Smart stuff
Author | Li Shuiqing
Editing | Heart Fate
Zhishi reported on February 6 that recently, Silicon Valley technology giants have a new craze: generative AI. Their CEOs have all emphasized this technology in recent earnings conferences. According to statistics from Reuters reporters, the frequency of words such as AI, generative AI or machine learning is 2-6 times that of the previous quarter.
Executives at Microsoft and Google have brought the tech wars from behind the scenes to the front. On Thursday, Google’s mentions of AI in its earnings call increased to 45 from 13 in the third quarter, and Microsoft’s mentions increased to 39 from 15 in the third quarter.
Generative AI, simply put, refers to machine learning algorithm technology that can generate text and images. In this field, ChatGPT, a generative AI language model launched by OpenAI, a research institute under Microsoft, has recently triggered an industry competition, posing new challenges to Google, which occupies a place in AI. Microsoft's plans to embed ChatGPT in its Bing search engine could jeopardize Google's long-standing search engine leadership.
Sundar Pichai, CEO of Google's parent company Alphabet, talked about the public's fascination with ChatGPT in a recent earnings call, saying Google has been involved in related fields. "AI software will be a key focus for Alphabet, which plans to publicly launch its own LaMDA chatbot software in the coming weeks."
Evan Spiegel, CEO of social media company Snap, said at the earnings conference that generative AI will be crucial to the growth of AR (augmented reality) in the next five years and is related to the company's business development. AR’s ability to superimpose computerized images onto the real world is still limited, requiring designers to build 3D models, a process that generative AI can speed up.
On Wednesday, Meta CEO Zuckerberg mentioned the term "generative AI" 30 times during an earnings call, calling it an extremely exciting new field. Meta plans to integrate new technologies into almost all products such as images, videos, and 3D virtual people to help content creators produce content. "One of Meta's goals is to be a leader in generative artificial intelligence based on our research," Zuckerberg said.
Even Apple, which dominates the hardware field, pays more attention to the software technology of generative AI. Apple Chief Executive Tim Cook said Thursday that Apple is using such technology to enhance recognition detection in the iPhone and Apple Watch and will apply it to all of Apple's products and services. Cook said: "We see a huge potential in this field that can affect almost everything. This is obviously not a simple vertical field, but a horizontal technology (enabling various fields)."
Conclusion: ChatGPT is the lead, technology giants rush to the beach of generative AI
In recent months, ChatGPT launched by OpenAI has gained attention and favor from all walks of life in the industry. As Microsoft plans to embed it into applications such as search engines and office tools, the wave of generative AI has been pushed to a small peak.
In fact, generative AI technologies and products across the technology industry are making new progress. It can be seen that with the financial report meeting in early 2023, technology giants such as Google, Meta, and Apple have shown their emphasis on generative AI technology, which is expected to start a new beachhead battle.
