This week’s cover reflects the resignation of OpenAI’s safety team. A robot riding a shark, carrying a suitcase labeled “OpenAI Safety,” is self-explanatory. The prompt was “action movie still. a modern humanoid robot foolishly riding on the back of a menacing shark. –ar 5:3 –style raw”. The suitcase was added using Adobe Generative Fill. The OpenAI logo and word “Security” were placed with old-school Photoshop. The font (again) is Colfax, which is similar, if not the same, as the OpenAI logo font.
This week’s category cover theme is a sign in a forest. Each category image prompt is a derivative of the formula “an [category themed object] in a forest with a trail sign that reads “[category name]”. Using a theme each week takes the cover creation time down to about 20 minutes, rather than several hours.
Executive Summary
Despite continued breakthroughs, this was a rough PR week for artificial intelligence. OpenAI’s safety team quit and was then disbanded. Google’s AI search results went off the rails. Even if only 1% of the results are horrific, that’s plenty to ruin the perception and trust of the world’s most powerful search brand. OpenAI got shamed by Scarlett Johannsen for ripping off her voice (they didn’t but it’s in the same vibe) for their audio assistant. The FCC commissioner dismissed the risks of AI and the need for political disclosure. California passed a bill that may be a giant anchor on US innovation. Microsoft debuted a new AI computer that memorizes everything you do and see on your PC, so you can talk to it with photographic memory. The patron saint of AI, Geoffrey Hinton, and Elon Musk (very different fellows) both strongly asserted that AI will take all of our jobs and we need to get more comfortable discussing universal basic income. AI’s continue to evolve from “text bots” to full sensory assistants (see, hear, talk, write). As such, we’re facing existential concepts about how humans identify and store information and the age old question ‘what is real’? Descartes would love this time in history.
Elon Musk and Geoffrey Hinton Weigh in on The Future of Work and Universal Basic Income
- AI’s ‘godfather’ says universal basic income will be needed: With AI advancing rapidly, experts like Geoffrey Hinton argue that universal basic income will become essential to support people whose jobs are automated. https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cnd607ekl99o
- Elon Musk on AI’s Impact on Employment: Elon Musk predicts that AI will eventually make all jobs optional, allowing people to work only as a hobby while robots handle all essential goods and services production. https://www.cnn.com/2024/05/23/tech/elon-musk-ai-your-job/index.html
- AI Making Jobs Optional: During the VivaTech conference, Elon Musk emphasized that AI will transform the job market, making employment a choice rather than a necessity.
- https://twitter.com/rowancheung/status/1793861012371726551
Serious Issues At OpenAI: Resignations and Dissolution of The AI Safety Team
- The dissolution of OpenAI’s AI safety team following the resignations of key figures, including Jan Leike and Gretchen Krueger, highlights growing tensions within the company. The departures, citing concerns over the company’s direction and emphasis on safety, have sparked discussions about the future of OpenAI’s approach to AI alignment and long-term risk management. The implications of these changes are unfolding as stakeholders and industry experts weigh in on the potential impact on OpenAI’s mission and the broader AI landscape.
- More details on Rowan Cheung’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/rowancheung/status/1792739852254863782
- Jan Leike’s resignation statement: https://x.com/janleike/status/1791498174659715494and https://x.com/janleike/status/1791498186517033344
- Gretchen Krueger’s departure and concerns: https://x.com/GretchenMarina/status/1793403475260551517 and https://x.com/GretchenMarina/status/1793403476707565695
- OpenAI’s strategic response by Greg Brockman: https://x.com/gdb/status/1791869138132218351
- Analysis by Ars Technica: https://arstechnica.com/ai/2024/05/what-happened-to-openais-long-term-ai-risk-team/
- Gary Marcus’ perspective: https://garymarcus.substack.com/p/chaos-and-tension-at-openai
USA Today Adds AI-Generated Summaries to News Stories (what’s the future for metadata?):
- Gannett introduced AI-generated bullet points at the top of articles to enhance reader experience, with journalists reviewing the AI summaries before publication and the feature is currently optional. That’s a lot of caveating, but it’s a sign of where things are heading, especially the future of metadata (will there need to be metadata at all)? https://www.theverge.com/2024/5/16/24158531/gannett-ai-generated-overviews-usa-today-memo
The FCC Blows Off Political Disclosure, As DeepFakes Cripple India
- FCC’s Carr Opposes Effort to Require Disclosure of AI-Content in Political Ads: FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr stands against new regulations mandating the disclosure of AI-generated content in political advertisements, citing concerns over free speech and regulatory overreach. – https://www.tvtechnology.com/news/fccs-carr-opposes-effort-to-require-disclosure-of-ai-content-in-political-ads
- Indian Journalists Combat Election Deepfakes: Journalists in India are at the forefront of tackling the spread of AI-manipulated videos and images, known as deep fakes, to ensure the integrity of election coverage and protect democratic processes. https://www.niemanlab.org/2024/05/indian-journalists-are-the-frontline-against-election-deepfakes/
Amazon’s Alexa Plans AI Makeover and Monthly Subscription Fee:
- Amazon is planning a significant AI upgrade for Alexa, introducing advanced capabilities that could revolutionize user interactions. Along with the new features, a monthly subscription fee will be introduced, separate from the existing Prime membership. This move aims to enhance the functionality and performance of Alexa, leveraging AI to provide a more intuitive and responsive user experience. For more details, check out this CNBC article and Rowan Cheung’s tweet.
