Artificial intelligence: executive does not see a single model – 04/15/2024 – Tech

Microsoft and OpenAI began a mad dash for generative artificial intelligence (AI) last year, immediately being caught up by Google.

Since then, the two giants have dominated technology thanks to their more powerful models, while Amazon has had to adapt to stay in the game. But the rival sees the scenario differently.

“With all due respect, I disagree,” said the director of AWS — Amazon’s cloud service — in an interview with AFP. “There will not be a single generative AI model that dominates all others.”

“We have large and small models, some very fast, others very precise. Customers need to choose to meet different needs,” he added, citing the qualities of the different models available on the AWS Bedrock platform, such as Claude from Anthropic, Llama from Meta, the French Mistral AI and Amazon’s bet, Titan.

“Maybe other (cloud) providers don’t have a large selection of models,” joked the executive.

In Silicon Valley, generative artificial intelligence — which includes producing text, images, lines of code and sounds with a simple request in conversational language — is considered ready to begin revolutionizing the way people work.

Specifically, cloud services companies, which store the data of organizations of all sizes, market AI services and now host the models needed for this new technology.

Amazon, which pioneered the cloud and online sales, dominates remote computing. At the end of 2023, AWS had 31% of the market, according to Stocklytics.

“Continue as leaders”

Behind the American multinational are Microsoft (24%, with Azure) and Google Cloud (11%), both gaining ground.

Thanks to the nearly US$13 billion (R$66.7 billion) invested in OpenAI and its new generative AI tools, Microsoft “is leading the way”, according to analyst Dan Ives.

The computing giant and Google compete in the field of AI virtual assistants for creating content (emails, advertising, etc.) and applications.

Amazon appears more discreet. Its platform, AWS, is little known to the general public, and its voice assistant, Alexa, still doesn’t hold conversations like ChatGPT.

“But we’ve been doing AI for over 25 years. In 1998, on the e-commerce website, it was called ‘personalization,'” Selipsky emphasized.

“We have thousands of AI experts and very quickly some of them turned to generative AI,” especially to design the Trainium chips, which train AI models, the Bedrock platform, launched in October, and the Amazon Q AI assistant, he added. the director.

“If we stick to our plans and continue to be truly creative, I believe we will continue to be a leader in the cloud.”

Leader of AWS since 2021 — when former director Andy Jassy replaced Jeff Bezos as head of Amazon — Selipsky would like his customers and partners to witness this.

Among the services is Nvidia, star of generative AI thanks to ultra-sophisticated processors or its GPU. The California-based company “just announced on stage, with me, that it is building a ‘supercomputer’ on AWS, with its chips, to do its own in-house research and development,” he insisted.

“Infallible”

The Seattle company invested US$4 billion (R$20.5 billion) in Anthropic, an OpenAI competitor that also received significant funding from Google.

The startup will use AWS and Trainium microchips to “build future versions of its models”, said Adam Selipsky. “They will help us improve our technology.”

Regarding new applications of generative AI, Selipsky mainly mentions examples of increased productivity.

The pharmaceutical company Pfizer, “which has around 20 AI pilot projects on AWS, estimates that it will launch more potent (medicines), faster and have (up to) US$1 billion in annual savings thanks to AI”, he explained.

Companies, like airlines, are using new technology to create chatbots that interact with their customers. However, they are not infallible.

“Businesses tell us that humans aren’t infallible either,” noted Adam Selipsky. “And in many cases, models are more efficient in terms of accuracy and usefulness than human” agents.

According to the director, the layoffs at AWS are not related to the replacement of employees by AI.

The cloud services platform just eliminated hundreds of jobs, mainly in sales and marketing, to focus on its priorities: AI.

“AWS has thousands of job openings,” he said. “It was like that yesterday and it will be like that tomorrow,” concluded Selipsky.