ChatGPT's new rival is open-source

Welcome to the 441 new subscribers who joined last week. I’m delighted that you are here to learn with me.

Here’s what’s brewing in AI:

Dario’s Picks

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I. Mistral releases Mixtral 8x7B and raises $415m

Mistral is hot right now.

Mistral just released its new, best-in-class, open-sourced model Mixtral 8x7B. Notably, the company has made the model available as a free download so developers can run it on their local devices.

The company also just raised $415 million in a Series A funding round, and is now valued at roughly $2 billion.

Why this matters: Open-source models are developing fast (approaching GPT-4 in terms of performance) and  – combined with the demand for speed and privacy – moving AI from the cloud to local computers. It’s also getting a lot easier to set these models up locally with tools like LM Studio.

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II. Google launches Gemini

Google launched Gemini last week, despite several sources writing that the launch would be postponed until 2024.

An early observation that dampened the overall excitement of the launch was that Google’s best Gemini demo was faked. Anyways, what Google launched now is Gemini Pro, which some early reviews conclude isn’t great.

However, the most powerful and anticipated version of Gemini – the Ultra model – is announced to launch next year.

Gemini Pro is already available inside Bard. Gemini Ultra will definitely be more exciting, as it beats GPT-4 on several benchmarks. Apparently this model will be part of a new product called Bard Advanced, which gives users first-access to the latest features, akin to ChatGPT’s Plus subscription.

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III. Grok is now rolling out to US X Premium+ subscribers

Elon Musk’s X has begun rolling out access to its AI chatbot Grok, starting with US subscribers to X Premium+. Beyond US subscribers, English language users will be next to get access, and the aim is to roll out to all languages by “early 2024”.

What’s notable about Grok is that it has access to all the Twitter data, and has a distinctly more sarcastic and rebellious personality than ChatGPT.

Some early reviews claim it’s merely on GPT-3.5 level, or even “ChatGPT after one too many drinks”.

I’m still excited to see if people find specific use cases for it where it excels.

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In Focus

Alternatives to GPTs

I’ve made two new, curated lists on whatplugin.ai:

• Poe bots - 220 top bots for Quora’s Poe platform
• Character.ai bots - 545 featured bots for Character AI

Check them out if you want to explore some alternatives to GPTs.While GPTs are mostly tailored towards productivity, bots on Poe and (especially) Character AI are more for creativity, entertainment, learning and roleplay. Very popular among Gen-Z.

What’s also cool about Poe and Character AI is that, as a user, you can use most of the bots for free – no subscription needed. As a creator, Poe also allows you to monetise your bots.

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GPTs

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Top 3 trending

PixVerse - Generates videos with ChatGPT's assistance.

AlphaNotes GPT - Transforms YouTube videos or web articles into personal study guides.

Cylect.io - Assists in locating specific data within the vast internet landscape (OSINT tool).

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Notable launches

ChatGaia - Helper for astronomy students. Answers astronomy questions using the Gaia Space Telescope, and assists in data plotting. See the author’s demo.

SEO GPT by Writesonic - Expert in Writesonic's SEO Score Checker API: Guide for SEO Analysis, Score Checking, and Keyword Insights.

Categories with most new launches

🖼️ Image Generation - 105 GPTs (16 new)

↳ AI Pixar Poster, Color Palette Pro, Create a Logo GPT...

💻 Miscellaneous - 82 GPTs (10 new)

↳ 42, Gift Genius, Voxscript...

🎓 Learning -  125 GPTs (8 new)

↳ Math AI, Matlab Tutor, IB Study Buddy...

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Bytes

• AI as a tool for individual empowerment is underhyped, says OpenAI’s COO Brad Lightcap.
• Sam Altman is TIME’s CEO of the Year.
• Meta launched Imagine with Meta. A tool that uses their image generation model Emu.
• Meta announced Purple Llama, a project aimed at providing trust and safety tools in the world of gen AI.
• Europe reaches a deal on the world’s first comprehensive AI rules.