Amazon CEO Andy Jassy said on Thursday the company will invest heavily in artificial intelligence in the aftermath of the huge success of OpenAI's ChatGPT. Amazon will focus on large language models and generative AI, which are the technologies that power ChatGPT and other AI chatbots unveiled by Google, Baidu and others.
"We have been working on our own LLMs for a while now, believe it will transform and improve virtually every customer experience, and will continue to invest substantially in these models across all of our consumer, seller, brand, and creator experiences," Jassy wrote in a letter to Amazon shareholders.
Growing Competition
All major Internet companies have joined the generative AI bandwagon since the launch of Microsoft-supported ChatGPT late last year. Google unveiled its new artificial intelligence (AI) service 'Bard' to compete against OpenAI's ChatGPT in February. In January, Microsoft announced plans to make a huge investment in the artificial intelligence field following the success of ChatGPT launch. In March, Facebook parent Meta's CEO Mark Zuckerberg said the company's single largest investment is in advancing AI and building it into every one of its products. In February, Chinese Internet giant Baidu unveiled its artificial intelligence chatbot, which is named 'Wenxin Yiyan' in Chinese or 'ERNIE' in English.
Amazon's Goals
Amazon's Jassy said the company aims to offer cheaper machine learning chips that will enable small and large companies in training and running their LLMs in production. "Most companies want to use these large language models, but the really good ones take billions of dollars to train and many years, most companies don't want to go through that," Jassy added.
Regulatory Moves
Countries around the world are formulating policies to regulate the new tool. On Monday, Japan signaled wider adoption of ChatGPT. The development comes amid concerns by Japanese corporates about the integration of the game-changing AI tool into their work. Following a high-profile meeting between OpenAI chief executive Sam Altman and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, senior officials said Japan will approve the wider use of the chatbot if privacy and cybersecurity concerns are resolved.
The latest move from Tokyo assumes significance in the backdrop of Italian authorities temporarily banning the use of ChatGPT owing to concerns over data privacy issues.
Later this week, Chinese cyberspace regulators issued draft regulations for managing generative artificial intelligence in the wake of increasing popularity and booming investment in the segment following the buzz made by OpenAI's ChatGPT. Many Chinese tech companies have either revealed their generative AI tools, or are working on such products.
