[HN Gopher] AI Demos by Meta
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AI Demos by Meta
Author : saikatsg
Score : 125 points
Date : 2025-02-09 18:49 UTC (4 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (aidemos.meta.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (aidemos.meta.com)
| cebert wrote:
| The seamless transition demo is fantastic. The translated voice
| is passable for my own native voice. It would be incredible when
| we can achieve this in real-time.
| exgrv wrote:
| We can! At Kyutai, we released a real-time, on-device speech
| translation demo last week. For now, it is working only for
| French to English translation, on an iPhone 16 Pro:
| https://x.com/neilzegh/status/1887498102455869775
|
| We released inference code and weights, you can check our
| github here: https://github.com/kyutai-labs/hibiki
| ketzo wrote:
| Damn, this is pretty amazing. Feels like we're not far off
| from the babel fish.
| mastermedo wrote:
| Good work. The delay seems to be around 5 secods. This is a
| step in the right direction. I'm wondering how much more
| real-time can we push it.
| rob-olmos wrote:
| Is this subject purposely spelled Aidemos somewhere like the HN
| title says instead of AI Demos?
| riffraff wrote:
| At least it's not AI Demons
| sophiebits wrote:
| HN automatically recapitalizes words in submission titles so I
| think it's possible this could have been submitted as "AIDemos
| by Meta".
| rob-olmos wrote:
| Ahh I see. Thanks for the info!
| saikatsg wrote:
| Fixed.
| npalli wrote:
| " Our site is not available in your region at this time."
| xnx wrote:
| Getting this from the US
| 1832 wrote:
| I get
|
| "Allow the use of cookies from Meta on this browser? We use
| cookies and similar technologies to help provide and improve
| content on . We also use them to provide a safer experience
| by using information we receive from cookies on and off Meta
| Quest, and to provide and improve Meta Products for people
| who have an account. * Essential
| cookies: These cookies are required to use Meta Products and
| are necessary for our sites to work as intended. *
| Cookies from other companies: We use these cookies to show
| you ads off of Meta Products and to provide features like
| maps and videos on Meta Products. These cookies are optional.
|
| You have control over the optional cookies we use. Learn more
| about cookies and how we use them, and review or change your
| choices at any time in our . "
|
| should I click on accept?
| chairmanwow1 wrote:
| I was getting this from inside the US, however setting my VPN
| to LA worked to get around it. I assume this is because that's
| where the Meta engineers are -\\_(tsu)_/-
|
| EDIT: Once accessed there is this note:
|
| > This research demo is not open to residents of, or those
| accessing the demo from, the States of Illinois or Texas.
|
| and I'm in TX
| meltyness wrote:
| I think Texas has some recent law that could be interpreted
| as being against twinning tech / deep fakes like the voice
| cloning. -\\_(tsu)_/- seems like a good time to "ask the
| lawyers" and "not make a not political statement"
|
| Even a passing glance it would be immediately clear that it's
| not a real risk of any sort.
| malshe wrote:
| Oh wow, thanks for finding this. I am also in TX. I was going
| crazy thinking it might be my iCloud Private Relay
| Aurornis wrote:
| Companies have to be very careful with AI products in
| international markets and even some US states because there are
| a number of different AI legislations in that need to be
| checked.
|
| This is why cutting edge models are delayed in certain regions.
|
| The work to verify and document all of the compliance isn't
| worth it for various small demos, so they probably marked it as
| only allowed in the US and certain regions.
| brap wrote:
| What is Meta's angle with AI? They seem to be doing a lot of
| research but what is the end goal? Google and MSFT I understand,
| Meta not so much.
| JTyQZSnP3cQGa8B wrote:
| Money and manipulation? Was that a real question?
| isoprophlex wrote:
| You forgot "fucking over the competition".
|
| Not that I'm complaining about their open-weights model
| releases destroying openai's moat... but still.
| twelve40 wrote:
| Yes, that's a real question, even for the money and
| manipulation use case, how does this help, especially the
| money part?
| mistrial9 wrote:
| all math leads to cryptography; all media leads to ads (?)
| barbazoo wrote:
| Generated content is my assumption. Both, by users but also
| fully automated.
