News from the AI & ML world

DeeperML - #mcp

Ryan Daws@AI News //
Anthropic has unveiled groundbreaking insights into the 'AI biology' of their advanced language model, Claude. Through innovative methods, researchers have been able to peer into the complex inner workings of the AI, demystifying how it processes information and learns strategies. This research provides a detailed look at how Claude "thinks," revealing sophisticated behaviors previously unseen, and showing these models are more sophisticated than previously understood.

These new methods allowed scientists to discover that Claude plans ahead when writing poetry and sometimes lies, showing the AI is more complex than previously thought. The new interpretability techniques, which the company dubs “circuit tracing” and “attribution graphs,” allow researchers to map out the specific pathways of neuron-like features that activate when models perform tasks. This approach borrows concepts from neuroscience, viewing AI models as analogous to biological systems.

This research, published in two papers, marks a significant advancement in AI interpretability, drawing inspiration from neuroscience techniques used to study biological brains. Joshua Batson, a researcher at Anthropic, highlighted the importance of understanding how these AI systems develop their capabilities, emphasizing that these techniques allow them to learn many things they “wouldn’t have guessed going in.” The findings have implications for ensuring the reliability, safety, and trustworthiness of increasingly powerful AI technologies.

Recommended read:
References :
  • venturebeat.com: Discusses Anthropic's new method for peering inside large language models like Claude, revealing how these AI systems process information and make decisions.
  • AI Alignment Forum: Tracing the Thoughts of a Large Language Model
  • THE DECODER: OpenAI adopts competitor Anthropic's standard for AI data access
  • THE DECODER: Anthropic and Databricks have entered a five-year partnership worth $100 million to jointly sell AI tools to businesses.
  • Runtime: Explores why AI infrastructure companies are lining up behind Anthropic's MCP.
  • THE DECODER: The-Decoder reports that Anthropic's 'AI microscope' reveals how Claude plans ahead when generating poetry.
  • venturebeat.com: Anthropic scientists expose how AI actually ‘thinks’ — and discover it secretly plans ahead and sometimes lies
  • AI News: Anthropic provides insights into the ‘AI biology’ of Claude
  • www.techrepublic.com: OpenAI Agents Now Support Rival Anthropic’s Protocol, Making Data Access ‘Simpler, More Reliable’
  • TestingCatalog: Anthropic may soon launch Claude 3.7 Sonnet with 500K token context window
  • SingularityHub: What Anthropic Researchers Found After Reading Claude’s ‘Mind’ Surprised Them
  • www.techrepublic.com: ‘AI Biology’ Research: Anthropic Looks Into How Its AI Claude ‘Thinks’

Maximilian Schreiner@THE DECODER //
OpenAI has announced it will adopt Anthropic's Model Context Protocol (MCP) across its product line. This surprising move involves integrating MCP support into the Agents SDK immediately, followed by the ChatGPT desktop app and Responses API. MCP is an open standard introduced last November by Anthropic, designed to enable developers to build secure, two-way connections between their data sources and AI-powered tools. This collaboration between rivals marks a significant shift in the AI landscape, as competitors typically develop proprietary systems.

MCP aims to standardize how AI assistants access, query, and interact with business tools and repositories in real-time, overcoming the limitation of AI being isolated from systems where work happens. It allows AI models like ChatGPT to connect directly to the systems where data lives, eliminating the need for custom integrations for each data source. Other companies, including Block, Apollo, Replit, Codeium, and Sourcegraph, have already added MCP support, and Anthropic's Chief Product Officer Mike Krieger welcomes OpenAI's adoption, highlighting MCP as a thriving open standard with growing integrations.

Recommended read:
References :
  • AI News | VentureBeat: The open source Model Context Protocol was just updated — here’s why it’s a big deal
  • Runtime: Why AI infrastructure companies are lining up behind Anthropic's MCP
  • THE DECODER: OpenAI adopts competitor Anthropic's standard for AI data access
  • Simon Willison's Weblog: OpenAI Agents SDK You can now connect your Model Context Protocol servers to Agents: We’re also working on MCP support for the OpenAI API and ChatGPT desktop app—we’ll share some more news in the coming months. — Tags: , , , , , ,
  • Analytics Vidhya: To improve AI interoperability, OpenAI has announced its support for Anthropic’s Model Context Protocol (MCP), an open-source standard designed to streamline the integration between AI assistants and various data systems.
  • THE DECODER: Anthropic and Databricks close 100 million dollar deal for AI agents
  • Analytics India Magazine: Databricks and Anthropic Partner to Bring AI Models to Businesses
  • www.itpro.com: Databricks and Anthropic are teaming up on agentic AI development – here’s what it means for customers
  • Runtime: Model Context Protocol (MCP) was introduced last November by Anthropic, which called it "an open standard that enables developers to build secure, two-way connections between their data sources and AI-powered tools."
  • The Tech Basic: OpenAI has formed a partnership with its competitor, Anthropic, to implement the Model Context Protocol (MCP) tool.
  • www.techrepublic.com: OpenAI Agents Now Support Rival Anthropic’s Protocol, Making Data Access ‘Simpler, More Reliable’

Tom Krazit@Runtime //
References: Shelly Palmer , THE DECODER
OpenAI and Anthropic, despite being competitors, are joining forces to standardize AI-data integration through the Model Context Protocol (MCP). This collaboration aims to create a unified framework that allows AI models, such as ChatGPT, to more effectively access and utilize data from various sources. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman announced on X that OpenAI will integrate Anthropic's MCP into its product lineup, starting with the Agents SDK, and soon to include the ChatGPT desktop app and Responses API.

This partnership signifies a significant shift in the AI landscape. MCP acts as a tool that enables AI systems to access digital documents and provide enhanced responses by granting access to platforms like Google Drive, Slack, and calendars. By adopting Anthropic's open-source standard, OpenAI is promoting interoperability between different AI tools. According to Anthropic's head of product Mike Krieger, MCP has become a widely adopted standard with numerous integrations, and this collaboration could potentially help more companies join in to help MCP remain useful.

Recommended read:
References :
  • Shelly Palmer: OpenAI and Anthropic Play Nice – It’s A Big Deal For Agents
  • THE DECODER: OpenAI adopts competitor Anthropic's standard for AI data access

Adarsh Menon@Towards AI //
Anthropic's Model Context Protocol (MCP), released in November 2024, is gaining significant traction in the AI community. This protocol is designed as a standardized method for connecting AI assistants with the systems where data resides, including content repositories, business tools, and development environments. MCP facilitates a consistent manner for applications to provide context to Large Language Models (LLMs), effectively isolating context provision from direct LLM interaction. Thomas Roccia, among others, recognized the value of MCP for AI agents immediately upon its release.

MCP acts as a universal set of rules, enabling seamless communication between clients and servers, regardless of their origin. This interoperability lays the groundwork for a diverse AI ecosystem. It defines how clients interact with servers and how servers manage tools and resources. The protocol aims to standardize the integration of context and tools into AI applications, analogous to the USB-C port for agentic systems, as described by Anthropic.

Recommended read:
References :
  • Composio: Introduction Anthropic released MCP (Model Context Protocol) in November 2024.
  • Thomas Roccia :verified:: 🤓 I don't understand why MCP (Model Context Protocol) took four months to get attention from the community, but I am glad it finally took off.
  • Towards AI: while learning about MCP, I was initially perplexed regarding its functionality; my confusion deepened while examining the architecture.