Unleashing the Power of Multimodal AI Models: Understanding the Future of Artificial Intelligence

by Stephen M. Walker II, (Co-Founder / CEO)

Imagine a world where artificial intelligence (AI) systems can process and understand multiple data types simultaneously, just like humans do. This transformative potential is taking shape in the form of multimodal AI models, which are designed to mimic human cognition by processing and integrating various data types, such as text, images, audio, and video.

In this post, we will explore notable models like GPT-4-V, LLava 1.5, and Fuyu-8B, discuss the challenges and solutions in multimodal AI integration, and dive into real-life applications and the future of this revolutionary technology.

Multimodal AI models represent a significant leap in the AI landscape, offering more accurate and context-aware responses by combining multiple data types. As we journey through this blog post, we will discover how these models are transforming various industries, from healthcare and pharma to media and entertainment, and explore the exciting possibilities they hold for the future.

Key Takeaways

  • Exploring the potential of multimodal AI models to revolutionize various industries and improve human-computer interactions.
  • Data management strategies, computational resources, and real-life applications are essential for successful development & implementation.
  • Multimodal AI is becoming increasingly advanced with continual learning & generative AI capabilities providing enhanced user experiences.

Multi-modal Leaderboard

The Multi-modal Leaderboard showcases the top-performing multimodal AI models based on their Arena Scores. These models are evaluated on their ability to process and integrate multiple data types, such as text, images, audio, and video, to provide accurate and context-aware responses. The leaderboard ranks models from various organizations, highlighting their performance, licensing, and knowledge cutoffs. This ranking helps in understanding the current state of multimodal AI and identifying the leading models in the field.

Rank* (UB)ModelArena Score95% CIVotesOrganizationKnowledge Cutoff
1GPT-4o-2024-05-131225+7/-66002OpenAI2023/10
2Claude 3.5 Sonnet1210+7/-48536Anthropic2024/4
3GPT-4-Turbo-2024-04-091168+5/-75538OpenAI2023/12
3Gemini-1.5-Pro-API-05141162+6/-65956Google2023/11
5Gemini-1.5-Flash-API-05141083+6/-65952Google2023/11
5Claude 3 Opus1082+7/-76063Anthropic2023/8
7Claude 3 Sonnet1050+6/-76112Anthropic2023/8
8Reka-Core-202405011024+10/-112364Reka AIUnknown
8Reka-Flash-Preview-202406111016+12/-92278Reka AIUnknown
8LLaVA-v1.6-34B1008+8/-83943LLaVA2024/1
10Claude 3 Haiku1000+6/-76256Anthropic2023/8

Exploring Multimodal AI Models

A diagram of a multimodal AI system with multiple modalities

The concept of multimodal AI revolves around the ability of AI models to process and integrate multiple data types. This simulates human cognition, enabling machines to comprehend complex, varied, and unstructured data. Prominent examples of multimodal AI system models include GPT-4-V, LLava 1.5, and Fuyu-8B. These models consist of numerous unimodal neural networks, which allow them to offer more precise responses, more natural and intuitive interactions, and the potential to develop novel business models.

Multimodal AI models, also known as multimodal architectures, are capable of combining data from multiple modalities, such as:

  • Text
  • Images (visual data)
  • Audio data
  • Video

This ability to process and analyze data, especially data from multiple sources, provides a variety of potential benefits, including improved accuracy, enhanced user experiences, and the development of innovative solutions across various industries.

GPT-4-V by OpenAI

OpenAI's GPT-4-V is a commercially available multimodal AI model that can be accessed through the gpt-4-vision-preview API. This potent AI model features a variety of potential real-world applications, including:

  • Emulating human memory and idea structuring
  • Transforming hand-drawn app designs
  • Analyzing data beyond just text
  • Assisting in coding
  • Providing detailed descriptions for visually impaired individuals.

