero
Feb 06, 2023
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What You May Have Missed #17
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The anthropic principle. Credit: ChatGPT + Midjourney

Google-Anthropic vs Microsoft-OpenAI

The AI proxy war between Google and Microsoft keeps going.

CNBC reports that Google's CEO Sundar Pichai told investors on Thursday’s earnings call that the company “is planning to roll out its LaMDA language model with search components ‘very soon.’” One of the new features Google is testing is a ChatGPT-like chatbot called Apprentice Bard on top of the (in)famous LaMDA.

Another hint at Google’s newfound resolution to keep Microsoft in check is their partnership with Anthropic, one of OpenAI's strongest competitors in the startup space (and, funny enough, founded by ex-OpenAI employees).

Anthropic CEO, Dario Amodei, said in a statement that they’re “partnering with Google Cloud to support the next phase of Anthropic, where we're going to deploy our AI systems [i.e. Claude] to a larger set of people.”

The Financial Times reported that Google is also investing $300M in the young startup (around 10%). It seems Google aligns better with Anthropic’s values (e.g. more research-oriented) than other Big Tech companies and they want to go all in against OpenAI.

For the latter, the answer has always been Microsoft. After confirming a billionaire deal with the trendy AI startup a month ago, Microsoft has announced plans to launch Teams premium, powered by ChatGPT for $7/month. In parallel, OpenAI has launched ChatGPT Plus for $20/month, less than previously rumored.

Every major player is choosing a side in the fight for the leadership of AI. But, why are the tech giants relying on smaller and less powerful startups to do a job they could do themselves faster and arguably better (they have more resources)?

Nvidia’s Jim Fan has a convincing explanation: It's better to pay others to do what may cost you more than money can repay.

Twitter avatar for @DrJimFan
Jim Fan @DrJimFan
Microsoft invests in OpenAI. Google just invested in Anthropic. See the pattern? Big techs fear legal & reputation issues, so they keep startups like a nuclear reactor at arm’s length. If things go well, they get nuclear power If things go Chernobyl, startup takes the blame 🤔
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6:58 PM ∙ Feb 3, 2023
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It's unclear who will claim victory. Apprentice Bard could prove superior to ChatGPT (speculation) given that LaMDA is better than GPT-3 and GPT-3.5 overall, yet the amount of popularity ChatGPT has amassed is pretty much impossible to replicate: Two months after launch it's reached 100M monthly users—the “fastest-growing consumer application in history,” as reported by Reuters.

The current state of affairs smiles more at OpenAI and Microsoft, though. Paul Buchheit, the creator of Gmail, agrees: “Google may be only a year or two away from total disruption” he tweeted in December. A bold claim that, given what we've witnessed in barely 60 days, seems now plausible.

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