What a week for AI. Apple canceled their plans for an electric vehicle, but that means more people were shifted to AI teams. OpenAI is having a terrible week, being investigated by the SEC, sued by Elon Musk, and claiming the NYT hacked ChatGPT. Let’s take a look at all the AI news!
Main Story
Apple Ditches Electric Vehicle Project
In a stunning shift, Apple has unexpectedly halted its ambitious electric self-driving car project, known internally as Titan and Project 172, after a turbulent development cycle that spanned nearly a decade. Despite never revealing the car to the public, this move marks a notable retreat for the tech titan, famous for rarely abandoning such high-profile ventures. As iPhone sales plateau, Apple's quest for new growth has hit a roadblock, and this project was seen as a crucial innovation milestone under CEO Tim Cook. Key personnel, including executive Kevin Lynch, are being reassigned within Apple’s AI sector. This strategic retreat, costing billions in research, signals the end of Apple's aim to challenge Tesla's dominance in the electric vehicle sector. Meanwhile, Apple continues to invest heavily in new technologies, earmarking $113 billion for research and development in the last five years.
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Elon Musk sues OpenAI and CEO Sam Altman
Elon Musk is taking legal action against OpenAI and its CEO, Sam Altman, claiming they deviated from their original mission of creating AI for widespread human benefit. Musk, a co-founder, asserts OpenAI has become profit-driven under Microsoft's influence, contradicting the commitment to develop AGI for humanity. Microsoft's recent investments and partnerships in AI, including European start-up Mistral AI, underscore the escalating stakes in the AI race. Musk, also a key figure in automotive and social media spaces, positions this lawsuit as an effort to redirect OpenAI back to its altruistic roots amid an AI industry boom sparked by the viral success of OpenAI's ChatGPT.
Other AI News:
S.E.C. Is Investigating OpenAI Over Its Board’s Actions: The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is probing OpenAI following the mysterious removal and quick reinstatement of CEO Sam Altman. The exact focus of the SEC investigation remains unknown, while OpenAI has engaged a law firm for an internal review of Altman's conduct and the board's drastic decision. Concerns arose over Altman’s transparency, particularly about fundraising efforts for an AI chip venture in the Middle East. Amidst this corporate drama, OpenAI, valued at over $80 billion, continues to lead the generative AI revolution, with its ChatGPT igniting an industry boom and potential societal transformation. Recognizing the gravity of such technology, the company navigates internal restructuring and public scrutiny, spotlighting the balance between innovation and integrity.
Reddit Sells User Data for AI Training: Reddit strikes a groundbreaking $60 million yearly deal with Google, allowing the tech giant to leverage its vast trove of user-generated content to train AI models. As Reddit edges closer to its hotly anticipated IPO—potentially skyrocketing its valuation to $5 billion—this alliance highlights a strategic pivot towards monetizing AI collaborations. Securing such a lucrative contract positions Reddit as a key player in the emerging AI economy and suggests that users' past interactions could shape future AI advancements. Amidst this AI licensing gold rush, Reddit's impressive revenue growth adds to the fervor, marking a savvy move ahead of its public market debut.
Former Twitter engineers are building Particle, an AI-powered news reader:
Former Twitter talents have ignited the news-tech scene with Particle., launching into private beta. This AI-driven platform promises a revolutionized news digestion experience, offering concise, bullet-pointed stories holistically sourced while challenging the current advertising-reliant publishing model. Spearheaded by Sara Beykpour and Marcel Molina, Particle aims to streamline news comprehension, balancing rapid information intake with in-depth story exploration.
Tumblr and WordPress to Sell Users’ Data to Train AI Tools: Internal documents have exposed Tumblr for compiling user data in a deal with tech giants Midjourney and OpenAI. This controversial move by the blogging platform raises critical questions about user privacy and corporate responsibility in the ever-evolving digital landscape.
Microsoft invests in Europe's Mistral AI to expand beyond OpenAI: Microsoft has invested in the burgeoning French startup Mistral AI, injecting €15 million into the European AI frontrunner. This partnership will propel Mistral AI's advanced language models onto Microsoft's Azure cloud, marking their technology the second of its kind on the platform after OpenAI.
OPPO Unveils New OPPO Air Glass 3
OPPO is revolutionizing XR and AI technologies with their featherlight OPPO Air Glass 3, providing seamless AI experiences with OPPO's AndesGPT model accessible via smartphones. In collaboration with Qualcomm Technologies and AlpsenTek, OPPO introduces Hybrid Vision Sensing technology with AI Motion for unrivaled image clarity and slow-motion video capabilities on mobile devices.
Other Launches:
LTX Studio - Sora has competition! LTX Studio launched with incredible text-to-video examples, giving Sora some much-needed competition.
Adobe AI Audio - Adobe Research's groundbreaking experimental tool, Project Music GenAI Control, revolutionizes music creation by letting users conjure music from simple text prompts
Fabric - fabric is an open-source framework for augmenting humans using AI. Rather than juggling dozens or even hundreds of prompts for everything you need, Fabric has a library of community-generated and test prompts for many daily use cases.
EMO - although the GitHub repo is essentially empty right now, presumably, this is where the EMO project will appear if Alibaba decides to open-source it. I made a video about the EMO project this week.
StarCoder 2 - BigCode has launched StarCoder2, a revolutionary lineup of large language models (LLMs) for coding. This coding model comes in sizes ranging from 3B to 15B parameters.
Game-Changing Research Paper
Unveiling the groundbreaking BitNet b1.58—a cutting-edge 1-bit Large Language Model (LLM)—this research marks a revolutionary stride in AI efficiency. BitNet b1.58 thrives with ternary parameters, matching traditional full-precision LLMs in both complexity and task mastery while substantially slashing latency, memory demands, and energy use. It not only sets a new standard for cost-effective, high-performance AI but also lays the groundwork for specialized hardware tailored to 1-bit LLMs, forging a path for a new computation era in the AI landscape.