OpenAI PR Flop With Scarlett Johansson Amidst Voice Cloning Controversy
- The controversy began when Johansson accused OpenAI of using a clone of her voice without consent, following a rejected offer from Sam Altman. However, new documents and a statement from the actual voice actress reveal that the ‘Sky’ voice was legally hired months before the alleged incident. OpenAI has also provided insights into how voices for ChatGPT were selected. I didn’t think the voices sounded the same (sultry vocal frye is a vibe not a copyright)… but the flirty demos had serious tech bro cringe elements.
- “Scarlett Johansson is taking legal action against OpenAI after they ‘copied’ her voice for GPT-4o. According to the actress, Sam Altman tried to hire her voice last September, she said no, and Sam used cloned and used her voice anyway. Insane if true.
- “Statement from Scarlett Johansson on the OpenAI situation. Wow:
- “According to new documents, OpenAI didn’t copy Scarlett Johansson’s voice for GPT-4o’s voice. The real voice actress behind the ‘Sky’ voice just came forward, saying she was hired months before Sam Altman even contacted Scarlett Johansson.
- How the voices for ChatGPT were chosen | OpenAI
- OpenAI didn’t copy Scarlett Johansson’s voice for ChatGPT, records show – The Washington Post
Incredible NBA Player Tracking + Analytics AI Integration
- Nexavision introduced an innovative system that leveraged computer vision and AI to enhance basketball analytics. Their technology analyzes any basketball video feed, tracks and identifies players, and calculates shot probabilities based on player positions, movements, identities, and defensive setups. Trained with over 2 million shots, their shot probability model grades every shot taken by every player. This lets coaches and fans explore detailed shot data, probabilities, possession stats, game expectations, and player stats. It’s an example of an important tech term, called “segmentation”. When the robots take over, they will use segmentation. https://twitter.com/AmarSVS/status/1793037268690579787
Suno Transforms Everyday Sounds into Songs:
Suno unveiled a groundbreaking AI audio tool that creates songs from any noise or sound. Whether it’s turning a watering can into psychedelic rock or beatboxing into a beat, the possibilities are basically endless. Users can craft songs from beatbox rhythms, mouth trumpet solos, or hummed melodies. The video demo is worth watching: https://twitter.com/suno_ai_/status/1794367911408353349
NVIDIA’s Revenue IS The AI Boom
- Nvidia reported a 262% revenue increase in the past quarter, maintaining an impressive growth streak across six quarters. This same week, CEO Jensen Huang announced that Nvidia will produce new AI chips annually. The success of artificial intelligence can be benchmarked by Nvidia’s meteoric rise, with its market cap increasing over six-fold to $2.3 trillion, surpassing Google and Amazon to become the third-most valuable US-listed company. Absolutely bonkers performance.
- “The success of AI is being reflected in @nvidia ‘s story. – Market cap has increased more than six-fold to $2.3tn, overtaking Google & Amazon to become the third-most valuable US-listed company. – Revenue soared 262% in the past quarter – Market cap is more than total market cap
- “Nvidia Earnings Just Announced: Revenue: $26.0B, +18% last Q, +262% last year Margins: 75.5% Stock split: 10:1 God’s Chosen Company.
- “cant believe nvidia beat earnings six quarters in a row no one could have predicted this” / X
- Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang full keynote at GTC 2024 – YouTube
- Nvidia will now make new AI chips every year – The Verge
- Nvidia’s Sales Triple, Signaling AI Boom’s Staying Power – WSJ
California Passes Controversial AI Legislation:
- California recently passed a new AI law aimed at preventing dangerous uses of powerful AI systems. The law requires that AI models using massive amounts of computing power ( trained with over 10^26 FLOPS) be designed to avoid critical harms, like creating weapons. Developers also need to include a feature to quickly shut down these AI systems if needed. Critics say this law seems to target open-source AI projects unfairly and could slow down U.S. innovation, potentially letting other countries take the lead.
- “BREAKING: California’s newly passed AI bill 📌 “Covered models” trained with over 10^26 FLOPS must be incapable of enabling certain critical harms like creation of WMDs, even if fine-tuned. 📌 Developers must implement the capability to promptly enact a full shutdown of covered
- “This California Bill Makes Zero Sense And Is Targeted At Banning Open-Source AI The bill stipulates that if you train a “model” with some arbitrary amount of compute, then a whole bunch of rules and restrictions apply. Imagine if I stopped training just short of that compute
- “6/ on the national security front, the US has won by leading. restricting open-source AI won’t stop determined adversaries, only slow U.S. innovation and cede that leadership. openness keeps us on the offense. we must shape AI with western values and norms.” / X
Windows 11 “Recall” Feature: Photographic Memory or Privacy Nightmare?