| brap wrote:
| I don't think anyone wants generated content in their IG/FB
| feed, so not sure how this will play out in the long run
| twelve40 wrote:
| Sadly, i don't think they care much about what "everyone
| wants" because with userbase this size they will figure out
| a way to forcefully shove whatever they come up with into
| people's faces.
| ketzo wrote:
| Correction: Nobody wants content that they can _tell_ is AI
| generated.
| sharkweek wrote:
| Can't wait until my inactive instagram account starts
| posting AI photos of my kids!
| yalogin wrote:
| What is MSFT and Google's reason?
| brap wrote:
| Both do search, devices, OS and browsers - very natural
| verticals to integrate with AI, and both have cloud platforms
| where they can sell it to developers.
|
| With Meta I can't think of a single existing vertical where
| AI would be desirable. Maybe Quest
| navigate8310 wrote:
| Meta is aggressively pushing open source AI so as to not
| get annihilated by closed sourced AI that is being
| researched by MSFT and Google
| rm_-rf_slash wrote:
| Advertising?
| CPLX wrote:
| https://gwern.net/complement
|
| Joel Spolsky in 2002 identified a major pattern in technology
| business & economics: the pattern of "commoditizing your
| complement", an alternative to vertical integration, where
| companies seek to secure a chokepoint or quasi-monopoly in
| products composed of many necessary & sufficient layers by
| dominating one layer while fostering so much competition in
| another layer above or below its layer that no competing
| monopolist can emerge, prices are driven down to marginal costs
| elsewhere in the stack, total price drops & increases demand,
| and the majority of the consumer surplus of the final product
| can be diverted to the quasi-monopolist. No matter how valuable
| the original may be and how much one could charge for it, it
| can be more valuable to make it free if it increases profits
| elsewhere. A classic example is the commodification of PC
| hardware by the Microsoft OS monopoly, to the detriment of IBM
| & benefit of MS.
|
| This pattern explains many otherwise odd or apparently self-
| sabotaging ventures by large tech companies into apparently
| irrelevant fields, such as the high rate of releasing open-
| source contributions by many Internet companies or the
| intrusion of advertising companies into smartphone
| manufacturing & web browser development & statistical software
| & fiber-optic networks & municipal WiFi & radio spectrum
| auctions & DNS (Google): they are pre-emptive attempts to
| commodify another company elsewhere in the stack, or defenses
| against it being done to them.
| twelve40 wrote:
| great question, i was wondering about that. I think it's mostly
| in discovery phase right now, similar to how they dabbled in
| crypto before, and the largely finished by now "metaverse"
| experiment. (yes, this dabbling involves a ton of money
| sometimes). These demos actually show what they _might_ end up
| using AI for, but whether it 's truly game-changing for their
| business and whether it will be good for the regular users,
| considering their shitty UI's both in FB and even Instagram by
| now are grossly obsolete, haven't changed in over a decade
| despite 70,000 people working there, and are nowadays mostly
| focused on violently shoving more ads over actual usefulness,
| is still an open question.
|
| If their business remains a shitty declining buggy 20-year-old
| Facebook and a 10+year-old Instagram app, but they contribute
| to advancing open source models similar to how they did with
| React, I'll consider that a net win though.
| lanthissa wrote:
| Meta believes the dollars at the end of the AI race will be in
| walled gardens and prop data, not data centers and models.
|
| They are going to do everything they can to make sure no one
| uses the time that models and data centers are limiting factors
| to disrupt them.
|
| In the same way google demonetized the application layer of the
| web to prevent walled gardens from blocking search.
|
| If models and hardware become commoditized at the end of the
| race meta will have a complete psychographic profile of people
| on an individual and group level to study, and serve incredibly
| targeted content to.
|
| Their only real competition in that would be someone developing
| a 'her' like app that takes people out of social media and into
| their own individual silo'ed worlds. In a lot of ways discord
| is the alternative world to meta's ecosystem. hyper focused
| invite only small communities.
| twelve40 wrote:
| so in other words, "better targeting"? that's it?
| SV_BubbleTime wrote:
| Has Meta done anything else?
| jiggawatts wrote:
| In the same way that an atomic bomb is "just" a better
| bomb.
