In the past week, various new technologies, new breakthroughs and new products of artificial intelligence have brought infinite possibilities and convenience to mankind, which has been an exciting week for the field of AI; At the same time, the Silicon Valley bank bankruptcy crisis and the spread of panic set off a chain reaction, it was a turbulent week for the banking industry.
The AI world is full of surprises: it's been a bright week
If the advent of ChatGPT brings people novelty and surprises, then the strong attack of GPT-4 is more exciting and shocking, and many people describe it as the iPhone moment in the AI field. (Click to review.) ）
GPT-4's appearance was like a bombshell, and last week's AI world suddenly came like a spring breeze, and thousands of trees and pear blossoms.
The second round of counterattack was cut off, and Google fell behind again
On the evening of March 14, Google announced the big news, one is to open its big language model API "PaLM API", and the other is to release a tool to help developers quickly build generative AI applications MakerSuite and Generative AI App Builder platform and other artificial intelligence enterprise tools.
Google's move to open the big language model API is also regarded by the industry as a counterattack to the OpenAI open ChatGPT API.
However, Google's tools are only for specific developers and have no pricing and cannot be applied, so there is less discussion about it on the Internet, and even some people are dissatisfied with it, believing that Google's openness is not sincere.
Later that same day, the release of GPT-4 completely stole Google's popularity (the difference in the number of Twitter interactions between the two was 20 times). The last time Google's defense was defeated by Bard to ChatGPT and New Bing, this round of counterattack Google fell behind again.
Microsoft joined hands with GPT-4 to redefine productivity
On the second day of the release of GPT-4, Microsoft also ushered in its own "crazy Thursday", which flooded the Chinese and foreign Internet overnight.
On March 16, Microsoft released the latest office application Microsoft 365 Copilot, which is equipped with the latest GPT-4 technology, which can help users write, edit, summarize, create, present and other work in Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook and Teams and other software, claiming to subvert the way of office in three ways: unleashing creativity, unlocking productivity, and improving skills.
Midjourney V5 is released, full of realistic details
AI, which was ridiculed a week ago for not being able to draw hands, is a thing of the past with the Midjourney V5 update.
Graphic designer Julie Wieland said of the new version of Midjourney: "The previous version of MJ was like a myopic patient without glasses, while MJ v5 is the clear effect of wearing glasses. The 4K details are incredible. ”
The specific effect is directly seen in the picture, the following pictures are all generated by Midjourney V5.
Let's start with a close-up detail of the hand
Let's look at how the hand is drawn in the portrait
And some pictures full of details and atmosphere
Wen Xin released in a word: The stock price and the meme are more out of the circle than the model itself
Baidu's Chinese model Wen Xin, which has been warming up for a month, was also released last week, just one day away from GPT-4.
As the only representative of China's Internet giants in this wave of AI, Wenyan Yixin has also attracted much attention. The model demonstrated similar functions to GPT-4 at the press conference, mainly for five usage scenarios: literary creation, commercial copywriting, mathematical calculation, Chinese understanding, and multimodal generation.
It is precisely because many functions are similar to GPT-4, so at the application level, Wen Xin's words have not caused great repercussions. In contrast, the relevant jokes, memes and Baidu's stock prices on the day of the conference seemed to be more popular.
What is more special is that Wen Xinyan can generate pictures and videos according to prompts, which was then played by netizens and used to generate a variety of very magical pictures, the effect is as follows.
The banking crisis is undecided: it's been a dark week
Last week, the Silicon Valley bank collapsed, the banking industry exploded, and then these things happened...
Silicon Valley Bank fell, and the gloom has not receded
On March 10, the bankruptcy of Silicon Valley Bank (click to recap) set off a chain reaction that saw some US banks suffer runs, stock crashes, and even bankruptcies (Signature Bank, also the third largest bank to fail in the United States).
First Republic Bank (FRC), the 14th largest bank in the United States, has lost more than 85% of its market value since March 8 due to the bankruptcy of Silicon Valley Bank.
On March 16, FRC's stock price continued to plummet, and trading was suspended for a time, and 11 banks, including Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase and Citi, injected $30 billion of liquidity into First Republican Bank.
The intervention is seen as one of the most comprehensive in the history of modern banking in the United States, and also reflects the concerns of Washington and Wall Street about the post-bankruptcy of Silicon Valley banks and signature banks.
However, less than a week after the capital injection, investors were still worried that there was not enough money, and the sell-off once again caused its share price to plummet. Ratings agency S&P Global also downgraded its credit rating to "junk status" on March 19, citing liquidity risks.
The bailout plan and related measures against the First Republic Bank continue, and the shadow of crisis hanging over the US banking industry has not dissipated.
A hundred years of Credit Suisse, the storm has finally fallen
European bank stocks also saw a general plunge due to bankruptcy risks, adding to the fact that Credit Suisse (Credit Suisse), which has long been plagued by scandals and troubles.
In March, a slow-winding crisis turned into a full-blown panic, and Credit Suisse's customers fled. The Swiss government then stepped in and arranged for local rival UBS Group AG to buy Credit Suisse in full for about $3.25 billion, which is lower than the market capitalization of troubled First Republic Bank in the United States.
In this way, Credit Suisse AG, founded in the middle of the 19th century and with a 166-year operating history, once one of the backbones of the global financial system, ceased to exist.
Credit Suisse is the latest victim of a new confidence crisis in the banking sector, and by far the biggest victim.
However, its disintegration did not come suddenly.
Over the past three years, a string of scandals and poor results have cost Credit Suisse not only its reputation as a major player in the global financial system, but also its status as a serious contender for local rival UBS.
Since 2007, Credit Suisse has suffered huge losses due to poor management, and since then the losses have not been effectively filled, and the balance sheet has further deteriorated and contracted, shrinking by more than 60% in ten years.
Last February, a massive leak exposed account details related to 30,000 Credit Suisse customers around the world, and Credit Suisse was drawn into a crisis of trust, with major scandals between 1986 and 2022 emerging.
Subsequently, prosecutors indicted Credit Suisse on suspicion of helping drug traffickers launder money. As a result, its corporate reputation was hit hard.
In October of the same year, news circulated on social media that Credit Suisse was on the verge of bankruptcy, saying that its investment banking business and wealth management suffered huge losses and caused the company's operations to be in trouble.
Credit Suisse fell, thanks to poor management, disorderly governance, financial irregularities, scandals, and other historical legacies, as well as the general impact on the banking industry. The government-sponsored sale marks the Swiss bank's final fall, succumbing to a crisis of confidence that threatens to spill over into global financial markets.