A New AI Competitor Enters The Global Race

There's a new player on the global artificial intelligence (AI) scene, and it's stirring things up. A company called Thinking Machines, founded by a former executive from OpenAI (the folks behind ChatGPT), has released a new AI model called Inkling-Small.

What makes this interesting is that Inkling-Small is an "open-weights" model. Think of "open-weights" like an open-source recipe for software. It means the core technology is available for others to inspect, use, and even build upon. This is a big deal because many of the most powerful AI models, especially from big US tech companies, have traditionally kept their inner workings a secret.

This move by Thinking Machines means more competition in the AI world. Instead of just a few massive tech giants controlling the most advanced AI, other companies and developers now have access to powerful tools to create their own AI solutions. This could lead to more innovation, better and more tailored AI tools for businesses, and potentially lower costs as competition heats up.

For Aussie small businesses, this could be good news. More competition often means more choices and potentially more affordable, powerful AI tools that can help with everything from customer service to streamlining operations. It's about opening up the field so that smaller players can also harness cutting-edge AI without needing to develop it all from scratch.