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- The Inktelligence - December 2, 2024
The Inktelligence - December 2, 2024
Things of note these past 2 weeks…
Claude MCP (Model Context Protocol) - official announcement
MCP is like a universal adapter for AI. Why this matters?
MCP provides a standardized method for AI systems to interact with diverse data sources without the need for custom code for each integration. This universality simplifies the process of connecting AI models to new datasets.
It will enable more tool use for AI systems. This is especially useful for building AI agents that will have access to a variety of tools such as web search, database access, ability to access your file system, etc.
Here are some terms that are relevant to MCP.
MCP Hosts: Programs like Claude Desktop, IDEs, or AI tools that want to access resources through MCP
MCP Clients: Protocol clients that maintain 1:1 connections with servers
MCP Servers: Lightweight programs that each expose specific capabilities through the standardized Model Context Protocol
Local Resources: Your computer’s resources (databases, files, services) that MCP servers can securely access
Remote Resources: Resources available over the internet (e.g., through APIs) that MCP servers can connect to
If you want to try it out, check out the quick start from Claude.
MCP only works at the moment using the Claude app on the desktop. I used an MCP server that can connect to the Google Maps API.
Here’s an example of a chat with Claude on my MacBook.
Here’s how Claude on the browser responds to the same query (without MCP):
When you open up Claude Desktop, the available tools will be shown on the bottom right of the prompt box. It’s the one with the “hammer” icon.
Here are some other ideas of what you can do.
Give MCP access to your Downloads folder. Then you can have Claude automatically organize your files. Put all the spreadsheets in one folder, all documents in another folder and so on.
Connect the AI to your CRM database to do automated search for news mentions of your customers.
Connect to a Notion MCP server and access stuff you have in Notion (to do lists, project plans).
Click here to see a full list of currently available servers.
Interesting reading
Dario Amodei’s essay - Machines of Loving Grace (https://darioamodei.com/machines-of-loving-grace)
“I think that most people are underestimating just how radical the upside of AI could be, just as I think most people are underestimating how bad the risks could be.”
Sam Altman’s essay - The Intelligence Age (https://ia.samaltman.com/)
“…eventually we can each have a personal AI team, full of virtual experts in different areas, working together to create almost anything we can imagine. Our children will have virtual tutors who can provide personalized instruction in any subject, in any language, and at whatever pace they need. We can imagine similar ideas for better healthcare, the ability to create any kind of software someone can imagine, and much more.”
AI Image Generation
Runway introduces image generation model
Runway which focuses on video generation now introduces their own image generation model called “Frames”.
I think there will be some consolidation in the image and video generation space in the coming months. There are just way too many players now.
Midjourney is also reportedly working on their video generation model.
Kling introduces virtual try-ons
The target audience here is e-commerce companies who want to be able to have AI models wear different garments for things like website images.
I’m not too impressed with the initial results. As you see above, that’s the piece of clothing that I wanted to test this with. Here are two versions of the Kling output:
Output from Kling
As you can see, Kling has added additional items of clothing on the model. But this can be fixed using editing in Midjourney and then a final upscale in Leonardo.
Here’s the final output:
It’s still not perfect. The seams of the denim are not replicated properly.
The verdict: There is still work to be done to be able to use this for commercial projects.
AI Video Generation
Meta's Movie Gen is an AI model that generates high-definition videos with synchronized audio from text prompts, capable of editing existing footage and personalizing videos. It's part of Meta's research into advanced media generation but is not yet publicly available at this time.
OpenAI temporarily suspended access to its Sora video generation tool after a group of protesting artists leaked it to the public. They criticized the tool for exploiting their work without fair compensation. OpenAI cut off access to Sora three hours after the group had made it available freely online and released a statement on Hugging Face.
AI Visuals Masterclass
I’m offering a masterclass for those of you who want to level up your AI image generation skills. I’ll be focusing mainly on the framework of thinking and workflows. While Midjourney is what I’ll be using, many of the principles will carry over to whichever tool you choose to use.
Date: Dec. 13th (Friday) and Dec. 16th (Monday)
Time: 1:00pm-2:00pm EST (Same time on both days)
That’s all for now,
Hock
P.S. The first 10 people will also get a 30-minute 1:1 session with me at a date and time of your choosing.