Large language models have emerged as a promising approach towards achieving general-purpose AI agents. The thriving open-source LLM community has greatly accelerated the development of agents that support human-machine dialogue interaction through natural language processing. However, human interaction with the world extends beyond only text as a modality, and other modalities such as vision are also crucial. Recent works on multi-modal large language models, such as GPT-4V and Bard, have demonstrated their effectiveness in handling visual modalities. However, the transparency of these works is limited and insufficient to support academic research.

Extinction is a part of nature. Of the five billion species that have existed on Earth, 99.9 per cent have vanished. The Triassic-Jurassic extinction, two hundred million years ago, finished off the crocodile-like phytosaur. Sixty-six million years ago, the end-Cretaceous extinction eliminated the Tyrannosaurus rex and the velociraptor; rapid climate change from an asteroid impact was the likely cause. The Neanderthals disappeared some forty thousand years ago. One day--whether from climate change, another asteroid, nuclear war, or something we can't yet imagine--humans will probably be wiped out, too.

Large language models have emerged as a promising approach towards achieving general-purpose AI agents. The thriving open-source LLM community has greatly accelerated the development of agents that support human-machine dialogue interaction through natural language processing. However, human interaction with the world extends beyond only text as a modality, and other modalities such as vision are also crucial. Recent works on multi-modal large language models, such as GPT-4V and Bard, have demonstrated their effectiveness in handling visual modalities. However, the transparency of these works is limited and insufficient to support academic research.

It can cost billions of dollars to develop drugs and a large percentage fail at the trial stage, so a number of companies are deploying AI to help in that area. Google's Cloud division is the latest to join that race with two new suites aimed at addressing drug discovery while advancing precision medicine, it announced. The Target and Lead Identification Suite aims to help drug companies better understand proteins and amino acids that are key to drug development. Specifically, it's designed to help scientists identify biological targets that researchers can develop treatments around. This could effectively speed up drug discovery and lower costs. Early adopters for the suite "include multinational pharmaceutical companies like Pfizer and industry-leading biotech companies including Cereval," Google Cloud wrote in a press release.

Across all industries, organizations are now managing more data, nearly 14 petabytes on average, according to Dell Technologies' 2020 Global Data Protection Index (1 petabyte is just over 1 million gigabytes). In healthcare, providers and patients want to see more done with all that data. Some 75 percent of healthcare consumers want to work together with providers on wellness goals, according to Deloitte research, and 85 percent of physicians expect interoperability and data sharing to become standardized. The pandemic has highlighted the value of innovative technologies to gather, manage and gain insights from the vast stores of data that hospitals collect, guiding them toward improved care and adaptive clinical workflows. "The pandemic has been a huge validation of the path we were on and the investments we've made in data management," Lamm says.

People want fair compensation and benefits, they want flexible working arrangements, and, increasingly, they want to work for employers who are in tune with the major societal impacts of the day, such as diversity, equity, and inclusion (DE&I) and the green economy. If insurance employers can deliver that, then they may be able to tip the scales of what's being called the Great Resignation or the Great Reshuffle. Julia Lamm, principal and global workforce strategy leader at PwC US, and co-author of PwC's Top Insurance Industry Issues in 2022 report, believes that insurers can win the war for talent. She said many insurers are well-positioned to deliver the career prospects, culture, and workplace environments that current and prospective employees are demanding today. "One way that the insurance industry has been'progressive' in how they're tackling post-pandemic and the future of work is that the vast majority of insurance organizations have accepted flexible work arrangements [and] hybrid working models," said Lamm. "Most of my clients in the insurance space have decided to embrace hybrid working. They went through change management over the last two years and were forced to work remotely. They made investments in virtual technology and virtual collaboration tools […] which has been really exciting for the industry. "I think the opportunity that still remains for insurers is in defining a compelling value proposition for why people should come and work in the insurance space.

This story appears in the December 2020 issue of Entrepreneur. How do you dress for the Pentagon? Most people hoping to secure a contract to send satellites into space would put on a suit. But Ben Lamm is not a fan of the expected. So on a visit to Washington, D.C., the night before his big meeting with Air Force generals, he was at a restaurant deliberating two important style questions: Which jean jacket would he wear? His dinner date that night knew the Pentagon well. It was Susan Penfield, a longtime executive VP at consulting giant Booz Allen Hamilton, which does a lot of work with the federal government (as well as with Lamm). "I don't know if it will fly at the Pentagon," she told him -- but if he insisted on a scarf, she suggested one with all-American red, white, and blue colors. The next morning, Lamm thought, Maybe not and threw on his Alexander McQueen -- black with white skulls.

Ben Lamm is the CEO and founder of US-based advanced technology solutions provider Hypergiant. The Texan serial entrepreneur--it is his fifth company--embarked on his most ambitious enterprise to-date when he co-founded Hypergiant in 2018. Hypergiant is focused on advanced artificial intelligence (AI) for clients in a wide range of range of sectors from oil drilling and fluid dynamics to entertainment and healthcare. It has an impressive roster of industry partners: consultancies Booz Allen Hamilton and EY; applied science company Dynetics; software companies Adobe, Microsoft, AWS and SAP; and computer hardware company Nvidia. Likewise, its clients include leaders in diverse areas of the oil and gas sector including Shell, US E&P independent Marathon Oil, oilfield services company Schlumberger, conglomerate GE and marketing and trading firm Pacific Summit Energy.

There are only a few ingredients needed for algae to take over: carbon dioxide, light, and water. The ancient microorganism is thriving thanks to record heat waves and fertilizers washed away into nearby waters. But what if a fourth ingredient -- artificial intelligence -- could transform the gooey sludge from a growing pest into a tool to fight climate change? A team of researchers at the AI technology company Hypergiant sees algae as a weapon that can be harnessed for our benefit. They recently built an AI-powered machine, the EOS bioreactor, that takes advantage of algae's ability to capture carbon dioxide through photosynthesis.

Artificial intelligence, robotics, and automation is disrupting between 5 and 10% of jobs annually, according to Julia Lamm, a partner at PriceWaterhouseCoopers. "30% of jobs are are high risk of displacement by 2030," Lamm said at TechBeach Retreat in Jamaica. "55% of people are worried automation or other innovation will take their job away." Lamm was talking about the future of work, an ongoing concern in a world where upwards of 40% of all jobs are projected to be at risk of automation. And where AI is projected to impact 500 million jobs globally in the next five years. The good news is that 74% of people are willing to be "reskilled," Lamm said.