How Did Nvidia Push the AI Envelope at Gamescom?

AI Riddle:

I am the beginning of eternity, The end of time and space. I'm essential to creation, Yet vanish without a trace.

I can be found in the center of silence, And heard in the midst of noise. Without me, all words are meaningless, But I'm absent in voids.

What am I?

Today’s Motive:

• 🎮️ Nvidia makes a huge AI announcement at Gamescom.

• 📱 Are the new AI features on Google Pixel 9 Pro a flop?

• 😟 Microsoft’s AI Recall feature postponed do to privacy issues.

AI Gaming

🎮️ Nvidia Pushes the AI Envelope at Gamescom.

 🤖 Nvidia showcased their new AI advancements at Gamescom, pushing the boundaries of gaming tech with enhanced performance, visuals, and immersive experiences. Read full article from Nvidia’s blog site here.

• Nvidia's major AI announcement was introducing Nvidia ACE, a suite of technologies with small language models (SLM), bringing digital humans to life with generative AI.

• The implementation of ACE and Nvidia Nemotron-4 4B Instruct will allow game characters to discern player instructions and perform reasonable responses, improving character role-play.

• Mecha Break will be the first game to showcase ACE and digital human technologies. This game will showcase the potential of AI-powered NPCs.

• This technology vastly improves the conversational capabilities between players and NPCs. Players can have actual in-game conversations instead of dialog options.

The Motive:

The video gaming world is undergoing a drastic overhaul in the coming years. Being able to interact conversationally with NPCs in a natural way is a massive change.

While these AI features are still in their infancy, big changes will be coming soon, and it will be interesting to see what gaming skills you will need to combat a digital AI character in the future. What will it be like interacting with digital NPCs that are smarter within their environment?

AI Tools

📱 Google Pixel AI Review, a Gemini Flop, or Your New AI Assistant?

 📱 Kevin Purdy from Ars Technica recently got his hands on the new Google Pixel Pro with full Gemini Advanced features. What did he think after a week with the phone? His full review, link here.

Google is strongly pushing its Gemini AI capabilities into the new Google Pixel Line-up to get ahead of the AI curve. While Gemini is great in some aspects, how does it perform on the Pixel?

• As a daily AI phone assistant, it suffers from AI hallucinations and misinterpreting commands, which turns into constantly double-checking outputs. This is no different from other popular AI platforms, but as a dedicated assistant, the answers need to be sharp, concise, and correct.

• It makes mistakes between different Google services, like calendar queries, but performed well with Gmail summaries. Asking Gemini for Google Map suggestions and routes, it suffered with basic questions, thus leading to double-checking information outputs.

• It’s difficult to trust the responses provided by Gemini, and fact checking the AI can be a lot of unnecessary work.

Things it did well:

• Gemini did excel at web summaries, brainstorming, and writing email suggestions, but the phone tends to struggle when switching between Google Assistant and Gemini for certain tasks.

• One great feature is using Gemini to ask about phone features and the phone manual. All the information is built-in, so if you need to know how to use a feature, Gemini easily steps you through it.

• Using Gemini AI to sort photos and remove certain image aspects is another tool that performed well. Changing backgrounds and photo aspects can be short-lived fun, but how often will you use these features?

One question remains, how often do you need these AI features?

The Motive:

The main issue comes down to trusting the information and tasks provided by Gemini and the cost. Google Gemini Advanced is part of Google AI One Premium, which costs around 20$ a month. Gemini Advanced is included for a year if you purchase a Pixel 9 Pro, Pro XL, or Pro Fold.  

After a year, paying 240$ doesn't seem worth it. Unless your career or lifestyle is greatly enhanced with the more advanced AI features, but for the average person, I don't think so. Forking over an extra 20$ plus your cell phone bill doesn't cut it. The free version might be enough for most.

"Pixel 9 and Pixel 9 Pro XL will be on shelves at the Google Store and our retail partners on August 22. Pixel 9 Pro will be on shelves on September 4 in the U.S., along with Pixel 9 Pro Fold." source Google.

AI News

📰 Why is Microsoft's AI Recall Postponed?

 🔥 Microsoft has postponed the release of its Recall AI feature due to critical privacy and security concerns.
Recall AI is designed to capture and store user activity through periodic screenshots, creating a searchable content library.

Full article here, written by Tom Warren at the theverge.com

• Privacy advocates and cybersecurity experts voiced strong objections, highlighting the risks of exposing sensitive information, including passwords, private communications, and who gets access to your data.

• In response, Microsoft is aligning enhanced security features. Recall AI will now be opt-in instead of running by default, stored screenshots will be encrypted, and access to screenshots will require biometric authentication through Windows Hello.

• Microsoft decided to limit the initial release of Recall AI to the Windows Insider Program, allowing for further development and will be available for Windows testers in October.

The Motive:

It's interesting Microsoft did not see this initial security backlash coming, and why are they now providing more enhanced security features?

Microsoft's enhanced security features should be a baked-in concept from the beginning, considering everyone is on the edge of their seat when it comes to AI digging through their lives.  

Let's not forget that Microsoft will have and store these screenshots.