Welcome to the Techmeme Ride Home for Wednesday, May 15, 2024. I'm Brian McCulloch today. All the announces from Google's massive I-O event yesterday, including, yes, generative AI summaries are fully coming to Google Search. Plus the camera-based AI system they tease that looks really cool. Ilya Susquevere officially leaves open AI and is crypto the only place left where you can raise a billion dollar seed round. Here's what you missed today in the world of tech.
I regret not holding the show till later on Monday for that open AI event, but I'm glad I didn't hold the show yesterday for the Google I-O keynote. There was just so, so much as expected. In real time, I would have had zero ability to filter out what was actually important. I kind of empathize with Kyle Carmichael, who said this on threads. Compared to WWDC or what we saw from Open AI yesterday,
Google I-O continues to feel like the presentation day at the end of a hackathon. Don't get me wrong, hackathons are awesome, and those presentation days are always mind-blowing. But that's what Google is. The world's largest advertising sales company with a huge side gig of brilliant engineers doing years long hackathons on things without anyone ever really putting together a picture of a cohesive product.
It's exhausting in aggregate, end quote. But with the benefit of 12 hours to sort it all out, here's everything that happened along with the most important things that happened. The most important one first. Who says Google will be disrupted because the web will be aviated by others who do search by just summarizing web pages instead of pointing you to web pages. It's that head tapping meme can't be disrupted if we aviate the web ourselves first. Google plans to roll out AI overviews in search
to all US users by next week and to more countries soon. They'll be available to the 1 billion plus users of Google search by the end of 2024. According search engine land, AI overviews was introduced as part of the search generative experience last May. It was opt-in within the Google search labs until Google began testing AI overviews in the wild for a subset of users in March 2024. AI
overviews gives answers to queries using generative AI technology powered by Google Gemini. It provides a few snippets of an answer based on its understanding of queries and the content it found on the topic across the web. You won't see AI overviews for all your searches. AI overviews are reserved to answer
more complex questions where Google feels it can add value beyond the search results. If AI overview doesn't add value to what Google search shows by default, Google will not show an AI overview. Google would not say what percentage of queries will generate an AI overview. I asked numerous times and was told we won't share those figures. I asked if we would see AI overviews only when ads are not displayed and I was told that was not the case. The types of queries AI overviews will show
for have less to do with ads and more to do with adding value to the search results. Google said and quote more from Kevin Russe in the New York Times. AI overviews will give users concise summaries of whatever they're looking for along with suggested follow-up questions and a list of links they can click on to learn more. Users will still get traditional search results too but they'll have to scroll further down the page to see them. Publishers are right to be spooked if the AI
answer engine does its job well enough users won't need to click on any links at all. Whenever they're looking for we'll be sitting right there on top of their search results and the grand bargain on which Google's relationship with the open web rests. You give us articles, we give you traffic could fall apart. Google executives put a positive spin on the announcement on Tuesday saying that the new AI overviews would improve the user experience by quote taking the legwork out of searching.
But that legwork pays for a lot of journalism and a lot of other types of online media fashion blogs, laptop reviews, restaurant listings without which the internet would be far less useful. If Google's AI overviews starve these websites of traffic what will happen to them and if big chunks of the web were to vanish altogether what would be left for the AI to summarize and quote. Also what would a podcaster have left to summarize on their daily show. We're about to run the
biggest experiment on the web we've ever run and we're running it like next week. Let's run down more of the announces from IO so I can feel like I told you everything. Google also announced a search filter named web to show only text-based links in results. So maybe this is an AI search opt-out feature kind of but also it will remove forums videos news images and all that other stuff yet
you get in results because they preem them in there for so long. Google also announced a private preview of a new Gemini 1.5 pro version that can take up to two million tokens in at once twice its predecessor and rivaling the likes of Anthropics Cloud 3. They announced a Gemini 1.5 Flash which is more lightweight and cheaper than Gemini Pro but has the same multimodal capabilities
and one million token context window. Gemini Pro is coming to workspace labs letting users summarize emails by topic and more like compare my roof repair bids shipping later this month. Ask photos with Gemini is a Google photos feature that can answer questions like show me the best photo from each national park I visited. Music AI sandbox is a suite of music tools that include the ability to create loops via text though they didn't give a public launch date for that.
