Radar Trends to Watch: May 2023

Developments in Programming, Security, Web, and More

By Mike Loukides

May 2, 2023

Large language models continue to colonize the technology landscape. They’ve broken out of the AI category, and now are showing up in security, programming, and even the web. That’s a natural progression, and not something we should be afraid of: they’re not coming for our jobs. But they are remaking the technology industry.

One part of this remaking is the proliferation of “small” large language models. We’ve noted the appearance of llama.cpp, Alpaca, Vicuna, Dolly 2.0, Koala, and a few others. But that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Small LLMs are appearing every day, and some will even run in a web browser. This trend promises to be even more important than the rise of the “large” LLMs, like GPT-4. Only a few organizations can build, train, and run the large LLMs. But almost anyone can train a small LLM that will run on a well-equipped laptop or desktop.

Artificial Intelligence

• NVidia has announced Nemo Guardrails, a product whose purpose is to keep Large Language Models operating safely. It prevents LLMs from straying off-topic and answering questions that it is not allowed to answer, checks facts (using other LLMs), and only allows it to access third-party applications known to be safe.
• QuiLLMan is an open source voice chat. It uses the Vicuna-13B model, with OpenAI Whisper to transcribe the user’s audio, and Metavoice Tortoise to convert the response back ...