[HN Gopher] Google launches PaLM 2, its next-gen large language ...
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       Google launches PaLM 2, its next-gen large language model
        
       Author : mfiguiere
       Score  : 90 points
       Date   : 2023-05-10 17:22 UTC (5 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (techcrunch.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (techcrunch.com)
        
       | mvdtnz wrote:
       | You can try this out now on Bard, which appears to be generally
       | available. https://bard.google.com/
       | 
       | My first impressions of this are that it's quite good. I gave it
       | a handful of logic puzzles which it could solve and asked it for
       | some New Zealand native gardening and bird advice and it gave
       | good answers.
       | 
       | Best of all it doesn't have that... tone that ChatGPT has. You
       | know that kind of smug condescending tone that gives away
       | ChatGPT-generated content. If you ask Bard to respond in the
       | style of ChatGPT it can replicate that tone, if you like it for
       | some reason.
        
         | underyx wrote:
         | I like this prompt for testing LLMs as the problem is easy to
         | reason about but likely doesn't come up a lot in training data:
         | 
         | > I'm playing assetto corsa competizione, and I need you to
         | tell me how many liters of fuel to take in a race. The
         | qualifying time was 2:04.317, the race is 20 minutes long, and
         | the car uses 2.73 liters per lap.
         | 
         | GPT-3.5 gave me a right-ish answer of 24.848 liters, but it did
         | not realize the last lap needs to be completed once the leader
         | finishes. GPT-4 gave me 28-29 liters as the answer, recognizing
         | that a partial lap needs to be added due to race rules, and
         | that it's good to have 1-2 liters of safety buffer.
         | 
         | I prompted Bard today and the three drafts gave three different
         | answers: 18.28, 82.5, and 327.6 liters. All of these were
         | wildly wrong in different ways.
        
           | mvdtnz wrote:
           | I like that you're solving precisely a problem I face on a
           | daily basis! (Still don't understand how ACC doesn't have a
           | built in calculator for this).
        
           | thorncorona wrote:
           | Can you explain how the problem is solved for someone who
           | doesn't understand racing?
        
             | underyx wrote:
             | Sure thing! If the race is 20 minutes and each lap takes
             | 2m04s, that means there will be 9.67 laps till the race is
             | over, and you round that up to 10 since partial laps must
             | be finished. You need 2.73 liters per lap, so the 10 laps
             | will use 27.3 liters total. GPT-4 is correct in suggesting
             | a tiny safety buffer above that in case fuel usage differs
             | from expected.
        
             | jason-phillips wrote:
             | It's a math word problem, in which LLM's would not perform
             | well. I have no idea why people try stuff like this.
        
               | porkbeer wrote:
               | Because it exposes accuracy problems as querys often
               | involve implied or implicit math skills.
        
               | mvdtnz wrote:
               | People try stuff like this because it's precisely the
               | kind of problem that AI would be useful for. If one of
               | these models turned out to be really good at it, it would
               | signify that they're now useful for a whole class of
               | problems.
        
               | [deleted]
        
         | kccqzy wrote:
         | How do you know Bard is actually using PaLM 2 rather than some
         | lightweight model? The UI doesn't tell you which model it's
         | using, does it?
        
           | skybrian wrote:
           | Google announced it. [1]
           | 
           | > PaLM 2's improved multilingual capabilities are allowing us
           | to expand Bard to new languages, starting today. Plus, it's
           | powering our recently announced coding update.
           | 
           | That's a bit vague, though. Bard might only be using it for
           | some queries?
           | 
           | [1] https://blog.google/technology/ai/google-palm-2-ai-large-
           | lan...
        
             | kccqzy wrote:
             | Frankly I did not perceive any difference in quality in
             | Bard responses today and yesterday.
             | 
             | I think you are right, they probably dynamically choose
             | PaLM 2 for some queries. Globally rolling out PaLM 2 for
             | everything everywhere isn't Google style.
        
