Stability AI and Google offer software developers the latest in generative AI tools

Stability AI Ltd. and Google Cloud are stepping up their efforts to automate the process of writing code by launching new generative artificial intelligence tools aimed at developers.

While Stability AI is taking its first steps into code generation with its latest generative AI model, Google has unveiled a web-based development environment that aims to make life easier for developers building multi-platform applications.

Stability AI has announced that the open source StableCode is a large language model designed to help developers create code. It is available in three versions - a basic model for common use cases, an instruction model, and a long context box model that supports up to 16,000 tokens for more complex programming.

StableCode was trained on code data from the open source BigCode project and is claimed to support development in Python, Go, Java, JavaScript, C, markdown and C++. The BigCode project was used as the basis for ServiceNow Inc's StarCoder LLM, which was developed in collaboration with HuggingFace Inc. and launched in May.

What's interesting about StableCode is the long context window version, which supports more tokens than any other model of its kind. According to Stability AI, this will allow developers to use more specialized and sophisticated cues to generate code. It will also be able to look at an existing codebase with multiple files, understand it, and generate new code based on it.

In an interview with VentureBeat, Stability AI's head of research Christian Laforte said that StableCode's goal is to help everyone become a developer, similar to how its Stable Diffusion model helped everyone in the world become an artist.

"We'd like to do the same thing with the StableCode model: essentially allow anyone who has a good idea [and] maybe a problem to write a program that just fixes that problem," he explained.

IDX project for multi-platform application development

While Stability AI is trying to get the world into coding, Google's new Project IDX is designed to make life much easier for skilled software developers by giving them everything they need to start writing new apps. It includes an integrated development environment with Android and iOS emulators, as well as AI enhancements, all accessible through a web browser.

Google believes that Project IDX will solve a number of problems for developers, such as the complexity of customizing the underlying technology stack. It will also make it easier for developers to switch between a regular laptop and a workstation, for example, and make sure that the application they are working on is synchronized on both machines. This will help solve the problems of code behaving differently on different devices.

In addition, Google notes that many developers don't have the funds to buy a laptop or personal computer powerful enough on which to build their applications. For example, most Flutter applications can be quite a burden on a mid-sized PC when a developer is simultaneously editing code and running it in an emulator.

Project IDX is a solution to these problems, Google promises. It's based on Code OSS, an open-source variant of Microsoft Corp.'s VS Code, so most developers should find it familiar.

Moreover, everything runs on a Linux-based virtual machine in the cloud, allowing users to create the right technology stack for their projects. Google also provides templates for various apps and projects on frameworks such as Angular, React, Next.js and Flutter to help developers get started.

Another useful thing about Project IDX is the ability to generate live previews of developer apps. For now, this is only available for web apps, but Google has said it plans to release Android and iOS emulators at a later date. Google said this is a big deal, especially for iOS developers, as they usually have to invest in expensive Apple Inc hardware such as the Apple Mac. Instead, they will be able to simply run their code in the cloud and see how it works using a cloud emulator.

Finally, Project IDX offers integrated support for Firebase hosting, making it easy to deploy and share code with others. Of course, it also integrates with Google's own generative AI code-building tools, Codey and PaLM 2, providing access to features such as a supportive chatbot, intelligent code completion, and contextual hints such as "explain this code."

Google isn't saying anything about pricing for Project IDX yet, but says it's committed to making it accessible to a wide global audience, so it probably won't be too expensive. Developers can access Project IDX for free now by signing up for the preview program.