It's AI Time

 AI Edition - It's AI Time - 77 AI Regulation and Governance: The number of AI-related regulations in the United States has risen significantly, with a 56.3% increase in 2023 alone. This surge reflects a growing concern among policymakers about AI's impact on various sectors. Notably, the European Union has enacted the AI Act in 2024, while President Biden signed an Executive Order on AI, marking significant regulatory steps on both sides of the Atlantic. AI in Healthcare: Recent studies highlight that AI systems now outperform humans in basic tasks, pushing the need for new benchmarks. For instance, Google AI's improved diagnostic capabilities and better bedside manners compared to human doctors are transforming healthcare. Digital Transformation and Innovation: The AI Index Report 2024 underscores the growing importance of digital transformation, with universities worldwide tripling the number of AI-focused degree programs since 2017. This trend indicates a robust push to...

AI Edition - It's AI Time - 76 Biden-Harris Administration AI Actions Following President Biden's landmark Executive Order, significant progress has been made in various AI initiatives. These include frameworks to prevent AI misuse in creating dangerous biological materials, guidelines for AI safety in critical infrastructure, and initiatives to protect workers and consumers from AI-related risks. Agencies are also launching pilots for AI tools in software security and creating resources to ensure non-discriminatory AI use in employment and housing. Generative AI in Film Production Generative AI tools are transforming the film industry. Companies like Runway are releasing new versions of their generative video models, significantly improving quality. Major studios such as Paramount and Disney are exploring AI for lip-syncing in multiple languages and enhancing special effects. This shift is fundamentally changing the craft of filmmaking. AI in Political Campaigns AI-generated d...

AI Edition - It's AI Time - 75 Snap Lense Studio 5.0 Snap has released the GenAI suite in Lens Studio 5.0 - this is a great advancement and is massively useful for developing AR applications. Instagram Launching An AI Studio Instagram's new "AI Studio" lets creators develop AI chatbot versions of themselves. It is currently rolling out as an early test in the US. Apple, Microsoft Shrink AI Models to Improve Them Tech giants are shifting focus from large language models to more efficient small language models (SLMs), with Apple and Microsoft introducing models with substantially fewer parameters yet comparable, or even superior, performance in benchmarks. OpenAI's CEO suggests we're moving beyond the era of LLMs, as SLMs offer advantages like local device operation, increased accessibility for smaller entities, and potential insights into human language acquisition. Training SLMs on high-quality or "textbook-quality" data contributes to their effectiv...

AI Edition - It's AI Time - 74 YouTube tries convincing record labels to license music for AI song generator YouTube is negotiating with major record labels for licenses to use their music in AI song-generation tools. It is offering substantial upfront payments but facing resistance from artists worried about devaluing their work. The platform, which trialed a generative AI tool called "Dream Track," aims to expand its AI music capabilities, potentially integrating them into YouTube Shorts. Meanwhile, the music industry is pushing back against unlicensed AI usage, with leading companies suing AI startups Suno and Udio for copyright infringement. Figma's AI-powered makeover Figma AI, currently available in beta, can generate design drafts from a single prompt, help designers explore different perspectives, and enable rapid prototyping and iteration. Figma's UI redesign, its third since the closed beta launch, includes a new toolbar, rounded corners, and 200 new ico...

AI Edition - It's AI Time - 73 Etched raises $120m Series A to build AI chips for transformers Etched has announced a $120M round led by Primary Venture Partners and Positive Sum Ventures, as well as angel investors including Peter Thiel, Stanley Druckenmiller, and David Siegel. It is working directly with TSMC's Emerging Business Group to produce chips on their state-of-the-art, 4 nanometer node. Its chips can achieve 500K tokens/second. One 8xSohu can replace 160 H100s. Apple intelligence and AI maximalism Apple is segmenting its AI approach, differentiating between 'context' and 'world' models, with the latter, such as ChatGPT, being used for open-ended queries but without personal context. OpenAI's position is not highly defensible, given the lack of moats in large language models (LLMs) and the rise of competing models. Apple's strategy suggests a commoditization trend for LLMs that leverages on-device capabilities and private cloud to provide AI fe...

