Notes I took from the artificial intelligence news that caught my eye between February 21 and February 25.

Prompt: Epic anime artwork of a wizard atop a mountain at night casting a cosmic spell into the dark sky that says “Stable Diffusion 3” made out of colorful energy (image via stability.ai)
  • Stability AI announced a new text-to-image model called Stable Diffusion 3. The successor to Stable Diffusion 2, this model has the ability to produce higher quality and more realistic images. The model was trained on a dataset containing over 1.5 billion texts and images. Stable Diffusion 3 allows users to create their own visuals using text descriptions. It can be used for free for commercial and personal use. The new model allows users to customize the image size, style, and color palette while letting them add text and watermarks to the images. The Stable Diffusion 3 model is currently only available for developers. I can’t wait to try it out when it’s released for everyone.
  • Adobe introduced a new artificial intelligence (AI) assistant for Acrobat PDFs called “Acrobat Assistant”. This AI assistant can automatically summarize PDFs in 13 different languages, extract key points, and search for specific information. Acrobat Assistant is currently available as part of Adobe Acrobat Pro DC and Acrobat Pro DC subscriptions. Users can give text or voice commands to the artificial intelligence assistant. Users can reportedly give commands to the AI assistant such as “Summarize the main points of the document” or “Find John Smith’s contact information”. It can also summarize tables and charts in PDFs. What more could you ask for!
image credit Windows Blog
  • The best use of artificial intelligence, in my opinion, is the kind that everyone can easily access regardless of hardware. An example of this came from Microsoft. New features like an AI-powered smart eraser have come to the Windows Photos app. The smart tools, currently being tested by Windows Insiders, are expected to be rolled out to all users using Windows 10/11 in the coming months. Some of the new features are;
    • Generative Erase: Automatically removes unwanted objects from photos.
    • AI-powered editing: Automatically optimizes photos and improves colors, lighting, and contrast.
    • AI-powered creative tools: Allows you to add effects, filters, and frames to photos.
image credit Google
  • Google introduced a lightweight open-source artificial intelligence model called Gemma. The model can be used in various tasks such as text generation, translation, and question answering. Gemma uses fewer resources than other open-source models, which reportedly makes it accessible to a wider range of users. In addition, Gemma can also be run on Google Cloud or locally.
  • The Galaxy AI features introduced with the S24 series are coming towards the end of March to the Samsung Galaxy S23 series, of which I am also a user. As someone who has previously used an iPhone 13 Pro, iPad Pro, and MacBook Pro M1 Pro, I can’t help but ask how much of the AI features Apple would have given to previous series if it were them. We will see anyway with the iPhone 16 expected to be introduced this September…
  • In the last episode, I wrote that Reddit made a $60 million annual deal to let artificial intelligence use its content. The signs of the agreement have started to emerge. It was officially announced by both companies that Reddit agreed with Google and that the agreement is multi-faceted. The agreement will reportedly help Reddit develop new content formats like video and audio. Google will also provide support to Reddit in the fields of AI and machine learning. The agreement aims to help Reddit reach a wider audience and improve its user experience. I guess meanwhile, Google will also continue to train its artificial intelligence with the contents of the internet’s largest forum.
  • This item is quite interesting because this time I came across a local news piece. Boyner, in collaboration with “E 4.0 Design Studio”, has prepared Turkey’s first artificial intelligence (AI) supported collection. The AI system named “DU” designed a capsule collection by analyzing social media trends, the most popular colors, patterns, and models. It is claimed that in the collection, from fabric selection to colors, from patterns to favorite models, the most popular preferences of the digital world were rediscovered with artificial intelligence. In this way, the collection preparation time accelerated 3 times. Additionally, Boyner’s AI-supported collection reportedly bears the distinction of being a first in the fashion industry. I hope it continues and we receive good news from other sectors as well.
  • It wouldn’t be complete without Elon. The man is the subject of a new news story every day. This time, it is said that Elon Musk will visit Kuwait to discuss the establishment of a global artificial intelligence center. There is not much information about the details, but we already know that everyone and every company working on AI is closely interested in Arab capital. Seeing such news, a question comes to my mind. Is it better to have artificial intelligence technology or to have a lot of hot cash?
  • Last week, Google allowed people to generate images of people with Gemini AI, and before a few days had even passed, it had to pause this feature due to “skin color”. Users reported that Gemini produced inaccurate visuals, such as showing the founding fathers of the US as people of color. Afterward, they made a statement about this, but I’d be lying if I said I understood anything from the statement.
  • I came across an article mentioning an artificial intelligence system developed in Denmark that can predict the probability of death within 4 years with 78% accuracy. Although it sounds a bit scary at first, the actual goal is to extend human lifespan. The system works using economic and health data. It is argued that this system does not require us to fear death; on the contrary, it can help us extend our lifespan by making health and lifestyle changes. The artificial intelligence system can reportedly predict fatal diseases like heart disease, cancer, and diabetes in advance, give doctors recommendations for treatment, and encourage people to change their unhealthy lifestyles. On the flip side, they stated that the artificial intelligence system could also have negative aspects. It is also being discussed that it could focus people on death and create unnecessary stress due to incorrect predictions made by the system.
  • Investors including Nvidia, Intel, and Jeff Bezos invested millions of dollars in a company called Figure AI that develops human-like robots. The exact investment amount was not disclosed. Figure AI plans to use its humanoid robots for various tasks, for example: assisting the elderly and disabled, working in place of humans in dangerous tasks, and transporting products in logistics. Figure AI uses artificial intelligence to develop robots that mimic human anatomy and movement. The company’s robots can reportedly perform complex tasks like climbing stairs and carrying objects.
  • Nvidia reached a new threshold this week by hitting a value of 2 trillion dollars. Then it dropped a bit and closed the week with a value of 1.97 trillion dollars. In some predictions I came across on the internet, there are even those talking about 20 trillion dollar valuations in the next 5 years. I really wonder where all this will end up.
  • Here is a very interesting news piece showing the impact of artificial intelligence. US film and TV giant Tyler Perry said he has put an $800 million expansion of his studio on hold after becoming concerned about new AI technology. The 54-year-old Perry also reportedly believes that many jobs in the film industry will be lost due to artificial intelligence. This decision was made after seeing OpenAI’s Sora video generation technology. Faced with this event, I couldn’t help but think: “The cards are being redealt in Hollywood.”