- Microsoft’s Windows 11 introduced an AI feature called “Recall,” which allows users to search and recall anything they’ve seen and interacted with on their computer using natural language. The feature is part of Microsoft’s new Copilot Plus PC and takes constant screenshots to remember and understand everything done on the computer. While it promises to be the next best thing to a photographic memory, it raises a lot of privacy questions. Personally, I say “bring it on!”
- “One of the biggest AI features launched in the Copilot Plus PCs is called ‘Recall’ It allows users to search and recall anything they’ve seen and interacted with on their computer screens, with natural language.
- “Satya Nadella says Windows PCs will have a photographic memory feature called Recall that will remember and understand everything you do on your computer by taking constant screenshots
- “Do you want a photographic memory? The next best thing is Recall. Check out this new experience only available on Copilot+ PCs. Here is a demo from my colleague Carolina.
- Microsoft’s new Windows 11 Recall is a privacy nightmare
- “The real question is if Microsoft will derive insights *locally* about you & your activities from AI Recall, and send those derived insights up to the cloud. They could do that for all AI Recall users while leaving their screenshots on their computers 🙂
Google Unveils Veo: A Powerful Competitor to OpenAI’s Sora in Video Generation
- Google DeepMind introduced Veo, a new video generation model that rivals OpenAI’s Sora, offering enhanced control over the camera for more dynamic video creation. Veo allows users to prompt for specific effects like extreme close-ups, slow-motion crane shots, and timelapses. Google showcased Veo’s capabilities with prompts such as “Timelapse of the northern lights dancing across the Arctic sky, stars twinkling, snow-covered landscape”
- “Our video generation model Veo gives more control over the camera. 📹 You can prompt for: 🔘 Extreme close up 🔘 Slow-motion crane shots 🔘 Timelapses And more. 🧵 ✍️ Prompt: “Timelapse of the northern lights dancing across the Arctic sky, stars twinkling, snow-covered
Ethan Mollick Notes the Overlooked Impact of Tool Use on LLM Capabilities
The significant impact of tool use on Large Language Model (LLM) capabilities is often underestimated. When GPT-4 was given an original puzzle designed for a fictional space mission simulation, it struggled to solve it manually but succeeded when allowed to use code. This highlights how integrating computational tools can enhance the problem-solving abilities of AI models, enabling them to tackle complex challenges more effectively. I often call LLM’s chit chat bots. Give the chit chat bots tools… and they will take over. https://twitter.com/emollick/status/1792385347281735769
ChatGPT Enhances Functionality with Interactive Tables, Charts, and Cloud Integration
Speaking of tools, OpenAI is rolling out new features for ChatGPT, including interactive tables and charts, and the ability to add files directly from Google Drive and Microsoft OneDrive. These updates will be available to ChatGPT Plus, Team, and Enterprise users over the coming weeks. https://x.com/OpenAI/status/1791227287569932368
GPT-4 Surpasses Human Performance in Understanding Irony and Hints
A recent paper reveals that GPT-4 demonstrates human-level theory-of-mind capabilities, detecting irony and hints better than humans. The AI’s weak spots are attributed to guardrails preventing it from expressing opinions. This finding fuels ongoing debates about AI’s ability to understand the mental states of others and suggests that GPT-4 may excel in nuanced human communication . https://twitter.com/emollick/status/1792594588579803191
Meta stands at a threshold whether to remain open or become more closed
- To date Meta has been an open source hero, with Llama dominating the world of open source AI models. There is growing concern that Meta might not release the weights for its new 400 billion parameter model. Some people are afraid of open source (getting into the hands of bad actors). Others feel open source is the key to maintaining dominance. I’m guessing Meta will indeed release the weights. Time will tell!
- “Meta open-sourcing Llama-3 400b will make them the biggest hero of our age! Nothing is more important or more urgent!”
- “Meta plans to not open the weights for its 400B model. The hope is that we would quietly not notice / let it slide. Don’t let it slide.”
- “Head of Ted is calling Meta reckless for releasing Open source models.”
AI Wearables Are At Best A Flop, And At Worst Hiding A $30,000,000 Scam:
- Humane’s AI Pin Looking for a Buyer After Flop: Humane is reportedly seeking an acquisition after the AI Pin’s lackluster launch failed to meet expectations. https://www.theverge.com/2024/5/21/24162185/humane-seeking-acquisition-rumor-ai-pin
- Rabbit Fraud?: New revelations expose a major AI project’s deceptive practices, misleading investors and users about its capabilities and functionality. Watch video for more details. https://twitter.com/coffeebreak_YT/status/1792961247438119258
- Rabbit Scam?: “I’m so sorry about anyone who bought the rabbit r1. It’s not just that the product is non-functional (as we learned from all the reviews), the real problem is that the whole thing seems to be a lie. None of what they pitched exists or functions the way they said.
