Amazon CEO Andy Jassy took part in a discussion about generative artificial intelligence and ChatGPT in an interview with the Financial Times on Monday.
“I think it’s exciting what’s possible with generative AI,” Jassy told the FT. “And that’s part of what you see in models like ChatGPT. But most large, deeply technical companies like ours have been working on these very large, creative AI models for a long time.
While Amazon already has AI and machine learning technology, such as its voice assistant Alexa and code suggestion generator CodeWhisperer, the company’s supporters are worried that the tech giant is falling behind in the generative AI department, according to the FT.
Generative AI refers to algorithms trained to produce new text, images, code, video, or audio.
“Microsoft is clearly in the lead and has won a lot of thought here,” Matt McIlwain, head of Madrona Venture Group, an early investor in Amazon, told the FT.
He added that Amazon must be aware of the trend towards smart and creative applications. It “must have a strategic response,” he said.
Jassy noted that the company is also looking for cooperation opportunities with smaller companies to develop this business area but did not disclose details.
The most prominent example is Stability AI, a Microsoft-backed competitor to OpenAI, which recently announced Amazon as its “preferred cloud partner” for training and building its AI models.
Amazon did not immediately respond to Insider’s request for comment on its AI plans.
Amazon’s venture into generative artificial intelligence is Alexa, which launched in 2001.David Limp, Amazon’s vice president of devices and services, told the Times of London that the company is improving Alexa by making it more conversational because it is currently very “transactional.” and can only answer questions.
Limp said that while ChatGPT is a “healthy competitor” to Alexa, it lacks Alexa’s personality, memory, and knowledge of current affairs.
“If you asked Alexa about the World Cup, who scored which goal in which match, Alexa would know,” he said, adding that ChatGPT currently does not.
“Real-time information is as important as a script, which GPT does quite well.” Alexa is quite personal these days. “It remembers, for example, your favourite music,” he said. According to Eugene Kim of Insider reports that Amazon employees recently used internal Slack channels to seek guidance on how they should use ChatGPT at work. A company attorney advised employees not to share confidential company information with ChatGPT after the responses appeared to resemble Amazon information.
Kim said some employees used the chat as a “coding assistant,” asking it to improve internal lines of code.
Kim reported that the lawyer said at the time that Amazon was extensively developing technology similar to ChatGPT.
Source: FT, Business Insider
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