They showed off VO a text to video model that outputs at 1080p resolution and imagine 3 its highest quality image generation model with improved text rendering. Circle to search can now solve physics and math problems and we'll expand later this year to diagrams and graphs powered
by Learn LM models. Google said Gemini Nano is now built into Chrome on desktop with plans to use it to power features like the existing help me write tool Gemini advanced subscribers will soon be able to make personalized Gemini chat bots called a gems with distinct personalities and abilities. Google also unveiled additions to Gemma its family of open models including Gemma 2 a 27 billion parameter model debuting in June and poly Gemma a vision language model.
They open source the code for project game face their hands free gaming mouse controlled by head movement and facial gestures they open source that to Android developers there's now AI powered scam call detection on Android a chatty new voice mode with its Gemini live feature and voice
and video search with Google lens. Then the thing that has been passed around a lot online they also teased project a strap a camera based AI app to process visual data in real time they have a video showing a person using their phones camera to show the AI a bunch of things which it
not only identifies but interrogates that video finished with that same person putting on a pair of smart glasses and then querying the feature suggesting Google Glass could make a comeback but even if not seriously smart glasses as a key input feature for AI and the future of wearables
in general is really coming into focus I think. According to a video that Google showed during a media briefing yesterday project aster appeared to be an app which has a viewfinder as its main interface a person holding up a phone pointed its camera at various parts of an office and verbally
said tell me when you see something that makes sound when a speaker next to a monitor came into view Gemma I responded I see a speaker which makes a sound the person behind the phone stopped and drew an on screen arrow to the top circle on the speaker and said what is that part of the
speaker called Gemma I promptly responded that is the tweeter it produces high frequency sounds then in the video that Google said was recorded in a single take the tester moved over to a cup of crayons further down the table and ask give me a creative alliteration about these to which Gemma
I said creative crayons color cheerfully they certainly craft colorful creations the rest of the video goes on to show Gemma I and project aster identifying and explaining parts of code on a monitor telling the user what neighborhood they were in based on the view out the window most
impressively aster was able to answer do you remember where you saw my glasses even though said glasses were completely out of frame and were not previously pointed out yes I do Gemma I said adding your glasses were on a desk near a red apple after aster located those glasses the
tester put them on and the video shifted to the perspective of what you'd see on the wearable using a camera on board the glasses scan the wearers surroundings to see things like a diagram on a whiteboard the person in the video then asked what can I add here to make this system faster
as they spoke an on screen waveform moved to indicate it was listening and as it responded text captions appeared in tandem aster said adding a cache between the server and database could improve speed and quote being out in the real world and being able to get answers to basic questions like
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ride for your growing business that's two free weeks at one password dot com slash ride don't let security slow your business down go to one password dot com slash ride Ilya Susquevere officially announced that he will be leaving open AI to work on what he called a
personally meaningful project director of research Jacob Pachaki will become open AI's chief scientist quoting cmbc I am excited for what comes next a project that is very personally meaningful to me about which I will share details in due time Susquevere wrote in an x-post on Tuesday
the departure comes months after open AI went through a leadership crisis involving co-founder and CEO Sam Altman on Tuesday Altman shared his thoughts on Susquevere's departure quote this is very sad to me Ilya is easily one of the greatest minds of our generation a guiding light
of our field and a dear friend Altman wrote on x his brilliance and vision are well known his warmth and compassion are less well known but no less important end quote Altman said research director Jacob Pachaki who has been at open AI since 2017 will replace Susquevere as chief
scientist and quote there's more yon leak who was co leading open AI's super alignment team with Susquevere to steer and control more powerful AI has also resigned from the company look I don't know if we'll ever know what exactly went down with all of this as nirrit vice blatt pointed out
six months this came after the failed coup or specifically 179 days to be exact since the coup happened this was clearly the end result of all of that but why string it out this long why not part ways with Ilya earlier and in the end well this summary from crypto mechanus summarizes it