- https://twitter.com/svpino/status/1794428239265571004
FTC Chair Warns AI Data Scraping Might Violate Antitrust Laws:
- Sending a strong signal, Lina Khan, FTC Chair, highlighted potential antitrust violations by companies using data from news sites, artists, and personal information to train AI models, emphasizing privacy concerns and unfair competition risks. https://thehill.com/policy/technology/4682461-ftc-chair-ai-models-could-violate-antitrust-laws/
Legal AI: Harvey and Mistral Partner On Legal Tools:
- Legal AI software company “Harvey” (the leading player) and Mistral have partnered to leverage Mistral’s open source and commercial AI models for Harvey’s legal platform. A big win for the French company, Mistral. https://www.harvey.ai/blog/mistral-announcement
Jim Fan Continues to Be The Most Thought-Provoking Person in AI, Shares a Cool Study from MIT
MIT’s study, “The Platonic Representation Hypothesis,” explores how AI models understand concepts like an apple across different forms—text, images, and videos. Researchers found that advanced AI models, even when trained separately, learn similar representations of concepts. For instance, the similarity between the words “apple” and “orange” in text matches the similarity between their images. This is like the famous analogy in word vectors: “king” – “queen” is similar to “man” – “woman.” This study opens the door to exploring if AI can also understand 3D objects, sounds, and even touch, making sense of reality from various sensory perspectives. It also pushes people to think about how we identify words, visuals, and objects. The word apple, the smell of an apple, the sight of an apple. What makes it “applish”. It’s getting real in the world of multimodality.
Top 47 Links of The Week
Agents and Copilots
- “We are partnering with Microsoft to help bring Devin to every developer. Under the partnership, Microsoft will use Devin to help its developers achieve more, starting with code migrations and modernization, and bring Devin to its customer base. Devin will be powered by Azure.
- “Cool experiment where researchers assemble an AI translation “company” with AI agents with simulated backgrounds filling various roles, from editors to proofreaders. The AI “company” creates accurate translations of Chinese web novels that people prefer to GPT-4, and human, ones
Anthropic attempts to map the mind of their Claude model
- Mapping the Mind of a Large Language Model \ Anthropic
- “New Anthropic research paper: Scaling Monosemanticity. The first ever detailed look inside a leading large language model. Read the blog post here:
Incredible use case of mixed/virtual reality in engineering
- Using VR to show the infrastructure beneath a sidewalk. “3D capture is dope for media & entertainment, but the utilitarian applications might be even more impactful – literally x-ray vision making the unseen seen. With tools like Pix4D + RTK GPS (cm level accuracy) you can capture critical infrastructure, and overlay it at real-world
Education
- Khan Academy and Microsoft partner to expand access to AI tools that personalize teaching and help make learning fun – Source
- “What if everyone, everywhere could have their own personal AI tutor, on any topic? 💡 We’re making learning more engaging and personal with our new family of models, LearnLM. Find out more →
Ethics
- Fantastic charts showing the lag between when an AI model is ready v. when it’s released to the public. Does this matter? Why/Why not/ The Gap: Waiting for the AI time lag – Dr Alan D. Thompson – Life Architect
- BlackRock sent its team a memo secretly written by ChatGPT—and one major critique emerged | Fortune
- AI Is Taking Over Accounting Jobs As People Leave The Profession
- “The AI girlfriend epidemic is bigger than I thought it was. 8 of the top 50 most used Gen AI apps in the world are mostly AI companionship: Character Janitor CrushOn Yodayo Candy SpicyChat Chub DreamGF With loneliness rising, this will fill the gap, whether we like it or not.” / X
- “Consultant behind deepfaked Biden robocall fined $6m as new charges filed
- Hollywood agency CAA aims to help stars manage their own AI likenesses | TechCrunch
- Meta’s Zuckerberg Creates Council to Advise on AI Products – Bloomberg
OpenAI’s NDA are leaked and cause quite a stir
- OpenAI NDAs: Leaked documents reveal aggressive tactics toward former employees – Vox
- OpenAI departures: Why can’t former employees talk, but the new ChatGPT release can? – Vox
- Sam Altman is ‘embarrassed’ that OpenAI threatened to revoke equity if exiting employees wouldn’t sign an NDA
- “Scoop: OpenAI’s senior leadership says they were unaware ex-employees who didn’t sign departure docs were threatened with losing their vested equity. But their signatures on relevant documents (which Vox is now releasing) raise questions about whether they could have missed it.”
