Introducing Microsoft’s Phi 3.5 Series: A New Trio of Compact AI Models

Microsoft has introduced a new set of lightweight AI models that are open for everyone to use. These models are said to perform better than some of the latest models from big tech companies like Google, Meta, and OpenAI. The models in this new release are called Phi 3.5-mini-instruct, Phi 3.5-Mixture of Experts (MoE)-instruct, and Phi 3.5-vision-instruct. They are the newest members of Microsoft’s Phi-3 series of small-language models (SLMs). The first model in this series, called Phi-3-mini, was launched in April this year. Microsoft says its latest small language AI models can outperform larger models by Meta and Mistral.

Imagine you’re building a really smart robot, one that can solve math problems, understand pictures, and even tell you stories. But, instead of just one robot, you build three smaller robots, each with special skills. This is kind of what Microsoft has done with its new Phi-3.5 series. These are three smaller but very smart models of Artificial Intelligence (AI), and each one has its unique superpower.

The Three AI Models in the Phi-3.5 Series

Microsoft’s Phi-3.5 series includes three special AI models:

1. Phi-3.5-mini-instruct:

   • What It Does: This is the “mini” robot. It’s smaller and simpler but still very smart. It can solve basic problems like math questions, understanding simple codes (like secret messages), and answering straightforward questions.
   • Why It’s Cool: Even though it’s smaller, it’s good at these tasks and doesn’t need a lot of computer power to work. Think of it as a really smart calculator that can also understand instructions.

2. Phi-3.5-MoE-instruct:

   • What It Does: This one is like a team of experts working together. It can handle more complicated problems, like understanding different languages or solving tricky math problems.
   • Why It’s Cool: Instead of one brain, it has many small brains that come together to work on a problem. This makes it powerful without needing to be super big. Imagine having a group of friends, each good at different things, working together to solve a puzzle.

3. Phi-3.5-vision-instruct:

   • What It Does: This model is like a robot with super sight. It can look at pictures, read text in images, understand what’s happening in a video, and even recognize what’s in a photo.
   • Why It’s Cool: It’s perfect for tasks where seeing and understanding pictures or videos is important. For example, it can help sort photos on your computer by recognizing what’s in them, like “dog” or “tree.”

Why These Models Are Special

What makes these models different from others is that they are open-source. This means anyone can use them for free and even improve them if they want to. It’s like how you can download and play free games on your computer, and sometimes, people can create new levels or features for those games.

Each model can understand long pieces of information all at once, making them good at solving complex problems. They’ve been trained on lots of data, like millions of books, articles, and pictures, so they’re very knowledgeable.

Meanwhile, all three Phi 3.5 models support a context window of 128k tokens. Context windows are measured in tokens and they signal the amount of information that can be processed and generated by an AI model at any given time. Longer context windows means the AI model is capable of processing more text, images, audio, code, video, etc.

According to Microsoft, the Phi-3.5 Mini was trained for a period of ten days on 3.4 trillion tokens while the Phi-3.5 MoE model was trained for a period of 23 days on 4.9 trillion tokens. It took 500 billion tokens and six days to train the Phi-3.5 Vision model, the company said. The training datasets fed to the new Phi-3.5 models comprised high-quality, reasoning-dense, publicly available data.

How Do These AI Models Help Us?

• For Students: Imagine you have a super-smart tutor who can help you with homework by explaining math problems or checking your essays for mistakes.
• For Creators: If you like making videos or drawing, these AI models can help by suggesting ideas, organizing your files, or even helping to edit your work.
• Scientists and Engineers: They can use these models to solve complex problems faster, like designing new technologies or discovering new medicines.

Wrapping It Up

Microsoft’s Phi-3.5 series is like having three specialized robots that are small but very powerful. They each have their strengths, whether it’s solving basic problems, tackling more complicated tasks, or understanding visual data. And the best part? They’re available for anyone to use and learn from, making advanced technology more accessible to everyone.

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