After my earlier article, I realised I was somewhat scant on what a Large Action Model (LAM), also called Large Agentic Models, are. As already mentioned, these have derived from the Large Language Models (LLM), or what people now refer generically as AI, discussed before.
So, a LAM extends the LLM by becoming agents of action. Instead of answering questions, they can do tasks on their own or work towards a goal of some kind. The LAM can simulate a series of human actions, it has better language capability that spans both form and function, and builds in multi-step reasoning. This is another step towards general AI.
- Take a simple example, you are hungry and want to order dinner. You could ask ChatGPT for some meal suggestions for the family and it will give you a list. The LAM could take that list and order the items from different restaurants, pay for them and then track each delivery to your home providing notifications. Is LAM technology at this stage yet? For the multiple restaurant example above, not quite, but it's close. If the orders all came from a single place, then yes this is potentially now possible. To put it another way, LAMs interact with the real world by accessing external systems. After connecting to these systems, LAMs can perform physical actions, control devices, retrieve data, or manipulate information allowing them to interact with the world on your behalf.
- A brief note to those providing services. I have a Studio One+ subscription with PreSonus, part of Fender, as my music digital audio workstation. It is a yearly sub that renews around June. I recently received an email informing that my subscription had been cancelled as they no longer supported PayPal, with the message: "We're sorry to see you go." In fact, my subscription hadn't been cancelled, all I needed to do was to add a new payment method. The period between receiving the email and me finally working this out caused a little panic and stress. The lesson here is that clear communication with your customers is important.
- For those using Microsoft Edge browser, it has been reported it is actively importing data from open Chrome tabs along with other information. This occurs even if that permission has been denied or disabled by the user in edge://settings/profiles/importBrowsingData. This will be of no surprise to those who have been in IT for any time, or long-time readers of the IT sections in the Bangkok Post. The process is a hidden extension to the import passwords and favourites option for the browser. If you want to keep your browsers separated in use and functionality then this is a very big deal. Unless there has been a patch since I wrote this, it is still happening now.
- Anyone who knows me knows I love leading, more often about leading-edge technology. Sorry graphene, it's time to move aside for borophene. Yes, we have some graphene clothing and bedsheets, and there are a few power banks available from China, but so far the wider market penetration has yet to appear and the new graphene-based world has yet to arrive. If you know the periodic table, boron is just before carbon so is lighter in atomic terms. Like graphene, borophene is a single layer of different crystalline structures.
- Borophene was theorised in the 1990s and first made in 2015. It could be the new anode material in batteries. Chemists are interested in the catalytic properties and physicists are looking at its ability to detect different kinds of atoms and molecules. It is stronger than graphene and more flexible. It conducts, is light and also works as a superconductor. As an anode it could work well in lithium, sodium and magnesium batteries. Since hydrogen sticks to it, it may even work for hydrogen storage at up to 15% of its weight. It can also catalyse water into hydrogen and oxygen. It could be the next wonder material. Of course, this is still early days, the material is fragile, needs to be scaled for mass production and the ideas realised into reliable, repeatable processes. Will it be the next graphene or even better? Time will tell.
- Doing a quick check with my friends, they have also noticed YouTube's increase in advertisements. The average number of them has also grown with three or four ads at a time becoming more common. For example, just before writing this I had two 40-second ad sets with about 15 seconds of actual show between, one had three ads, the other four. It's becoming unwatchable and is possibly an indication that YouTube is starting to fail and maybe ready for an Elon takeover in the future.
- Finally, I've mentioned the Raspberry Pi before. There is a YouTube video out showing how, using the tiny Pico version, you can crack Windows BitLocker in under a minute. You will need physical access to the device, but it shows how fragile software can be if the humble Pico can break it so easily.
James Hein is an IT professional with over 30 years' standing. You can contact him at jclhein@gmail.com.