- “impressive follow-up from @KelseyTuoc bringing receipts that it wasn’t just some standard exit paperwork from OpenAI; they seem to have proactively pressured employees to sign the non-disparagement clause, with crystal-clear threats to exclude them from future liquidity events”
Podcasts and Op-Eds
- Google CEO Sundar Pichai on AI-powered search and the future of the web – The Verge
Publishing News
- OpenAI Strikes a Deal to License News Corp Content – The New York Times
- A landmark multi-year global partnership with News Corp | OpenAI
- https://openai.com/index/news-corp-and-openai-sign-landmark-multi-year-global-partnership/
- How Meta AI’s news summaries could damage the industry – The Washington Post – https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2024/05/22/meta-ai-news-summaries/
- TikTok turns to generative AI to boost its ads business | TechCrunch
- How ChatGPT’s new model could transform public media – Current
- Why OpenAI is forced to enter the search business
- OpenAI isn’t just competing with Google Search. It’s coming for Google Assistant, Alexa & Siri, too. | Mashable
- Inside OpenAI’s Library – The New York Times
- “Microsoft Copilot is inserting Ads as sources for its outputs. 👀 I wonder if Google Gemini will eventually do the same. Maybe it’s just me, but I don’t like the idea of my AI outputs being determined by the highest bidder.🤷♂️
- “Lastly for Microsoft Copilot, it appears to be sourcing some responses with ads. This probably won’t end well, especially the way they’re doing it by essentially referencing ads as sources.
- “Google Search’s New AI Overviews Will Soon Have Ads
- Google’s AI search results are already getting ads – The Verge
- Alphabet, Meta Offer Millions to Partner With Hollywood on AI – Bloomberg
- “A useful tool for journalists: AutoQuizzer generates a quiz from a URL. You can play the quiz, or let the LLM play it.
- “Excited to share a new project to make journalists’ lives easier when gathering information! Collecting data like lists, URLs, etc., from websites is not always easy (and sometimes painful). Web scraping requires technical skills that only a handful of people in each newsroom…
Microsoft launches AI PCs
- “Microsoft changed computing history by inventing a new category: the Personal Computer or PC. Now we’re re-inventing PCs for the AI era, taking us from personal computing to truly personal intelligence. Today we’re launching a new product category: Copilot+ PCs, the biggest”
- https://twitter.com/mustafasuleyman/status/1792624197572653351
- Introducing Copilot+ PCs – The Official Microsoft Blog
- https://blogs.microsoft.com/blog/2024/05/20/introducing-copilot-pcs/
- Microsoft wants to make Windows an AI operating system, launches Copilot+ PCs | TechCrunch
- “Microsoft revealed Copilot Plus PCs: The world’s first ‘AI-first’ PCs Copilot+ PCs can run AI workloads up to 20x faster and 100x more efficiently than traditional PCs, and are 58% faster than a Macbook Air M3.
- Inside Microsoft’s mission to take down the MacBook Air – The Verge
- “AI-oriented PCs with a special processor and dedicated Microsoft Co-Pilot key will start shipping from Dell this year, according to CEO Michael Dell
- Microsoft Build 2024 preview: The year of AI PCs
- “Introducing Copilot+ PCs: the fastest, most powerful and intelligent Windows PCs ever. They give you a photographic memory of everything you’ve done on your PC and the ability to cocreate with AI in real-time! Here:
Twitter/X/Grok
- “Wow this is powerful. Grok is able to accurately give me the last closing price of a stock option, and correctly explain the reason for this price. Congrats @grok team, your RAG capabilities are very impressive and useful, Grok will be my exclusive personal assistant from now on
- Elon Musk’s xAI is working on making Grok multimodal – The Verge
- https://www.theverge.com/2024/5/21/24161764/elon-musk-xai-grok-multimodal-ai
- Musk’s xAI Nears Close of Deal Valuing Startup at $24 Billion – Bloomberg
- “Elon Musk commented on how AI will impact X’s feed algorithm coming soon. He said that the platform will soon move to a ‘fully AI-based post recommendation system’ which will order replies, remove spam, and enable full semantic search.
The Rest: AI News of The Week
Don’t let the volume overwhelm you. Have fun and skim these. The links are organized by topic, sorted from ‘coolest’ to ‘least cool’, and each topic is clearly defined with a headline. I’ve added a description and glossary of what the topics mean, beneath each label, in plain language. I do the work so you don’t have to! When you visit the pages, note that the links and descriptions are often pulled directly from tweets or articles, so it’s not always my voice. Pause when you see something that interests you. Reach out to me any time. I enjoy sharing and discussing these items.
Agency/Agents/Copilots News of the Week: Agency is when AI can do things for you (like Googling an actress name or fetching the latest weather forecast). An agent is one step further, when AI given autonomy to take action on your behalf (“Alexa, book a reservation for three at Peak in Hudson Yards for Friday night”). A co-pilot is an assistant (like spell check or autofill).