However, GPT-4-V is not without its limitations, such as difficulty recognizing text, mathematical symbols, and spatial locations. Despite these constraints, GPT-4-V demonstrates the capabilities of multimodal AI models to revolutionize various industries and improve human-computer interactions.

Google Gemini Vision

Google's Gemini Vision is a cutting-edge multimodal AI model that can be accessed through the Gemini Vision API. This powerful AI model offers a range of potential real-world applications, such as:

  • Understanding and interpreting visual data
  • Converting visual designs into functional applications
  • Analyzing data from multiple sources, not just text
  • Assisting in coding through visual cues
  • Providing detailed visual descriptions for visually impaired individuals.

Despite its potential to revolutionize various industries and enhance human-computer interactions, Gemini Vision, like any AI model, has limitations. These include challenges in recognizing text, mathematical symbols, and spatial locations in images.

LLava 1.5

LLava 1.5 is a proprietary multimodal AI model that is capable of locating objects in photos, providing an explanation of the image context, and analyzing patient data and images to assist medical professionals. It has potential applications in healthcare, among other industries. However, LLava 1.5 struggles with recognizing text from images, which may be hindered by factors such as image quality, text orientation, and the complexity of the text.

Despite its limitations, LLava 1.5 showcases considerable advancement in its core algorithm, leading to breakthroughs in multi-modal language models and complex image analysis. It represents a noteworthy advancement in the field of large multimodal models and has the potential to become a leading open-source platform for AI.

Fuyu-8B by Adept

Adept's Fuyu-8B is an open-source multimodal model that excels in understanding “knowledge worker” data, such as charts, graphs, and screens. It has demonstrated superior performance in standard image understanding benchmarks, as well as a simplified architecture and training process. Fuyu-8B is optimized for various use-cases in the industry, including addressing graph and diagram queries, responding to UI-based questions, executing screen image localization, and comprehending complex diagrams.

However, Fuyu-8B has some limitations, such as difficulty generating faces and people. Despite these challenges, Fuyu-8B provides significant understanding into the potential applications and future developments of multimodal AI models.

Multimodal AI Integration: Challenges and Solutions

A diagram of a dataset management system for multimodal AI

Integration of multimodal AI presents multiple challenges, such as dataset management and computational resource allocation. Addressing these challenges is crucial for the successful implementation and further development of multimodal AI models.

Continued research and development in the domain are making strides to tackle these issues, offering promising solutions for improved dataset management and more efficient computational resource allocation. As the technology evolves, it's expected that these challenges will be tackled, paving the way for more advanced and sophisticated AI models.

Dataset Management

An image showing the process of managing datasets for multimodal AI models

Data management is a significant hurdle in multimodal AI, as diverse and large-scale datasets are required to train models effectively. Managing these datasets involves addressing:

  • Biases
  • Pretraining single modality networks
  • Data annotation and formatting
  • Data fusion and integration
  • Computational complexity

Different strategies are used to acquire diverse datasets on a large scale for multimodal AI models, such as:

  • Utilizing open-source datasets
  • Collecting and annotating data from multiple sources
  • Generating synthetic datasets through data augmentation or generative models

These approaches enable the development of more accurate and efficient multimodal AI models by providing a wealth of data for training and evaluation purposes, each with its own separate neural network.

Computational Resources

Computational resources pose a substantial challenge for multimodal AI, as processing multiple data types simultaneously requires substantial processing power. To run multimodal AI models optimally, machines with 8+ GPUs are recommended, along with adequate RAM and CPU resources.

As the size of the dataset increases, so too does the need for more computational power and storage capacity to process and analyze the data. Addressing these challenges is crucial for the successful development and implementation of multimodal AI models across various industries and applications.

Real-life Applications of Multimodal AI Models

A diagram of a smarter AI chatbot with multimodal AI

Practical applications of multimodal AI models are becoming increasingly prevalent, offering enhanced capabilities and transforming the way we interact with technology. Some prominent applications encompass intelligent AI chatbots that can handle more than just text and offer a comprehensive understanding of user input, and a UX/UI feedback app that can take a screenshot of a website or application to assess the layout, design, and overall user experience.

