Igor Jablokov, Pryon: Building a responsible AI future

As artificial intelligence continues to rapidly advance, ethical concerns around the development and deployment of these world-changing innovations are coming into sharper focus.

In an interview ahead of the AI & Big Data Expo North America, Igor Jablokov, CEO and founder of AI company Pryon, addressed these pressing issues head-on.

Critical ethical challenges in AI

"There's not one, maybe there's almost 20 plus of them," Jablokov stated when asked about the...

Microsoft unveils Phi-3 family of compact language models

Microsoft has announced the Phi-3 family of open small language models (SLMs), touting them as the most capable and cost-effective of their size available. The innovative training approach developed by Microsoft researchers has allowed the Phi-3 models to outperform larger models on language, coding, and math benchmarks.

"What we're going to start to see is not a shift from large to small, but a shift from a singular category of models to a portfolio of models where customers get...

Meta raises the bar with open source Llama 3 LLM

Meta has introduced Llama 3, the next generation of its state-of-the-art open source large language model (LLM). The tech giant claims Llama 3 establishes new performance benchmarks, surpassing previous industry-leading models like GPT-3.5 in real-world scenarios.

"With Llama 3, we set out to build the best open models that are on par with the best proprietary models available today," said Meta in a blog post announcing the release.

The initial Llama 3 models being...

Mixtral 8x22B sets new benchmark for open models

Mistral AI has released Mixtral 8x22B, which sets a new benchmark for open source models in performance and efficiency. The model boasts robust multilingual capabilities and superior mathematical and coding prowess.

Mixtral 8x22B operates as a Sparse Mixture-of-Experts (SMoE) model, utilising just 39 billion of its 141 billion parameters when active.

Beyond its efficiency, the Mixtral 8x22B boasts fluency in multiple major languages including English, French, Italian,...

SAS aims to make AI accessible regardless of skill set with packaged AI models

SAS, a specialist in data and AI solutions, has unveiled what it describes as a “game-changing approach” for organisations to tackle business challenges head-on.

Introducing lightweight, industry-specific AI models for individual licence, SAS hopes to equip organisations with readily deployable AI technology to productionise real-world use cases with unparalleled efficiency.

Chandana Gopal, research director, Future of Intelligence, IDC, said: “SAS is evolving its...

80% of AI decision makers are worried about data privacy and security

Organisations are enthusiastic about generative AI’s potential for increasing their business and people productivity, but lack of strategic planning and talent shortages are preventing them from realising its true value.

This is according to a study conducted in early 2024 by Coleman Parkes Research and sponsored by data analytics firm SAS, which surveyed 300 US GenAI strategy or data analytics decision makers to pulse check major areas of investment and the hurdles...

Hugging Face launches Idefics2 vision-language model

Hugging Face has announced the release of Idefics2, a versatile model capable of understanding and generating text responses based on both images and texts. The model sets a new benchmark for answering visual questions, describing visual content, story creation from images, document information extraction, and even performing arithmetic operations based on visual input.

Idefics2 leapfrogs its predecessor, Idefics1, with just eight billion parameters and the versatility afforded by...

UK and South Korea to co-host AI Seoul Summit

The UK and South Korea are set to co-host the AI Seoul Summit on the 21st and 22nd of May. This summit aims to pave the way for the safe development of AI technologies, drawing on the cooperative framework laid down by the Bletchley Declaration.

The two-day event will feature a virtual leaders' session, co-chaired by British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol, and a subsequent in-person meeting among Digital Ministers. UK Technology Secretary...

US and Japan announce sweeping AI and tech collaboration

The US and Japan have unveiled a raft of new AI, quantum computing, semiconductors, and other critical technology initiatives.

The ambitious plans were announced this week by President Biden and Japanese Prime Minister Kishida Fumio following Kishida's Official Visit to the White House.

While the leaders affirmed their commitment across a broad range of areas including defence, climate, development, and humanitarian efforts, the new technology collaborations took centre...

OpenAI makes GPT-4 Turbo with Vision API generally available

OpenAI has announced that its powerful GPT-4 Turbo with Vision model is now generally available through the company's API, opening up new opportunities for enterprises and developers to integrate advanced language and vision capabilities into their applications.

The launch of GPT-4 Turbo with Vision on the API follows the initial release of GPT-4's vision and audio upload features last September and the unveiling of the turbocharged GPT-4 Turbo model at OpenAI's developer...