AI Edition - It's AI Time - 72 OpenAI Walks Back Controversial Stock Sale Policies OpenAI has reversed its previous restrictive policies, now allowing current and former employees to participate equally in annual tender offers for stock sales. This change addresses concerns about liquidity access, especially given OpenAI's high valuation, and eliminates provisions that allowed forced share repurchases. Amazon Developing AI Chatbot To Compete With ChatGPT Amazon is reportedly developing an AI chatbot called "Metis" to compete with OpenAI's ChatGPT, expected to be unveiled later this year. The chatbot, which will be accessible via web browser, will utilize a new foundational model and share infrastructure with "Remarkable Alexa," Amazon's upcoming paid-tier Alexa version. Career Opportunities in AI Popular developer Shawn "swyx" Wang talks about hidden opportunities for traditional software developers looking to transition into AI. Specifical...

 AI Edition - It's AI Time - 71 OpenAI acquires Rockset Rockset is a powerful database with indexing and querying capabilities. OpenAI has acquired the company to improve its retrieval infrastructure. Snapchat AI turns prompts into new lens Snapchat has introduced an on-device AI model that enables users to create custom AR lenses from text prompts. A rollout is expected in the coming months for lenses and by year's end for creators. The latest Lens Studio update adds AI tools for generating 3D assets, face masks, and textures from prompts or images. Snapchat's push into AI has also produced AI-generated snaps for subscribers and a ChatGPT-powered chatbot for all users. HeyGen Raises $60M Series A to Scale Visual Storytelling for Businesses HeyGen, an AI video generation platform, has secured $60M in Series A funding to enhance its tools for creating and localizing studio-quality videos rapidly and cost-effectively. Recently profitable with $35M in ARR, HeyGen aims to democ...

AI Edition - It's AI Time - 70 European Union's AI Act The EU has introduced the world’s first comprehensive AI law. This new legislation aims to regulate AI use, banning applications such as biometric surveillance and predictive policing. It also requires generative AI systems to disclose AI-generated content, setting a global precedent for AI governance. AI Safety and Governance The UK will host a global AI safety summit later this year to address the risks associated with AI systems. This event aims to foster international cooperation on AI safety. Additionally, the World Economic Forum has launched the AI Governance Alliance to promote responsible AI use. Generative AI in Film and Media Generative AI continues to revolutionize the film industry. Companies like Runway are enhancing their video generation models, producing higher-quality outputs that are catching the attention of major studios such as Paramount and Disney. These advancements are facilitating new possibilities...

AI Edition - It's AI Time - 69 Election Disinformation AI-generated content, including deepfakes, is becoming increasingly prevalent in political campaigns. This trend is expected to escalate in the 2024 elections, raising concerns about the impact of disinformation on election outcomes. Techniques to combat this issue are still in development, with platforms like Google DeepMind's SynthID offering potential solutions. Generative AI in Entertainment Major studios such as Paramount and Disney are incorporating generative AI into their production pipelines. This technology is being used for tasks like lip-syncing actors' performances for foreign-language dubbing and enhancing special effects. The impact of these advancements is changing the landscape of filmmaking and raising ethical questions within the industry. Model Optimization and Accessibility Advances in AI model optimization, such as Low Rank Adaptation (LoRA) and quantization techniques, are making powerful AI tools...

 AI Edition - It's AI Time - 68 Claude 3.5 Sonnet passes Opus in performance at 1/5 the cost. It is also the best vision model available now. This highlights the improved capabilities of the frontier models. Apple has contributed 20 Core Machine Learning models to the Hugging Face open-source AI repository, enhancing its existing range of public models with advances in image classification and depth segmentation. These contributions follow Apple's release of the Ferret large language model and the four OpenELMs to Hugging Face earlier in the year. The move demonstrates Apple's increasing engagement with the AI research community and its commitment to advancing AI capabilities. Factory has secured a $15M Series A funding, led by Sequoia Capital, to expand its team and enhance its suite of AI-powered software development tools known as Droids. Its products have achieved a new state-of-the-art on the SWE-bench AI coding benchmark and are driving rapid growth in its customer ba...

AI Edition - It's AI Time - 67 Ilya Sutskever Is Starting A New AI Company Ilya Sutskever has launched Safe Superintelligence Inc. (SSI), a startup focused solely on developing a safe and powerful AI system free from the commercial pressures faced by companies like OpenAI. Apple's Intelligent Strategy Apple's WWDC revelations highlight its strategic positioning in AI with a focus on privacy and security and employing in-house chips and a zero-trust architecture in its Private Cloud. Apple's AI integrates OpenAI's ChatGPT for tasks beyond its scope, with a business model where AI suppliers may financially contribute to access Apple's user base. Apple's approach to privacy could leverage upcoming regulations as a competitive advantage, aligning with its commitment to user privacy and potentially reinforcing its dominance in tech. Roblox's Road to 4D Generative AI Roblox is building toward 4D generative AI, going beyond single 3D objects to dynamic interact...

