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Google reveals Project Astra: an experimental and powerful AI assistant for work and play

During the I/O 2024 conference, Google revealed what it calls Project Astra. It is an experimental project that's being developed as an AI assistant that uses video and audio to answer questions.
google project astra

Earlier this week, OpenAI demoed the use of its new AI model, ChatGPT-4o, by using a smartphone to have it answer voice questions with a natural voice. The demo also used the smartphone's camera as an input for answering questions as well.

Today, during the Google I/O 2024 keynote, the company revealed that its DeepMind division is working on a new AI assistant, which it currently calls "Project Astra." This AI assistant can use a smartphone or even a set of smart glasses to answer questions from its owner via voice commands.

In the demo video, the user asks Project Astra a number of questions about their immediate surroundings. In one example, the smartphone sees some crayons in a mug, and the person asks, "Astra, give me a creative alliteration about these." The AI assistant responded with:

Creative crayons color cheerfully. They certainly craft colorful creations.

In another part of the video demo, the camera views some code on a whiteboard, and the person asks, "What does that part of the code do?" "Astra" replied:

This code defines encryption and decryption functions. It seems to use AES-CBC encryption to encode and decode data based on a key and an initialization vector.

The AI assistant can also participate in more creative answers, When the camera sees a stuffed tiger and a real golden retriever, and the person asks "Astra" for a band name for both of them together, The AI assistant stated, "Golden stripes."

Project Astra will be demoed for anyone who physically attends this week's Google I/O conference. However, there's no word on when "Project Astra" might become available to the general public. It does sound like it could be a while before this AI assistant is officially launched,

Stay tuned for more news that will be revealed today during Google I/O 2024.

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