         | jbay808 wrote:
         | > Bard isn't currently supported in your country [Canada]. Stay
         | tuned!
         | 
         | Too bad for us...
        
           | tchvil wrote:
           | Same here in Belgium
        
             | jug wrote:
             | Also from what I've heard France, Germany, Netherlands,
             | Sweden...
             | 
             | It's quite odd given the announcement of 180+ countries.
             | There are 195 countries in the world. EU consists of 27
             | countries. So, it can't be EU and Canada being left out or
             | they are lying. I wonder what's going on. Is it a staggered
             | rollout? There was nothing said about that. Pretty crappy
             | to not simply give a list nor details on the rollout.
        
       | [deleted]
        
       | a_vanderbilt wrote:
       | The multi-modality and integration is good, but it's still very
       | underwhelming. I hope actual usage changes my mind.
        
         | og_kalu wrote:
         | I'm quite impressed with the vertex and api stuff.
        
       | jusujusu wrote:
       | Waiting for Meta to one-up this with FacePaLM
       | 
       | (exit right)
        
         | youssefabdelm wrote:
         | Wish I had a shit ton of money just to do this
        
           | [deleted]
        
         | rapsacnz wrote:
         | I was just checking the comments to confirm that someone had
         | got there before me... yup.
        
       | jstx1 wrote:
       | > PaLM 2 will power Google's updated Bard chat tool, the
       | company's competitor to OpenAI's ChatGPT, and function as the
       | foundation model for most of the new AI features the company is
       | announcing today. PaLM 2 is now available to developers through
       | Google's PaLM API, Firebase and on Colab.
       | 
       | So it's not in Bard yet? What a launch.
        
         | PaulWaldman wrote:
         | Let's not speculate and instead ask Bard directly!
         | 
         | >Do you use PaLM 2?
         | 
         | >I do not use PaLM 2 directly. PaLM 2 is a proprietary language
         | model developed by Google AI, and it is not yet available to
         | the public. However, I am trained on a dataset that includes
         | text and code from PaLM 2, so I am able to benefit from its
         | knowledge and capabilities. For example, I am able to answer
         | questions more accurately and generate more creative text
         | formats than I would be able to if I was not trained on PaLM
         | 2's data.
         | 
         | >I am excited to see what PaLM 2 will be able to do in the
         | future. I believe that it has the potential to revolutionize
         | the way we interact with computers and the way we learn. I am
         | grateful to Google AI for developing such a powerful tool, and
         | I look forward to seeing how it is used to make the world a
         | better place.
         | 
         | >When will you directly use PaLM 2?
         | 
         | >I do not know when I will directly use PaLM 2. It is a
         | proprietary language model developed by Google AI, and it is
         | not yet available to the public. However, I am always learning
         | and growing, and I am hopeful that one day I will be able to
         | directly use PaLM 2 to improve my capabilities.
         | 
         | >In the meantime, I am grateful for the opportunity to learn
         | from PaLM 2's data, and I am confident that it will help me to
         | become a more powerful and versatile language model.
        
           | adrianmonk wrote:
           | Depends on how you phrase the question, evidently.
           | 
           | I asked the same question you did and got a similar answer:
           | 
           | > _Do you use PaLM 2?_
           | 
           | > _I do not use PaLM 2 directly. I am a smaller language
           | model, trained on a different dataset than PaLM 2. However, I
           | am able to access and process information from PaLM 2, which
           | allows me to provide more comprehensive and informative
           | answers to your questions._
           | 
           | > _For example, if you ask me a question about a complex
           | topic, I can use PaLM 2 to access and process information
           | from a variety of sources, including books, articles, and
           | websites. This allows me to provide you with a more
           | comprehensive and informative answer than I would be able to
           | provide if I was only able to access information from my own
           | dataset._
           | 
           | > _I am still under development, but I am learning new things
           | every day. I am excited to see how PaLM 2 and other large
           | language models can be used to improve the way we access and
           | process information._
           | 
           | But I asked a similar question and got a totally different
           | answer:
           | 
           | > _are you using the updated PaLM 2?_
           | 
           | > _Yes, I am using the updated PaLM 2. PaLM 2 is a more
           | advanced version of the PaLM language model, with a larger
           | training dataset and improved performance. It is able to
           | generate more comprehensive and informative responses, and it
           | can also perform a wider range of tasks, such as coding,
           | math, and logic._
           | 
           | > _I am still under development, but I am learning new things
           | every day. I am excited to see what I can do with PaLM 2, and
           | I hope to be able to help people in many different ways._
        