This week’s latest agent news: https://ethanbholland.com/2024/05/24/agents-and-copilots-ai-news-week-ending-05-24-2024/
Amazon News of The Week: Individual company products will often be placed in the categories they match (image, audio, agents, robots, etc). Occasionally, I’ll dedicate space to a company’s news if it’s broad or a major product release.
This week’s latest Amazon AI news: https://ethanbholland.com/2024/05/24/amazon-ai-news-week-ending-05-24-2024/
Anthropic News of the Week:
Anthropic is a company that builds LLMs like OpenAI, Mistral, Meta, etc. Their main AI brand is Claude. As with Amazon and Apple, individual Anthropic company posts will often be placed in the categories they match (image, audio, agents, robots, etc). Occasionally, I’ll dedicate space to a company’s news if it’s broad or a major product release.
This week’s Anthropic news: https://ethanbholland.com/2024/05/24/anthropic-news-week-ending-05-24-2024/
Apple News of the Week: As with Amazon, individual Apple company products will often be placed in the categories they match (image, audio, agents, robots, etc). Occasionally, I’ll dedicate space to a company’s news if it’s broad or a major product release.
This weeks’ latest Apple AI news: https://ethanbholland.com/2024/05/24/apple-ai-news-week-ending-05-24-2024/
Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) News of the Week: Artificial General Intelligence, in a nutshell, is when artificial intelligence is able to beat humans at everything (including embodying physical forms and completing physical tasks). It’s usually a thought catalyst for predictions, like when AGI will occur. 10 years? 25 years? 100? AGI is an event horizon that is tough to define, tough to imagine, and tough to predict. OpenAI defined AGI in its charter as “highly autonomous systems that outperform humans at most economically valuable work”. OpenAI has a section of its website dedicated to AGI. Google’s DeepMind published my favorite report on the five levels of artificial intelligence on the way to AGI (see also here).
This week’s latest Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) news: https://ethanbholland.com/2024/05/24/artificial-general-intelligence-agi-news-week-ending-05-24-2024/
AI Audio News of the Week: In this case, AI audio can mean a few things. The first is “generative audio” which refers to creating sounds with AI, much like ChatGPT writes words or MidJourney creates images. For example, asking for the “sound of waves crashing on the beach” would be text to sound. Another example would be an AI ‘watching’ a video and adding sound to it, like a foley artist would add footsteps or a creaking door to a movie scene. Lastly, AI audio can refer to microphones that only pick up certain speaker’s voices or headsets that cancel out all voices but your friends. This week’s latest AI audio news: https://ethanbholland.com/2024/05/24/audio-news-week-ending-05-24-2024/
Augmented and Virtual Reality (AR/VR) News of the Week: Augmented reality is when you see images or information on top of the real world. A car windshield with a heads-up display of the speed. Or glasses that have facial recognition and overlay the names of everyone in view. Virtual reality is when you are transported into another place, usually wearing goggles, but a flight simulator could also be considered virtual reality.
This week’s latest AR/VR news: https://ethanbholland.com/2024/05/24/augmented-and-virtual-reality-ar-vr-news-week-ending-05-24-2024/
Business/Enterprise News of the Week: This broad category is for stories that impact corporations and large scale AI implementation. Enterprise refers to a type of AI that is often custom built for a business or leverage an API to connect secure data to an AI model.
This week’s latest enterprise AI news: https://ethanbholland.com/2024/05/24/business-and-enterprise-ai-news-week-ending-05-24-2024/
Chips and Hardware AI News of the Week: Most of the chip news is NVIDA usually, yet more and more Meta, Google, and OpenAI are starting toward their own manufacturing. I have to make the call whether to put Meta, Google, and OpenAI’s chip news under this section or their company sections. Lately, I’m putting each company’s chips news into the company category, rather than the chips category. This is the rest of the chips headlines.
This week’s latest chips and hardware news: https://ethanbholland.com/2024/05/24/chips-hardware-and-infrastructure-week-ending-05-24-2024/
Consumer Electronics AI News of the Week: This is a broad category meant to capture end user tools and products that incorporate artificial into their feature, from high-end grills to smartphones.
This week’s latest consumer AI news: https://ethanbholland.com/2024/05/24/consumer-products-week-ending-05-24-2024/
Education AI News of the Week: There is a lot of buzz around the impact of AI in education. This section focuses both on the risks and rewards of how AI can impact learning. It’s broader than just K-12 and includes things like skills, trade, professional, and higher education. This is not about how to learn AI, it’s about AI’s impact on learning.
This week’s latest education news: https://ethanbholland.com/2024/05/24/education-ai-news-week-ending-05-24-2024/
Ethics/Legal/Security AI News of the Week: This section focuses on the impact AI is having on ethics (deep fakes, war, trust, false information, plagiarism, job loss, income), legal (rights, laws, regulations), and security (hacking, phishing, national interests, safety). For huge news stories like the NY Times suing OpenAI, I usually put them under the main section or give them their own page.
