Radar Trends to Watch: August 2023

Developments in Programming, Web, Security, and More

By Mike Loukides

August 1, 2023

Artificial Intelligence continues to dominate the news. In the past month, we’ve seen a number of major updates to language models: Claude 2, with its 100,000 token context limit; LLaMA 2, with (relatively) liberal restrictions on use; and Stable Diffusion XL, a significantly more capable version of Stable Diffusion. Does Claude 2’s huge context really change what the model can do? And what role will open access and open source language models have as commercial applications develop?

Artificial Intelligence

• Stable Diffusion XL is a new generative model that expands on the abilities of Stable Diffusion. It promises shorter, easier prompts; the ability to generate text within images correctly; the ability to be trained on private data; and of course, higher quality output. Try it on clipdrop.
• OpenAI has withdrawn OpenAI Classifier, a tool that was supposed to detect AI-generated text, because it was not accurate enough.
• ChatGPT has added a new feature called “Custom Instructions.” This feature lets users specify an initial prompt that ChatGPT processes prior to any other user-generated prompts; essentially, it’s a personal “system prompt.” Something to make prompt injection more fun.
• Qualcomm is working with Facebook/Meta to run LLaMA 2 on small devices like phones, enabling AI applications to run locally. The distinction between open source and other licenses ...