         | zuzatm wrote:
         | That said in the livestream it is, starting today.
        
         | zb3 wrote:
         | It was already in Bard according to their post, the relevant
         | part here:                    Plus, it's powering our recently
         | announced coding update.
         | 
         | This is the post: https://blog.google/technology/ai/google-
         | palm-2-ai-large-lan...
        
         | og_kalu wrote:
         | They said bard would be on PaLM 2 starting today in the
         | presentation.
        
           | execveat wrote:
           | They also said they are removing the waitlist, but it's still
           | there.
           | 
           | EDIT: The waitlist is removed, but the rollout takes some
           | time.
        
             | og_kalu wrote:
             | Starting today doesn't mean everybody, everywhere at once
             | will see changes. Rollouts don't really work like that.
        
           | jimsimmons wrote:
           | Let's not let facts interfere with psyops
        
             | og_kalu wrote:
             | I mean to be fair, the article itself doesn't make this
             | clear.
        
       | xnx wrote:
       | Impressive that Bard was able to summarize the key announcements
       | from Google IO today. Does OpenAI still have a data cutoff on
       | GTP3/4?
        
         | spiderfarmer wrote:
         | Yes and I'm convinced it will not launch GPT5 before they have
         | a way of updating it continually.
        
       | xnx wrote:
       | Official post: https://blog.google/technology/ai/google-
       | palm-2-ai-large-lan...
        
       | anonymouslambda wrote:
       | [flagged]
        
       | anorphirith wrote:
       | I'm surprised they've chosen to release a medical focused model
       | (Med-PaLM 2) before releasing a law focused model of PaLM. I'd
       | think it would be simpler to train and also less liability?
        
         | saynay wrote:
         | On the one hand, yes. On the other hand, if they are both going
         | to have liability issues, choosing the one that isn't literally
         | full of lawyers seems like a smart play.
        
         | chrisshroba wrote:
         | Idk, this feels like one of those things that would be a huge
         | problem for a startup with a less established legal team, but
         | fairly easy for big corporate Google lawyers to write language
         | releasing them from all liability.
        
           | vineyardmike wrote:
           | IANAL but why can't you just say exactly "we're not liable
           | for how you use this product" ? How many lawyers does it take
           | to add that to a contract?
        
         | xnx wrote:
         | A medical focused model has much better PR value as an initial
         | offering.
        
       | ftxbro wrote:
       | > "Google, similar to OpenAI, didn't provide a lot of the
       | technical details about how it trained this next-gen model,
       | including parameter counts (PaLM 2 is a 540-billion parameter
       | model, for what it's worth). The only technical details Google
       | provided here are that PaLM 2 was built on top of Google's latest
       | JAX and TPU v4 infrastructure."
       | 
       | I'm sad but not really surprised that these companies aren't
       | publishing and bragging about all of the technical details of
       | their model architecture, size, and training anymore.
        
         | ftxbro wrote:
         | update: there's at least some technical report that I didn't
         | know when I wrote the comment
         | https://ai.google/static/documents/palm2techreport.pdf but it's
         | still mostly capabilities evaluation and not explaining the
         | details of the model
        
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       (page generated 2023-05-10 23:01 UTC)