This week’s latest AI ethics/legal/security news: https://ethanbholland.com/2024/05/24/ethics-legal-security-ai-news-week-ending-05-24-2024/
Google AI News of the Week: Individual company products will often be placed in the categories they match (image, audio, agents, robots, etc). Occasionally, I’ll dedicate space to a company’s news if it’s broad
This week’s latest Google AI news: https://ethanbholland.com/2024/05/24/google-ai-news-week-ending-05-24-2024/
Imagery News of the Week: AI imagery covers “generative AI” image tools. This usually text-to-image, where a user enters a prompt (“a polar bear walking through NYC”) and a tool like Dalle or MidJourney generates an image in the likeness of the description. This is different than AI vision, where an AI “looks at” an image and can derive context, details, and contents. AI vision is a subset of AI called multimodality. Imagery, in this case, is for image creation and modification/editing. Adobe Photoshop’s AI tools would fall into this category. I’ll also include things like automatic masking and object removal, even though that’s in between imagery and vision… but practically speaking it fits into editing.
This week’s latest AI image news: https://ethanbholland.com/2024/05/24/imagery-news-week-ending-05-24-2024/
International AI News of the Week: A lot of international news will get cross listed in the chips, security, or open-source categories, however it’s nice to have a separate category for worldwide AI news.
This week’s latest international AI news: https://ethanbholland.com/2024/05/24/international-ai-news-week-ending-05-24-2024/
Inflection News of The Week: Inflection is an AI company that builds LLMs like OpenAI, Mistral, Meta, Anthropic, etc. Their main AI brand is Inflection through the interface assistant called Pi. As with Amazon and Apple, individual Inflection company posts will often be placed in the categories they match (image, audio, agents, robots, etc). Occasionally, I’ll dedicate space to a company’s news if it’s broad or a major product release.
This week’s latest Inflection news: https://ethanbholland.com/2024/05/24/inflection-news-week-ending-05-24-2024/
Locally Run AI Models News of the Week: This is a niche mostly for serious AI followers. It refers to AI that can be privately downloaded and run on a device without an internet connection. These have an array of powerful implications, from ethics of rogue users with untethered agents, to practical uses like Apple running a full AI on your phone, to corporate installations for security, to embodied robots with AI running in their virtual brain.
This week’s latest locally run AI news: https://ethanbholland.com/2024/05/24/locally-run-ai-models-news-week-ending-05-24-2024/
Meta AI News of the Week: This is a space dedicated for Meta specific AI advancements and news stories.
This weeks Meta AI news: https://ethanbholland.com/2024/05/24/meta-ai-news-week-ending-05-24-2024/
Microsoft AI News of the Week: This is a space dedicated for Microsoft specific AI advancements and news stories.
This weeks Microsoft AI news: https://ethanbholland.com/2024/05/24/microsoft-ai-news-week-ending-05-24-2024/
Mobile AI News of the Week: In April, 2024 I added a dedicated category for mobile. Prior, I put all most the mobile news into either the company (Apple v. Google v. Microsoft) or locally run AI. It also ended up in the chips and hardware section, or the consumer products category. There is enough mobile news to at least start cross linking it all in one place. This week’s latest mobile AI news:
Multimodal AI News of the Week: This is a broad topic for an single AI model that demonstrates an ability to interact with more than one modality (imagery, video, audio, text). Often multimodal news will end up in one of these categories. I’m playing it by ear on a case by case basis. Please be patient with my organizational challenges.
This week’s multimodal AI news: https://ethanbholland.com/2024/05/24/multimodality-news-week-ending-05-24-2024/
OpenAI: OpenAI is the leading force in the AI boom of 2023 and now 2024. This section focuses on news that is specific to OpenAI. This section will compete with all of the other sections (imagery, vision, ethics, etc) because OpenAI is so broad. I won’t be able to consistently pick when to put things under OpenAI or other sections, so bear with me.
This week’s latest OpenAI news: https://ethanbholland.com/2024/05/24/openai-news-week-ending-05-24-2024/
Open Source Models: An open source AI model refers to a class of artificial intelligence models with public source code. They can be inspected, copied, installed, and customized on private computers. In contrast, a closed source model is proprietary and owned by a company that you pay to use (like PowerPoint or Photoshop). One of the most famous open source language models is a French model called Mistral. Its code is completely publicly available, and anyone can download it and customize it. On one hand, open source is a transparent and powerful way to democratize AI, but on the other hand, open source models circumvent the guard rails and copyright protections that private companies implement. Open source models are the wild west of artificial intelligence, but also the potential saving grace (depending on who you ask). It’s a bit like gun control debates but for computing power.
This week’s latest open source news: https://ethanbholland.com/2024/05/24/open-source-ai-news-week-ending-05-24-2024/
Podcast/YouTube Clips of the Week: This is for more general interviews and explainer videos and podcasts that provide access to leadership, demos of new products, and walkthroughs and tutorials. Videos focused on specific topics will live in the topic category (i.e. images), but broader videos will live here.