|
| I keep telling parents that Meta et al are spending the
| inflation-adjusted equivalent of the Manhattan project --
| not to defeat Japan -- but to _addict their child_.
| pfisherman wrote:
| If you know how these algorithms work, and you can be
| intentional about what you want, seeding with a few well
| thought out examples, and curating recommendations; they
| can be quite useful.
|
| I think atomic power or even better drugs / medicines is
| actually a good analogy considering the dual use nature
| of the stuff that they are building. Can improve quality
| of life if used prudently and responsibly, or cause
| devastation if not.
| pfisherman wrote:
| Is something like automated personalized content creation
| (for ads) better targeting? Or is it qualitatively
| different?
|
| I personally think that the population scale surveillance
| and behavioral manipulation infrastructure built by meta is
| unethical and incredibly dangerous.
| alexashka wrote:
| No.
|
| Meta is a spy on all citizens of the world arm of USA
| government, pretending to be a company.
|
| They are not investing in AI to bring profit. They are
| investing in AI to improve their intelligence gathering
| capabilities.
|
| Or did you think cheap on the fly translation is funded
| because the overlords just love languages so much? Sweet
| summer child...
|
| They are open sourcing because everyone in tech knows Zuck
| is a sociopath. Naive tech nerds are willing to work for a
| sociopath if it's open source. They had their brains dipped
| in tech-utopia. They are bringing about worldwide 1984.
| mattlondon wrote:
| > Their only real competition in that would be someone
| developing a 'her' like app that takes people out of social
| media and into their own individual silo'ed worlds
|
| I take it you have not tried the new Gemini models on ai
| studio? It does _real time streaming video input and
| conversation_ you can genuinely ask it questions about what
| you are looking at in a conversational audio in-out way. This
| is basically "her"-level technology in an unpolished form,
| right here today.
| azinman2 wrote:
| Her is about a lot more than just asking questions in pure
| audio. ChatGPT has also had this since for a little while.
| bongodongobob wrote:
| Not really. Toss a scheduler in and some RAG to remember
| conversational stuff and that's about it.
| theshackleford wrote:
| ChatGPT has been doing this for ages. Is the Gemini version
| drastically different or something?
| xyst wrote:
| > walled gardens
|
| Apple tried that and it's crumbling. Meta/Zuckerfuck is
| always behind the curve.
|
| - AR (failed)
|
| - "metaverse" (failed)
|
| The only thing that has kept them above water is social media
| and selling off user data, and that's crumbling as well.
| Smaller players have been eating their lunch and the user
| base is aging out.
| NBJack wrote:
| Yeah, their stock is WAY over inflated. I know their data
| wells are drying up fast. The long bets aren't working out.
| The AI stuff is neat, and certainly disruptive, but it
| isn't a paying bet.
|
| The writing is on the wall, and his "falling in line" with
| theb political climate speaks volumes on his effort to keep
| Meta afloat.
| xvector wrote:
| What are you talking about? Insane YoY rev growth. Still
| on a hockey stick growth curve. Best FCF in the biz. Well
| positioned to take over VR if it becomes a thing.
| WhatsApp is ripe for monetization.
|
| Talk to any staff+ eng at Meta in Ads and they will tell
| you there's a lot of low hanging fruit left.
|
| Sure the music will stop eventually (it always does) but
| there's no evidence that's soon. Meta has been an amazing
| stock to own.
| aprilthird2021 wrote:
| Enabling experiences with AI that will drive people sharing
| content with each other, communicating online, and which can be
| utilized in AR/VR, where they have a lead position. In-house AI
| improvements have also helped ad placement and ad generation
| for clients
|
| People who think Meta's main business focus is Facebook and
| Instagram don't pay attention.
| hypothesis wrote:
| What makes you think that more artificial stuff is going to
| reinvigorate the business? Metaverse was supposed to be such
| savior, but this time they didn't even rename the company...
| meltyness wrote:
| It's a tool box of demos with the following:
|
| Segment Anything 2: Create video cutouts and other fun visual
| effects with a few clicks.
|
| Seamless Translation: Hear what you sound like in another
| language.
