💥 The ECB warns of an AI bubble and Trump surrounds himself with critics of Big Tech
🗣️ Microsoft unveils a tool in Teams to clone your voice and speak in other languages. 🚀 Mistral launches Pixtral Large and upgrades Le Chat to compete with ChatGPT.
This week, the European Central Bank (ECB) issued a warning about a possible "bubble" in the stock market related to artificial intelligence (AI). This means that the stock prices of some AI companies are rising very quickly, possibly beyond sustainable levels. If these high expectations aren't met, there could be an abrupt drop in prices, what we know as "bursting a bubble."
The recent re-election of Donald Trump as President of the United States adds another layer of uncertainty. Trump has announced protectionist policies, such as increasing import tariffs, which could trigger a "trade war" negatively affecting the global economy, including the eurozone.
Although the AI "bubble" is primarily forming in the United States, the eurozone is not immune to its effects. The ECB has pointed out that, due to the interconnected nature of global financial markets, a drop in AI stocks in the U.S. could have repercussions in Europe. This is because many European investors also hold stakes in American tech companies, and a decline in their value could impact their investments.
Trump's re-election is giving more prominence to conservatives seeking greater control over large tech companies, anticipating a stricter approach to Silicon Valley in his second term.
What Cristiano Lima-Strong explains in The Washington Post about Donald Trump's stance towards Big Tech in his second term as U.S. president caught my attention. One of the big questions following Trump's victory is whether his team will reflect the populist rhetoric he used during the campaign or follow the more traditional conservative line, which usually favors less government intervention.
For now, it seems that populist critics are gaining ground when it comes to limiting the power of large tech companies like Google and Meta (Facebook). Trump has chosen several conservative critics of these companies for important positions in his transition team and future administration, indicating that he might take a tougher stance against Silicon Valley than in his first term, when he was criticized for not acting firmly enough.
One of Trump's first major decisions was to choose JD Vance as his running mate in June. Vance has long supported the idea of imposing greater control over Big Tech, even proposing making Google a public company and supporting the breakup of major companies in the sector. Since becoming a senator in January 2023, Vance has been an ally of Lina Khan, a regulator known for her tough stance against the most powerful companies in Silicon Valley.
Recently, Bloomberg reported that Trump plans to appoint James Braid, a close advisor to Vance, as the White House legislative affairs director. Braid had previously worked with Congressman Ken Buck, another well-known critic of Big Tech, and could play an important role in shaping the type of tech legislation the Trump administration supports.
In addition, Trump has appointed Matt Gaetz as his attorney general and Brendan Carr to lead the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). Both have been vocal critics of Big Tech. Gaetz has advocated for anti-tech monopoly legislation, while Carr has proposed measures to address censorship on online platforms.
Although these appointments may indicate greater hostility towards Big Tech, it does not mean that the entire administration will be opposed to large companies or the tech sector in general. For example, Carr has shown a more flexible stance on telecommunications issues, warning against excessive regulation that could stifle innovation, while Gail Slater, another prominent figure in Trump's team, has supported free-market approaches to 5G network development.
Microsoft's new Teams feature will allow you to translate your words in real-time while sounding like yourself, making meetings more personal and smooth.
Let's talk about more practical and concrete things. Microsoft has announced a new tool in Teams that will allow you to clone your voice so you can speak in other languages during meetings. Interpreter in Teams is a feature that will be available from early 2025, offering real-time voice translation in up to nine languages: English, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, Mandarin, and Spanish. But what's most surprising is that this tool can also simulate your own voice while translating, so it sounds as if you were speaking in another language. This can make meetings much more personal and comfortable, especially when interacting with people who speak different languages.
The idea, according to Microsoft, is for you to "sound like yourself in another language." Although they have not yet provided many specific details about how it works, they have assured that the tool does not store biometric data or alter your voice's intonation beyond what is natural. In addition, you will be able to activate or deactivate this feature at any time in Teams' settings.
Voice cloning technology is not new; many companies are already working on it. For example, Meta is testing a tool that translates voices in Instagram Reels, and ElevenLabs has a platform that generates speeches in multiple languages quite realistically. AI-powered automatic translations, although useful and much cheaper, still have limitations when it comes to capturing cultural nuances or colloquial expressions like a human translator would.
Deepfakes, which are digital imitations that seem real, have become very common on social media, making it difficult to distinguish what is true from what is not. There have even been cases of scams using these technologies: this year, for example, cybercriminals managed to imitate a Teams meeting so convincingly that a company ended up transferring $25 million to the scammers.
The French startup Mistral presents its new multimodal AI model and updates its chatbot Le Chat, including image generation and new interactive tools that position it as a serious competitor in the AI world.
On the other hand, French startup Mistral has just introduced a series of updates that include a new multimodal AI model called Pixtral Large. Mistral, which made headlines last year with record funding, has continued innovating. Now, it has updated its free chatbot Le Chat, adding new functionalities like image generation, web search, and an interactive tool called "canvas." These improvements make Le Chat a direct competitor to OpenAI's famous ChatGPT.
Arthur Mensch, the CEO and co-founder of Mistral, explained on the social network X that to create a good AI experience, it is not enough to develop models, but it is also important to design the interfaces we use to interact with them. Pixtral Large is a good example of this, as it was created with applications in mind that can have a major impact on users.
To try the new Le Chat features, you need to enable them as part of a beta version on the web interface. However, you need to have a free account with Mistral, Google, or Microsoft.
Pixtral Large has 124 billion parameters. To help you understand, parameters are like the settings that an AI model has to function, and the more parameters it has, the more capable it generally is. This model is an evolution of Mistral's previous models and can work with both text and images, thanks to its ability to process both types of data.
Pixtral Large stands out in tasks like optical character recognition (OCR), which allows it to read texts in images, and in analyzing complex documents. This means it could be very useful for automating tasks like expense management or invoice splitting. Although the model and its data are available for download on the Hugging Face platform, they are under a license that only allows non-commercial use. If someone wants to use it commercially, they need to do so through Mistral's API or obtain a specific license.
Another interesting feature is the "task agents," which allow for automating repetitive processes like summarizing meeting minutes or processing invoices. All this makes Le Chat a very versatile assistant capable of handling tasks that would normally require several tools.
Mistral is making a bold move with Pixtral Large and the new Le Chat features. Although the AI sector is rapidly evolving and becoming increasingly competitive, Mistral continues advancing and offering options that compete head-to-head with market leaders. Although it still lacks some advanced voice functions that its competitors have, the new updates position Mistral as a key player in the European AI landscape.