This week’s latest podcasts and YouTube clips: https://ethanbholland.com/2024/05/24/podcasts-youtube-op-eds-week-ending-05-24-2024/
Publishing AI News of the Week: These are stories about AI’s impact on the publishing industry. From copyright and crawling to the death of page views or even the end of browsers.
This week’s latest publishing AI news: https://ethanbholland.com/2024/05/24/publishing-news-week-ending-05-24-2024/
RAG Retrieval-Augmented Generation News of the Week: RAG allows a language model to “reference an authoritative knowledge base outside of its training data sources before generating a response” (via Amazon). Historically RAG was prone to hallucinations, however new methods are improving the reliability. There is enough news about RAG, that I want to start tracking it separately for my own use.
This week’s latest RAG (Retrieval-Augmented Generation) AI news: https://ethanbholland.com/2024/05/24/rag-retrieval-augmented-generation-news-week-ending-04-19-2024/
Robotics/Embodiment News of the Week: This is the most intense area of AI. Embodiment refers to putting an AI inside of a machine. It’s “embodying” the object and therefore giving a robot agency in the real world. An example would be using a large language model as an interface to a complex coding task. Just as you ask “Alexa, play Bad Blood by Taylor Swift on Spotify” using plain language, with embodiment you could ask a robot to “Go to the laundry basket and bring me all of the red shirts”. The language model in the robot would translate your request into the proper code to go get the red shirts. The robot was never trained on the task. Another type of embodiment would be training a robot using virtual reality simulations. Using an simulation, a robot could be trained on thousands of scenarios until the real world can be swapped out and the robot doesn’t “notice”. This section also includes factory automation and human prosthetics. There will be some overlap with other categories like autonomous vehicles. I first learned about embodiment from Alan Thompson. I highly recommend his video explainer: https://youtu.be/peLqYP9BAUg?si=2FzrvDlw-qaQFaCx.
This week’s latest robot and embodiment AI news: https://ethanbholland.com/2024/05/24/robotics-and-embodiment-news-week-ending-05-24-2024/
Science/Medicine AI News of the Week: AI’s strength is learning patterns. This applies nicely to medical diagnosis and identifying trends. When combined with data and AI vision, this means AI is good at looking at x-rays. Language models are helping with patient interface, and robotics and augmented reality are advancing surgery. Powerful enterprise models like Google’s Alphafold can master protein folding. Other models can read ancient scrolls without opening them.
This week’s latest AI science and medicine news: https://ethanbholland.com/2024/05/24/science-and-medicine-news-week-ending-05-24-2024/
AI Video News of the Week: AI video in this case refers to generative video. Much like imagery meant generative imagery. This usually text-to-video, where a user enters a prompt (“a wizard walking out of a flaming building”) and a tool like Pika or Runway generates an video in the likeness of the description. It also covers animation of still images, where an image is given motion (like a photo of a waterfall appearing to have flowing water). As with images, this is different than AI vision, where an AI “looks at” an image or video and can derive context, details, and contents. Video, in this case, is video creation and modification/editing.
This week’s latest AI video news: https://ethanbholland.com/2024/05/24/video-news-week-ending-05-24-2024/
X/Twitter/Grok: Grok is one of several AI’s developed by X, and it’s a bit blended in with Telsa and other Elon Musk technology. Not every week will have a Grok section, but like Meta, Google, Apple, and OpenAI, X will be in the news enough to have its own section.
This week’s latest X news: https://ethanbholland.com/2024/05/24/twitter-x-grok-week-ending-05-24-2024/
Technical and AI Developer News of the Week: Everything that is too technical for general consumption goes here. These are stories I think are important, but might be inaccessible and confusing. It’s also a space for developer news and deep dives into how AI works, under the hood.
This week’s technical and dev AI news: https://ethanbholland.com/2024/05/24/tech-papers-and-development-week-ending-05-24-2024/
Credits/Sources
Most of these weekly links come from just a few prolific oversharing sources. Please follow them, as they work hard to find the news each week and they make it a lot easier for me to compile.
- Robert Scoble: https://x.com/Scobleizer
- Ethan Mollick: https://www.linkedin.com/in/emollick/
- Alan Thompson: https://lifearchitect.ai/
- Theoretically Media: https://www.youtube.com/@TheoreticallyMedia
- The Rundown: https://www.therundown.ai/
- Bilawal Sidhu: https://twitter.com/bilawalsidhu/
- TLDR: https://tldr.tech/ai
- Jeremiah Owyang: https://twitter.com/jowyang
- Nick St. Pierre: https://twitter.com/nickfloats
- Dr. Jim Fan: https://twitter.com/DrJimFan
- All About AI: https://www.youtube.com/@AllAboutAI
- Marshall Kirkpatrick: https://aitimetoimpact.com/
- AI News (Smol Talk): https://buttondown.email/ainews/archive/
For previous issues, please visit the archives!
Thanks for reading!
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