 AI Edition - It's AI Time - 66 Nvidia Conquers Latest AI Tests Systems powered by Nvidia's Hopper architecture dominated the results of two new tests from MLPerf, an AI benchmarking suite that compares the fine-tuning of large language models and training of graph neural networks. Perplexity AI searches for users in Japan, via SoftBank deal Perplexity is leveraging its strategic partnership with SoftBank to expand its reach in Japan. It is offering a free year of its premium AI-powered search engine, Perplexity Pro. SoftBank aims to attract users with AI services without developing in-house solutions. Perplexity, valued at $1 billion, is advancing its funding and investor base, which includes notable tech leaders and venture firms. AI Tools Become Essential for Teens 50% of teens use AI weekly, up from 2023. Popular uses include getting information and brainstorming. 49% of students use ChatGPT weekly for school. Significant usage differences by race and ethnicity were noted. ...

AI Edition - It's AI Time - 65 DeepMind's New AI Generates Soundtracks And Dialogue For Videos DeepMind is developing an AI technology called V2A to generate synchronized soundtracks for videos. It uses diffusion models trained on audio, dialogue transcripts, and video clips to create music, sound effects, and dialogue. McDonald’s deep-sixes drive-thru AI experiment but says AI order-taking will still happen. In a sign that it remains stubbornly difficult to add AI to products millions of consumers depend on, McDonald’s ended a partnership with IBM in which it experimented with voice AI order-taking at the drive-thru. According to Restaurant Business, More than 100 restaurants had been part of the pilot. But the fast-food giant did not close the drive-thru window on future voice AI ordering options, saying it would evaluate other solutions by the end of the year. DeepSeek Coder V2 DeepSeek Coder is a powerful model that gets 90+ on HumanEval while matching GPT-4 Turbo performan...

AI Edition - It's AI Time - 64 Nvidia launches GPT-4 quality model NVIDIA's Nemotron-4 340B is a family of open models that developers can use to generate synthetic data for training LLMs for commercial applications. The state-of-the-art reward model matches the original GPT-4 model and can run on 8 H100s. Apple to ‘Pay' OpenAI for ChatGPT Through Distribution, Not Cash Apple and OpenAI's partnership isn't expected to generate meaningful revenue for either party, at least at the beginning. Apple believes that pushing OpenAI's brand and technology to its devices is of equal or greater value than monetary payments so it isn't paying OpenAI as part of the deal. The deal isn't exclusive - Apple is already discussing offering other chatbots as additional options. Apple eventually plans to make money from AI by striking revenue-sharing agreements with AI partners. Video Understanding with VideoGPT+ VideoGPT+ is a model that combines image and video encoders to...

AI Edition - It's AI Time - 63 Major Announcements at Apple WWDC 2024 Apple's WWDC 2024 showcased significant advancements in AI and other technologies. A notable highlight was the introduction of "Apple Intelligence," an AI initiative integrated across Apple devices. Siri received a substantial upgrade, incorporating ChatGPT, which enhances its conversational abilities and responsiveness. This integration aims to make Siri more intuitive and capable of handling complex queries New Features in iOS 18 iOS 18 was also unveiled, bringing numerous AI-driven features. The Control Center has been revamped for improved usability, and new AI functionalities have been integrated into the Messages app, allowing for scheduled messages and enhanced text effects. Additionally, iOS 18 introduces more advanced privacy controls, enabling users to lock individual apps and manage data sharing more effectively​ Advancements in Apple Vision Pro The Apple Vision Pro is set to receive seve...

AI Edition - It's AI Time - 62 Apple's AI Announcements at WWDC 2024 Apple has unveiled several AI-powered enhancements, including updates to Siri and integration with ChatGPT. These advancements aim to improve user interactions with Apple devices, making them more intuitive and responsive​. Gemini 1.5 Pro and 1.5 Flash GA, 1.5 Flash tuning support, higher rate limits, and more API updates Google AI has announced updates to the Gemini API and Google AI Studio, including the Gemini 1.5 stable release, higher API rate limits, model tuning support, and new JSON schema and mobile support features. The updates enhance developers' options for building at scale with improved customization and efficiency. DeepMind's Robocat DeepMind has introduced Robocat, an advanced model capable of controlling various robotic arms through trial and error learning. This development represents a significant step towards creating more versatile and adaptive robotic systems that can perform a wi...

