10X AI (Issue #14): Amazon's AI, StableCode, Tools for Creatives, and Business Aliens
PLUS: Anthropic's Claude Instant 1.2, longer Runway videos, custom instructions for free ChatGPT users, and reducing LLM hallucinations via "according to" prompting.
Happy Sunday, friends!
Welcome back to 10X AI: a weekly look at beginner-focused AI news, tools, and tips.
Let’s get to it.
🗞️ AI news
Here are this week’s AI developments.
Despite two separate AI-related conferences—SIGGRAPH and Ai4—there have been surprisingly few major AI releases for the average user for now.
1. Amazon tests AI-powered product descriptions
Following in Shopify’s footsteps, Amazon is now testing an AI tool for sellers that generates titles, descriptions, and bullet points for their products.
It’s in a limited Beta release for a few select users right now, but we might see it roll out more broadly soon.
2. Stability AI releases StableCode: a code-focused LLM
The company just announced StableCode, an LLM aimed specifically at coders.
The StableCode family offers three different models:
Base model (StableCode-Completion-Alpha-3B-4K) trained on programming languages in the stack-dataset (v1.2) with the addition of Python, Go, Java, Javascript, C, and C++. It has a 4K-token context window.
Extended model (StableCode-Completion-Alpha-3B) that has a longer, 16K-token context window.
An instruction model (StableCode-Instruct-Alpha-3B) tuned for specific use cases to help solve complex programming challenges in the real world.
All the models are available on Hugging Face via the links above.
3. Anthropic upgrades Claude Instant
Anthropic has released a new version of its lower-priced model: Claude Instant 1.2
Claude Instant 1.2 offers comparable scores to Claude Instant 1.1 across most metrics and modest performance improvements when it comes to coding (58.7% vs. 52%) and grade-school math (86.7% vs. 80.9%).
The new model is available via Anthropic’s API.
4. OpenAI rolls out ChatGPT “custom instructions”to free users
Almost a month after first releasing the feature, OpenAI has finally given “custom instructions” to…free ChatGPT users.
Paying ChatGPT Plus customers in the UK and EU (ahem!) will still have to wait to get access.
I’m not bitter.
5. Runway can now generate up to 16 seconds of video
Runway’s Gen-2 text-to-video model previously let anyone generate up to 4 seconds of video per prompt (whether image or text).
You could always generate longer videos by extracting the last frame of the first clip and generating a new one with that frame as the starting point. But that was as much of a hassle as it sounds.
Now, Runway has built that option directly into the product, letting you simply click “Extend 4s” to add 4 seconds more…up to 16 seconds in total:
Here’s the post-apocalyptic man from my last article doing…something…for 8 seconds:
It’s…not perfect. Yet.
🛠️ AI tools
Today I want to talk about AI tools that help you find the right words, brainstorm ideas, and get over your writer’s block.
6. TextFX
TextFX is a collaboration between Google and rapper-producer Lupe Fiasco.
The project uses Google’s PaLM 2 language model to provide creatives with a set of 10 different tools to get ideas flowing.
These range from relatively basic stuff like helping you find similes for a concept…
…to creating word association chains…
…to injecting unexpected elements into mundane terms with occasionally super wacky results:
Each tool also includes a short video of Lupe Fiasco using it in his creative flow.
TextFX is entirely free to mess around with, and might just give you some creative inspiration.
7. Analogenie
Unlike TextFX, which is a many-in-one tool, Analogenie focuses exclusively on helping you find related concepts for a topic. Who could have guessed?!
It has three related modes to help with analogies, similies, and metaphors:
The free plan only lets you run 3 queries per month, which honestly isn’t a whole lot.
But if it does what you need, you might consider a paid plan (they start at $4 a month).
8. Wordtune
The first two tools generally help you generate ideas prior to writing.
Wordtune, on the other hand, helps you find ways to rephrase or otherwise tweak existing text:
It’s also an in-context tool that you can bring into your Microsoft Word docs or most other places via their Chrome Extension.
But their most promising feature is the “Spice” tab that’s currently in Beta:
This lets you supplement your current text with examples and analogies (again) as well as statistical facts, quotes, counter arguments, and so on.
The free plan is quite generous and gives you unlimited grammar and spelling corrections, as well as 10 rewrites or “spices” per day.
💡 AI tips
Here’s this week’s tip.
9. Reduce hallucinations with “according to” prompts
We all know LLMs often lie shamelessly “hallucinate.”
But it turns out there’s a pretty straightforward way to factually ground their answers and dramatically reduce incorrect responses.
In a study by researchers at the Johns Hopkins University, they found that simply appending “according to Wikipedia” to the prompt ensured that ChatGPT returned more grounded responses with accurate references to its training corpus.
This should also extend to other, more topic-relevant sources, so you could e.g. try:
“According to Mayo Clinic” for medical queries
“According to Investopedia” for financial information
“According to Rotten Tomatoes” for movie recommendations
…and so on
You can also use “based on,” “as per,” and other variations in place of “according to.”
The point is that by asking ChatGPT (or Bing, or Bard) to limit its responses to a particular source improves factual accuracy and returns more reliable answers.
🤦♂️ 10. AI fail of the week
“Business people = aliens” rumors: Confirmed! (Prompt was just “business meeting.”)
Sunday poll time
Feel free to leave other opinions in the comments.
If it's any consolation, "custom instruction" is pretty meh.