Breaking AI news from week 19
Once again we witnessed a crazy AI breakthrough this week, followed by a lot of other great news. I have collected and curated the most important ones here:
Alphafold 3 launched
The biggest AI news this week is undoubtedly the launch of Alphafold 3 — an algorithm that can predict the structures and interactions of almost all of life’s molecules, proteins and even within DNA and RNA.
Launched by Google DeepMind and Isomorphic Labs, Alphafold 3 is hard to overstate. It’s a tool that will give us a much better understanding of how our world works over the coming years. And that could lead to everything from new bio-recyclable materials and more resilient crops to an explosion of new medicines, plus much more.
Link to the launch: https://blog.google/technology/ai/google-deepmind-isomorphic-alphafold-3-ai-model/#drug-discovery
Two Minutes Papers has made a nice and slightly nerdy explainer video about Alphafold 3, you can watch it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mz7Qp73lj9o
Simulon: AI+AR — very close to realism
This week we also saw the launch of an impressive new tool that makes it possible to create visual effects in videos with live elements that are so lifelike that it’s hard to tell what’s real and what’s generated. You’ll understand it best when you see how good it is. On their Twitter account there are a number of wild examples: https://twitter.com/simulon?lang=da
The company behind it is Simulon, a South African startup. They have been in development for quite some time but are now ready to launch.
If you want to dive deeper to understand the possibilities and technology behind it, here’s an excellent interview with the founder: Divesh Naidoo: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qamiqnOVM2Q
Is Prompt Engineering already over?
We were just getting used to the idea that one of the job titles of the future would be prompt designer or prompt engineer. But now it looks like AI is taking that job too. Because this week Anthropic released their new solution called Prompt Generator. It takes your simple prompt and foils it to give you the best possible response.
Watch a demo here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3OZunnSvYXM&t=12s
- and read more here: https://www.maginative.com/article/anthropics-new-tool-will-write-prompts-for-you/
Apple destroys the creative industries with AI in new ad
Apple launched new AI ready iPads this week — a huge technological leap forward and an impressive product.
Less impressive was the advert they had created for the launch called Crush!
In it, you can see how a giant press crushes everything the creative industries stand for. And it was seen by many as a symbol of how the big tech giants and AI are destroying and taking over everything that creative people (Apple’s core target group) have previously done. Very unfortunate, and Apple has apologised profusely and taken the ad down. But maybe it could have actually worked quite well if they had just run the film backwards?
See for yourself here:
Link to the original advert: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ntjkwIXWtrc
- and here’s how it would work if it was shown backwards: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/jonadventure_thinkdifferent-appleipad-uncrushed-activity-7194377008179499009-GZwV?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_ios
Midjourney Alpha — coming soon for everyone
Midjourney is without a doubt the best AI solution for image generation. But you’ve had to create your own server on Discord to use it, which has stopped many from getting started.
Midjourney has been working on a web solution at www.midjourney.com called Midjourney Alpha, which is significantly easier to work with. Unfortunately, it’s been reserved for those of us who have already prompted more than 1000 images on Discord. However, that number was reduced to 100 this week, which is a clear signal that they will soon be opening up to everyone. So get ready to get access to a wild tool.
You can read more here: www.Midjourney.com/imagine
A bit of extra inspirational material
Satya Nadella (CEO of Microsoft) was in Thailand this week and gave a very interesting keynote, which you can watch in full (30 min) here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZLoEjEpDp2A
