- by theguardian
- 21 Sep 2023
What are the tipping points for an AI boom?
Some are clear in hindsight.
The open-source release of Stable Diffusion, still one of the most impressive image generators out there, was the beginning of the end for the closed-access model that had dominated the AI world until then. It arrived when the image generator Dall-E 2 was still limited to a handful of people who had been vetted by OpenAI, and offered an alternative proposal: powerful image creation to anyone who wanted it.
That prompted the next tipping point: the launch of ChatGPT, the Ford Model T of AI. It was open-access, easy to use and powerfully capable, and its appearance captured imaginations and propelled the technology to the peak of the hype cycle.
Now, just a few months later, we're seeing the arrival of a third, as AI systems shift from being a standalone service to something deeply integrated with the tools and apps we already use to work and live.
Last Tuesday, Google announced a swathe of AI tools for its productivity suite. Eventually, users will be able to use the company's large language model (LLM) to generate text directly in Gmail or Google Docs; generate images, audio and video in Slides; and ask complex natural language questions to manipulate data in Google Sheets.
The company was evasive on when these features would roll out, saying only that it plans to bring them to "trusted testers on a rolling basis throughout the year, before making them available publicly". In true Google style, the company seemed more concerned with showing off its undeniable ability than shipping projects.
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