AI Edition - It's AI Time - 61 Microsoft Is Building An AI Empire Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella has diversified Microsoft's AI investments by partnering with AI startups and building an in-house AI team led by Mustafa Suleyman. This strategy includes significant investments, including $1.5 billion in an Abu Dhabi-based AI firm. It aims to create internal AI capabilities potentially rivaling OpenAI. Apple Made Once-Unlikely Deal With Sam Altman to Catch Up in AI Apple and OpenAI have forged a partnership to integrate OpenAI's ChatGPT into iOS. The agreement was a key focus for Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference. The partnership is likely a short- to medium-term relationship for Apple, which is developing its own AI features. Apple is still in talks with Google about using Gemini in its devices. The company is also looking beyond chatbots - it is currently working on a mobile robot that can follow users around and handle chores on their behalf and AI features for its A...

AI Edition - It's AI Time - 60 Stable Diffusion 3 Open Weights Stability AI has released SD 3 weights for non-commercial use, with commercial use available on request. Shutterstock ImageAI, powered by Databricks Stability AI has released SD 3 weights for non-commercial use, with commercial use available on request. OpenAI Annualized Revenue Doubles OpenAI has more than doubled its annualized revenue to hit $3.4B. Maintaining Large-Scale AI Capacity At Meta Meta is upgrading its global data centers to support AI demands. It is planning to scale to 600,000 GPUs for AI training jobs. This involves innovative maintenance strategies and tools like OpsPlanner to ensure minimal disruptions and consistent performance while enabling rapid infrastructure scaling. Meta could threaten Google's search crown Meta, with its extensive reach through WhatsApp, Instagram, and Facebook, poses a credible threat to Google's search dominance by potentially redirecting searches to its own results....

AI Edition - It's AI Time - 59 Announcing Mozilla Builders The inaugural Mozilla Builders Accelerator is embracing Local AI, which brings AI models and applications directly onto personal devices to enhance privacy and accessibility. Key innovation areas include tools for developer productivity, local-based AI agents, dynamic UIs, adaptation of fine-tuning, retrieval-augmented generation, and advanced function calling. The initiative seeks participants to develop a decentralized, open-source AI ecosystem that prioritizes user empowerment. Elon Drops Lawsuit against OpenAI Elon Musk has dropped the lawsuit against OpenAI and Sam Altman that claims they have deviated from their original mission in favor of profit. He has the option to file again in the future. CaseMark Raises $1.7M to Empower Attorneys with AI CaseMark, an AI startup revolutionizing legal workflows, has secured a pre-seed investment led by Gradient Ventures to expand its AI offerings for the legal industry. Haize Lab...

AI Edition - It's AI Time - 58 Apple Intelligence is right on time Apple's WWDC keynote unveiled extensive generative AI features branded as "Apple Intelligence" and a significant partnership with OpenAI. Despite the excitement around these AI advancements, Apple's careful and integrated approach ensures it remains competitive in the evolving tech landscape, leveraging its strengths in device-making and ecosystem control. OpenAI and Apple Partnership Apple announced at WWDC 2024 that it is integrating ChatGPT into a variety of native experiences on iOS devices. It plans to eventually expand to use voice and other capabilities. Jupyter Notebook A Jupyter Notebook that combines the experience of OpenAI's code interpreter with the familiar development environment of a Python notebook. How AI Image Models Work AI image generation has progressed from creating images based on text descriptions since 2022. Using a child's game analogy, this article explains how t...

AI Edition - It's AI Time - 57 Apple To Launch “Apple Intelligence” Apple is set to introduce its AI initiatives under the brand name "Apple Intelligence" in iOS 18 and other operating systems, focusing on daily life enhancements rather than creative tasks. Features will include AI-generated notification summaries, rich auto-replies in Messages and Mail, intelligent email categorization, an emoji creator, AI-powered photo editing, and transcriptions in Voice Memos. Claude's Character Claude is more than just a middle-of-the-road, sycophantic AI that agrees with the user. Claude's personality and character have been specifically designed using a character variant of Constitutional AI. This post goes in-depth on how post-training is used to steer the type of output often generated by Claude to represent this desired character. Google's $2.3 million check helped the company get a trial by judge instead of jury The U.S. Justice Department's antitrust lawsuit a...