Agents of Change

Amidst a slew of new AI tools that were launched in December last year were two new Google products. Astra and Mariner got somewhat lost in the deluge, but they represent a new type of AI. They don’t just chat or create pictures or videos, like much of generative AI today. They can also do things.

Astra is like a virtual assistant that can see through a phone’s camera, and explain what it is seeing while also having access to other Google products like Maps. Mariner, on the other hand, has the capability of taking control of your browser and completing simple tasks, like filling up your cart on an e-commerce site. Both have been unlocked to only a small pool of its ‘trusted testers’ so far.

It isn’t just Google. Many firms are developing and rolling out what they think will be the next big jump in AI. Dubbed agentic AI, tech executives believe that AI will now begin to go beyond chatting or writing codes to executing more complex tasks independently.

The bet is that 2025 will be the year when agentic AI takes off, but there are issues. The current tools are capable of only executing simple tasks at the moment and are also said to be susceptible to ‘hijacks’. But it is only a matter of time before these get resolved. Tech has often tended to move slower than the hype in the AI world. That may finally be changing.

Social Bots

What will social media look like in future? Will it exist as it does today, populated with the digital profiles of individuals? If Meta is to be believed, AI might have a transformative impact on that. Meta recently revealed that it aimed to have Facebook filled with AI-generated characters. These characters will be able to interact and generate content like actual humans.

Robo Cabs

Ride-hailing services like Uber and Lyft had once invested huge sums in developing self-driving cars of their own. Those dreams came crashing during the pandemic. However, technology later improved, with Uber and Lyft introducing driverless cars from firms like Alphabet’s Waymo on their taxi fleets. These are expected to hit the roads in different US cities in the coming months.

Crowdsourcing Checks

Meta has joined X to more or less close down its fact-checking programme and turn the responsibilities over to users. Users will now be able to append fact-checks as Community Notes on a Facebook post much like X. This marks the end of an era in content moderation where social media companies were drawn to
control misinformation.

artificial intelligenceCrowdsourcing ChecksRobo CabsSoical botsTech talk