These applications demonstrate the versatility and capabilities of multimodal AI models in various industries and settings. As the technology continues to advance, we can expect to see even more innovative applications and solutions driven by multimodal AI.

Smarter AI Chatbots

Multimodal AI models are revolutionizing the field of chatbots by enabling them to process and respond to text, images, sound, and other data types, including speech recognition, offering more accurate and informative responses. By leveraging computer vision technologies and natural language processing, these smarter AI chatbots can simulate human-like interactions and offer advanced capabilities such as content generation, healthcare support, and tailored customer experiences.

Some examples of AI chatbots using multimodal AI include:

  • Google's Bard
  • Lyro
  • Kuki
  • Meena
  • BlenderBot

By analyzing diverse data types, these chatbots can draw accurate conclusions and improve their capabilities, offering users a more engaging and personalized experience.

UX/UI Feedback App

A UX/UI feedback app powered by multimodal AI can:

  • Take a screenshot of a website or application to assess its layout, design, and overall user experience
  • Analyze visual and textual elements
  • Provide valuable insights for designers and developers to improve the user interface and overall usability.

Examples of UX/UI feedback apps that utilize multimodal AI include Vellum and UX Pickle. These apps showcase the potential of multimodal AI to revolutionize the design and development process, offering more accurate and context-aware feedback that can lead to improved user experiences and satisfaction.

Multimodal AI in Industry Verticals

A diagram of a healthcare system with multimodal AI

Multimodal AI is being applied in various industry verticals, offering unique and transformative solutions that harness the power of multiple data types. In healthcare and pharma, multimodal AI is used to analyze and combine image data, symptoms, and patient histories for better diagnosis and personalized treatment plans. In the media and entertainment industry, multimodal AI is used for content recommendation based on user behavior, offering more personalized and engaging experiences.

By leveraging the power of multimodal AI, these industries are experiencing significant progress and improvements in their processes, offering more efficient and effective solutions that cater to diverse needs and user preferences.

Healthcare and Pharma

A diagram of a media and entertainment system with multimodal AI

The healthcare and pharma industries are gaining substantial benefits from the integration of multimodal AI models. By analyzing and combining diverse data types like medical images, clinical notes, and patient histories, multimodal AI models can provide faster and more accurate diagnoses, as well as personalized treatment plans.

Examples of multimodal AI applications in healthcare include:

  • Improving diabetes control
  • Enhancing healthcare decision-making
  • Medical imaging processing
  • Physiological signal recognition
  • Addressing neurological health issues

These applications demonstrate the potential of multimodal AI to revolutionize the healthcare industry, offering more accurate and efficient solutions that lead to improved patient outcomes.

Media and Entertainment

A diagram of a continual learning system with multimodal AI

In the media and entertainment industry, multimodal AI is being utilized in a variety of ways to offer personalized content, advertising, and remarketing based on user preferences and behavioral data. By analyzing customer data, including purchase history and social media activity, multimodal AI can generate personalized experiences that enhance user engagement and satisfaction.

Some specific examples of multimodal AI being applied in the media and entertainment industry include:

  • Analyzing different media feeds
  • Personalizing content
  • Utilizing predictive analytics
  • Leveraging generative AI

These applications showcase the potential of multimodal AI to transform the media and entertainment industry, offering more engaging and immersive experiences for users.

The Future of Multimodal AI Models

The future trajectory of multimodal AI models is immensely promising, as continual learning and generative AI pave the way for more advanced and sophisticated models that can adapt and improve based on user feedback. As progress in the domain of multimodal AI continues to surge, we can expect to see even more innovative applications and solutions driven by these powerful AI models.

In the automotive industry, for example, multimodal AI is being leveraged to improve safety, convenience, and the driving experience by incorporating it into driver assistance systems, HMI assistants, and driver monitoring systems. These advancements demonstrate how multimodal AI is transforming various industries and revolutionizing the way we interact with technology.

