AI Edition - It's AI Time - 298 [07-02-2025]

 AI Edition - It's AI Time - 298

OpenAI Co-Founder John Schulman Leaves Anthropic

John Schulman, a key figure behind ChatGPT, has left Anthropic after just five months. While his reasons remain unclear, the departure marks a significant shift in the AI research landscape.

Lyft and Anthropic Partnership

Lyft is collaborating with Anthropic to integrate Claude-powered AI solutions, reducing customer service resolution times by 87% and enhancing the overall rideshare experience through AI-driven automation and engineering improvements.

Does AI need all that money? (Tech giants say yes)

DeepSeek's claim of training a top-performing AI model for $5.6m shook the US market, impacting Nvidia's valuation and raising questions about hefty AI infrastructure investments from the likes of Meta and Microsoft. Despite skepticism, leading tech firms including OpenAI remain committed to major spending on AI advancements. Meanwhile, OpenAI plans a new, free ChatGPT version, maintaining high spending levels alongside ambitious AI projects like Stargate.

DeepSeek Releases VL2, a Series of MoE Vision-Language Models

DeepSeek-VL2 introduces a new series of Mixture-of-Experts Vision-Language models with up to 4.5B activated parameters that excel in tasks like OCR, visual grounding, and chart understanding.

Controlling AI's Growing Energy Needs

AI model training requires significant energy, with LLMs like GPT-3 consuming vast amounts. Alternatives such as neuromorphic and optical computing are being explored to reduce this footprint. Meanwhile, smaller fine-tuned models are emerging as an energy-efficient option for specific applications.

AI Memory And Context: Open Source, DeepSeek, Meta, and Model Research

Yann LeCun emphasizes that true AI intelligence requires a system of interconnected components rather than a single powerful model, highlighting the need for persistent memory and context. He calls for new AI architecture, possibly through "world models," to better mimic human cognition. LeCun also advocates for open-source AI development to advance the field.

AI haters build tarpits to trap and trick AI scrapers that ignore robots.txt

Nepenthes, a malicious AI tarpit inspired by anti-spam techniques, was created to trap and poison AI crawlers ignoring robots.txt, raising operational costs for AI companies. Developer Aaron's tool disrupts AI training by feeding bots gibberish, with only OpenAI's systems reportedly escaping its grasp. While some criticize its efficacy, Nepenthes symbolizes resistance against unchecked AI scraping, sparking similar tools like Iocaine designed to protect online content.