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GPT-4 faces off against Google’s Bard
On Wednesday, Google unveiled a formidable challenger to OpenAI’s ChatGPT with the release of Bard, a chatbot powered by the advanced language model Gemini. This innovation promises to rival, if not surpass, its counterpart, offering users in over 170 countries, including India, a sophisticated conversational experience.
Notably, Gemini boasts multimodal capabilities, allowing it to analyse images and audio, although these features are slated for a future release in Bard. Head of Google DeepMind, Demis Hassabis, highlighted Gemini’s strength in non-text interactions, as demonstrated in scenarios like parents using Bard to assess their children’s homework and YouTuber Mark Rober employing it for precise paper airplane designs with AI feedback.
Musk launches xAI’s Grok
Elon Musk revealed on Thursday that his AI startup xAI is introducing Grok, a ChatGPT competitor, exclusively for Premium+ subscribers on the social media platform X. The announcement, made on X without divulging specific launch details, follows Musk’s earlier statement that Grok would be accessible to subscribers once it completed early beta testing.
Amid a shift away from advertisers on the microblogging platform, Musk aims to diminish reliance on advertising, emphasising a subscription-centric approach. Additionally, he envisions transforming X into a “super app,” offering diverse services such as messaging, social networking, and peer-to-peer payments.
Meta board analyses Israel-Hamas content
Meta’s Oversight Board announced on Thursday it’s examining how Meta handled violent content related to the Israel-Hamas conflict, particularly in cases of hostage-taking and bombings. These are the first cases to use a new faster review process, requiring decisions within 30 days, a change from their usual longer review periods.
This decision comes amid a flood of violent, hateful, and misleading content on social media during the two-month-old Israel-Hamas conflict. Following an October 7 attack by Hamas, Meta temporarily adjusted its content removal criteria, facing criticism for allegedly suppressing support for Palestinians affected by Israel’s military response in Gaza.
