ChatGPT is on winter break

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Welcome back, Superhuman

The French really know how to do it in style. Less than a week after Google announced Gemini with a set of videos and a waitlist on their blog, Parisien AI startup Mistral showed everyone how it’s done by raising $400 million in new funding and dropping a massive new model through a torrent link.

And humans aren’t the only ones who get lazy around the holidays. A new study shows that ChatGPT might be producing worse results in December because it learned to do less work over the holidays.

TODAY’S MENU

• Mistral enters the chat with model that beats GPT 3.5

• How to create images with AI in real-time

• Study finds ChatGPT performs worse in December

• The biggest deals in AI this week

• 5 new AI tools to boost your productivity

• AI Generated Images: Modern TV shows in the 70's

NEWS

Today in AI & Tech

• Dropped the Ball: Sports Illustrated CEO is fired after AI scandal involving nonexistent writers with AI-generated profile pictures.

• Robo Rides: Chinese startup WeRide is testing autonomous buses in Singapore, potentially paving the way for global expansion.

• Noted: Google’s new AI-powered note-taking app is now widely available in the US.

• Watchful Eye: The FTC is looking into Microsoft’s investment in OpenAI.

• Billionaire Beef: Elon Musk calls for Disney CEO to be fired over ads argument.

NEXT IN AI

French AI startup Mistral drops a GPT-3.5 beating model in style

Imagine the story of David and Goliath set in the wild west of AI product launches. On the one hand, you have the almighty Google rocking their fancy product launch videos and polished press material — only to tell you that Gemini Ultra, their most advanced model, isn’t even available yet.

And on the other hand, you have Mistral — a scruffy little outsider with Parisien swag dripping from head to toe just dropping a GPT-3.5 beating model over a torrent link on their X profile like it was nothin’

Jokes aside, Mistral’s new model isn’t just all style. There’s plenty of substance under the hood:

• Called Mixtral-8x7B, Mistral’s new AI model is open-source and claims to beat OpenAI’s GPT-3.5 and Meta’s Llama 2 — no mean feat

• It can handle English, French, Italian, German and Spanish

• Shows strong performance in code generation

• Mistral claims that the model is “the best model overall regarding cost/performance trade-offs”

While Mistral’s new model isn’t as impressive as GPT-4 - currently the holy grail of AI models - building an open-source model that can beat second-tier models like GPT-3.5 is a pretty significant achievement, as it gives developers and companies around the world access to a very capable AI model at an affordable price.

You can get more details on Mistral’s official blog here.

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AI AT WORK

How to create images in real-time

• Go to Freepik and sign up with your Google account

• Now, simply write what you want to generate in the text box and watch the magic happen

• You can download your creation by clicking on the download button on the top right corner

RESEARCH

New research suggests ChatGPT performs worse when it thinks it’s December

AI models are weird. Barely a week after OpenAI admitted that ChatGPT is getting ‘lazier,’ a new study from X user Rob Lynch showed that GPT-4 produced shorter completions when it thinks it’s December vs. when it thinks it’s May. The results appear to be statistically significant.

The news first hit our radar after Wharton Professor Ethan Mollick reposted the study and cited the AI Winter Break Hypothesis as a potential explanation. The theory suggests that AIs might perform worse in December because they "learned" to do less work over the holidays.

Lynch conducted his research by creating two system prompts: one that told the API it was May and another that it was December. He then compared the distributions. Another X user thebes claimed that they were able to reproduce the results.

While OpenAI has not confirmed whether the recent drop in performance is due to the time of the year, the company did say that they are looking into fixing it.

5 AI Tools to Supercharge Your Productivity

Akool: All in one AI platform for creators and innovators. Customize your content and materialize your idea in seconds.

Frontitude AI: Write engaging and consistent UX content effortlessly with the power of AI, without leaving Figma.

Cube (sponsored): Stop data hallucination. Every AI app needs a semantic layer. Get your free GigaOm report on semantic layers here.

BigRead AI: Read and learn anything with a personalized AI tutor and enhance your learning skills.

ClientZen: Analyzes feedback and offers actionable insights using AI-powered feedback analysis tool.

FUNDING & ACQUISITIONS

The biggest deals in AI this week

• Fidelity backs AI infrastructure startup at $9 billion-plus valuation. Read more →

• OpenAI Rival Mistral nears $2 billion valuation. Read more →

• AI Startup for aerospace valued at about $300 million in new financing. Read more →

• AssemblyAI lands $50M to build and serve AI speech models. Read more →

• San Francisco startup MaintainX raises $50 million to bring A.I. to industrial operations. Read more →

AI-GENERATED IMAGES

Modern TV shows in the 70's

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Thanks for reading.

Until next time!

Zain

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