perfectly there's still so much we don't understand about all this quote why would the chief scientist at open AI leave when it's clearly the central hub for the frontier why would Altman be removed as CEO and be reinstated later on all of this is incredibly strange and suspect and quote
this was most likely inevitable eight tiktok creators are suing the US government over the law forcing a sale or ban of tiktok in the US arguing the move violates their first amendment rights quoting the Washington Post the law quote threatens to deprive them and the rest of the country of this distinctive means of expression and communication the creators suit states it bans an entire medium of communication and all the speech communicated through that medium even though at the very
least the vast majority of that speech is protected and quote in a statement the justice department said it looked forward to defending the law in court this legislation addresses critical national security concerns in a manner that is consistent with the first amendment and other constitutional
limitations the statement said the creators held from eight states and represent a diversity of professions backgrounds and political leanings they are Brian fireball 43 a cattle rancher and Hubbard Texas Chloe Joyce sexton 29 who owns a cookie baking business in Memphis
Kira span a recent college graduate in Charlotte who seeks to educate women about sexual violence and politics toford Townsend 33 and Air Force veteran and rapper who post videos quizzing people about the bible tally a cadet 34 a lifestyle creator in DC Timothy Marin 25 a college football coach
in north Dakota who talks about sports Paul Tran 43 a beauty creator in Atlanta who owns a skincare brand and Steve King 50 a creator in Arizona who posts about comedy fashion and relationships all of them told the Washington Post that tiktok is an essential outlet for speech and self-expression
and that they rely on it to educate advocate and connect with millions of people as well as to make a living as Americans we should be free to choose whatever app we want to use especially when they haven't proved or provided evidence to show the danger they've set out that is unique to tiktok
Townsend said in a video posted to his tiktok account and quote finally today interesting raise humanity protocol is a blockchain based identity system that uses scans of people's palms to identify them and it has raised a 30 million dollar seed
led by Kingsway capital at a one billion dollar valuation they want to go after projects like Sam Altman's World coin but again let me stress the numbers here 30 million dollars on a one billion dollar valuation they achieved unicorn status only by giving away 3% of their equity
i'm not saying crypto is back or anything i'm just saying crypto is the only place that i'm aware of where you can still raise a seed and immediately be a unicorn even in AI that's not happening quoting Bloomberg Kingsway capital led the seed funding round which also included blockchain
dot com and she met capital as investors founder Terrence quack said that the company also raised about one and a half million dollars from influential crypto figures in a quote key opinion leader round founded late last year humanity protocol plans to use the fresh capital to expand it's more
than 20 person team and build more partnerships as interest grows and platforms that confirm whether a person is a real person online quack said the start at plans to launch its test network during the second quarter and currently has a wait list of about 500,000 as it rolls out the technology
the plan is to first release an app that can use a phone camera to scan people's palm prints to determine their identity quack said the next step will be to roll out another layer of security that relies on the network of veins in a person's palm and requires a small infrared camera that can
connect to a smartphone this system could help financial platforms conduct know your customer processes or even be used to allow entry to physical locations among other uses according to quack in the future you can check into a hotel through a palm scan he said you can access your office
building through a palm scan the company also has plans to release a yet to be named crypto token that can be used to pay verification fees both of its recent funding rounds were conducted through simple agreements for future tokens known in the industry as sats humanity protocol isn't the only
crypto project looking to combine biometrics and blockchain world coin which was co-founded by open AI chief executive officer sam altman uses a device called an orb to scan people's eyes and give them a digital identity that demonstrates proof of personhood however the project has face numerous regulatory setbacks around the world amid data privacy concerns as well as security issues quack said the use of biometric data has matured in recent years pointing to the use of apples implementation
of face ID in its iPhones he said that humanity protocol system is not as invasive the whole concept of identity is starting to become more important quack said we look at artificial intelligence we look at all the deep fake videos that are coming on it's not your face and it's also not your eyeballs he said it's much less dystopian end quote nothing more for you today talk to you tomorrow