Continual Learning

Continual learning in multimodal AI models enables them to evolve and enhance over time, guided by user feedback, enhancing their performance and capabilities. This adaptive learning process enables AI models to better understand user behavior and preferences, offering more accurate and context-aware responses.

Examples of multimodal AI models that use continual learning include Meta AI and Neuraptic AI, which incorporate continual learning to improve their performance and adapt to new data and tasks over time. As the technology continues to evolve, we can expect to see even more advanced AI models that can learn and adapt in real-time, offering improved solutions and experiences for users.

Generative AI

Generative Artificial Intelligence, such as ChatGPT and Midjourney, popularizes multimodal generation by learning a generative process to produce raw modalities, offering more advanced and sophisticated AI models. These generative AI models can comprehend and produce complex, natural human-like interactions by combining and processing multiple types of data.

The introduction of ChatGPT has ignited an AI arms race between Microsoft and Google, both of which are striving to incorporate content-generating generative AI technologies into their web search and office productivity applications. As the field of generative AI continues to progress, we can expect to see even more innovative and powerful multimodal AI models that can transform the way we interact with technology.

Summary

Multimodal models hold the potential to revolutionize various industries and transform the way we interact with technology. By processing and combining multiple data types, these AI models offer more accurate and context-aware responses, paving the way for smarter AI chatbots, improved healthcare solutions, personalized media experiences, and more. As research and development in the field continue to advance, we can anticipate even more innovative applications and solutions driven by the power of multimodal AI, ultimately enhancing our lives and experiences.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is ChatGPT multimodal?

Yes, ChatGPT is a multimodal application. OpenAI has expanded the capabilities of ChatGPT by introducing voice and image features, which are powered by multi-modal GPT-4 models, including GPT-4-turbo, GPT-4 Vision, and TTS models. These new additions provide users with a more intuitive and interactive experience by allowing voice conversations and image inputs. The voice feature is powered by a text-to-speech model and offers five different voices to choose from. Users can now show ChatGPT one or multiple images to troubleshoot issues, analyze data, or plan meals, among other applications. The model applies language reasoning skills to a wide range of images, including photographs, screenshots, and documents with text and images.

ChatGPT's upgrade is a noteworthy example of a multimodal AI system. Instead of using a single AI model designed to work with a single form of input, like a large language model (LLM) or speech-to-voice model, multiple models work together to create a more cohesive AI tool. Users can prompt the chatbot with images or voice, as well as receive responses in one of five AI-generated voices.

GPT-4, which powers ChatGPT, is a large multimodal model that accepts image and text inputs and emits text outputs. Despite its capabilities, GPT-4 has similar limitations as earlier GPT models. Most importantly, it still is not fully reliable as it "hallucinates" facts and makes reasoning errors.

OpenAI has also announced a new multimodal GPT-4 version of ChatGPT that allows users to upload and analyze various document types. This version gives users access to all GPT-4 features without having to switch between one over the other, pushing the boundaries of generative AI capabilities as it goes beyond text-based queries.

What is the difference between generative AI and multimodal AI?

Generative AI uses techniques such as transformers, GANs and VAEs, while traditional AI typically relies on convolutional neural networks, recurrent neural networks and reinforcement learning. In contrast, Multimodal Generative AI is capable of understanding and generating content with various data types, including text, images, and audio.

What are the 4 types of AI?

AI technology can be broadly divided into four categories: reactive, limited memory, theory of mind, and self-aware. Each type has its own unique characteristics and advantages which are worth exploring.

What are multimodal AI models?

Multimodal AI models combine and process multiple data types such as text, images, audio and video, allowing for more accurate and context-aware responses, similar to human cognition.

How do multimodal AI models improve AI chatbots?

Multimodal AI models improve AI chatbots by allowing them to process multiple data types, such as text, images, sound and more, resulting in more accurate and meaningful responses for a human-like experience.

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