|
| Animated Drawings: Bring hand-drawn sketches to life with
| animations.
|
| Audiobox: Create an audio story with A1-generated voices and
| sounds.
| echelon wrote:
| > This research demo is not open to residents of, or those
| accessing the demo from, the States of Illinois or Texas.
|
| Not accessible if you're in Illinois or Texas.
|
| They must have anti-AI laws, probably with voice conversion
| moreso than image segmentation and cartoon animation.
|
| Hopefully the lawmakers see beneficial use cases and fix their
| laws to target abuse instead of a blanket coarse-grained GenAI
| restriction.
| azinman2 wrote:
| Illinois has laws against biometrics, which basically can be
| interpreted as broadly as anything that even looks for a face
| as a binary classifier. The translation demo uses video,
| intended to be your face.
|
| Knowing meta they save all of it.
| bongodongobob wrote:
| "knowing meta" - as if any company working on AI isn't
| saving all the training data they can.
| azinman2 wrote:
| Anthropic claims otherwise
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| I'm in Nebraska -- but I think, due to my ISP, I appear to be
| in the Chicago area. Oh well.
| kylecazar wrote:
| Seamless translation is... Pretty incredible.
|
| I speak English and Spanish, so I recorded some English sentences
| and listened to the Spanish output it generated. It came damn
| close to my own Spanish (although I have more Castilianisms in
| mine, which of course I wouldn't expect it to know)
| heyjamesknight wrote:
| A real test here would be to give it to my friend from Mendoza,
| Argentina.
|
| I'm bilingual and still can't understand him. I'm not even sure
| half the things he says are actual words.
| xandrius wrote:
| Unfortunate that the examples they provide were absolutely
| terrible and robotic.
|
| It put me off from actually trying it, I might reconsider.
| lttlrck wrote:
| Did it _sound_ like you though? It doesn't sound remotely like
| me.
| kylecazar wrote:
| It didn't really the first time. I recorded a second one and
| annunciated really strong/well (and said more) -- that
| yielded the positive results.
| mattlondon wrote:
| I tried it and it sounded nothing like me at all - just some
| random "generic" male voice that translate what I said into
| german. My wife put it as "that's shit - sounds nothing like
| you". Nuff said.
| ewuhic wrote:
| Where are all the links to models?
| lelag wrote:
| It's not exhaustive. For exemple, it's missing the Meta Motivo
| demo at https://metamotivo.metademolab.com/ (humanoid control
| model)
| lvl155 wrote:
| These are all half-baked at best. They are spending so much money
| on undergraduate-level work. But to be fair, who in their right
| mind would work for Meta in 2025 if you have the talent.
| a-arbabian wrote:
| Of the big companies doing significant work in AI, I'd say Meta
| is one of the top ones to work at. Even if you're just looking
| at it from a 'who are the good guys' standpoint.
| lvl155 wrote:
| I've never heard anyone say Meta is the good guys. It ranks
| worse than Oracle in my book.
| bongodongobob wrote:
| They are probably referring to open sourcing llama.
| azan_ wrote:
| What kind of undergraduate trains 70 B models?
| _zoltan_ wrote:
| Meta is easily in the top 5 places to work at in the world,
| especially if you have the talent.
| StefanBatory wrote:
| I really wish to see undergraduate doing this kind of work :P
| nabaraz wrote:
| I expected a lot more.
| xyst wrote:
| > Our site is not available in your region at this time.
|
| What the shit is this?
| tsumnia wrote:
| Neat, but I wish Meta would just say what this really is -
| "please give us some In the Wild data to further train our models
| on".
|
| I did the same technique years ago for estimating ages. Person
| uploads an image, helps align 10% of our facial landmark points,
| and run the estimator. If we were wrong, ask for correction and
| refine.
|
| Its still cool and all, but meh based on my prior experience.
| rocauc wrote:
| Meta deeply comprehends the impact of GPT-3 vs ChatGPT. The model
| is a starting point, and the UX of what you do with the model
| showcases intelligence. This is especially pronounced in visual
| models. Telling me SAM2 can "see anything" is neat. Clicking the
| soccer ball and watching the model track it seamlessly across the
| video even when occluded is incredible.
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