AI 2030 Evangelist Digest 008- AI4Future: Top AI News (September 30- October 6, 2024)
By Kate Shcheglova-Goldfinch
AI-gov Lead & Research Affiliate at CJBS and regulatory innovations consultant, AI 2030 Evangelist
THE ORIGINAL LINK OF THIS NEWSLETTER
?Last week has been marked by such powerful and fundamental events that the fine-tuning of models and cases of AI model scaling (such as the AI-based patient triage system in the UK, the updated Microsoft Copilot with voice, vision, and reasoning chain capabilities, and even Google’s announcement of using AI to organise search results and add ads to AI reviews) seemed like children’s sandbox games.
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A significant part of news focused on regulations. First, California Governor Gavin Newsom, on the last day of the deadline, vetoed a landmark bill (California Bill) aimed at establishing the country’s first safety measures for large AI models, highlighting just how unfinished the “state-market” dialogue is regarding the balance between business interests and the ethics of AI implementation. However, experts expect a new iteration of regulatory efforts at a more mature stage of public-private dialogue. Second, the European Commission (introducing second-level regulations prompted by the passing of the EU AI Act) appointed academic leaders, from Turing Award winner Yoshua Bengio to doctoral candidates, as heads and deputy heads of working groups that will develop the Code of Practice for General Artificial Intelligence (GPAI). The EU AI Act is considered one of the most complex laws in history, and it is clear that the multidisciplinary nature of AI requires the involvement of the world’s best scientists to detail risk management and transparency requirements.
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The second fundamental trend was the scale of investments in major players and AI infrastructure, reinforcing the notion that AI can only be driven and led by giants. For example, Google announced a $1 billion investment in Thailand to build a data centre and accelerate AI development (last week, Google CEO Sundar Pichai announced a $120 million fund for global AI education). OpenAI nearly doubled its valuation to $157 billion, raising $6.6 billion in new funding. This deal became one of the largest private investments, placing OpenAI alongside the three largest venture-backed startups, along with Elon Musk’s SpaceX and TikTok owner ByteDance Ltd. Additionally, Character.ai abandoned creating AI models after a $2.7 billion deal with Google, stating that the race to create large language models against tech giants had become “incredibly expensive.”
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The third headhunting trend demonstrated that much excitement lies ahead. Durk Kingma, one of the lesser-known co-founders of OpenAI, announced he is joining Anthropic.
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A round-up of this week’s key developments.
California governor vetoes bill to create first-in-nation AI safety measures
California ?Gov.?Gavin Newsom ?vetoed a landmark bill aimed at establishing first-in-the-nation safety measures for large artificial intelligence models Sunday.The decision is a major blow to efforts attempting to rein in the homegrown industry that is rapidly evolving with little oversight. The bill would have established some of the first regulations on large-scale AI models in the nation and paved the way for AI safety regulations across the country, supporters said.
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Academics to chair drafting the Code of Practice for general-purpose AI
A range of academics, from Turing award-winner Yoshua Bengio to PhD candidates, have been named chairs and vice-chairs of working groups that will draft a Code of Practice on general-purpose artificial intelligence (GPAI). For providers of general-purpose AI systems like ChatGPT, the AI Act relies heavily on the Code of Practice, which will detail what the Act's risk management and transparency requirements would entail in practice until standards are finalised, sometime in 2026.
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Google to invest $1 billion in Thailand to build data center and accelerate AI growth
Google ?announced it is investing $1 billion into Thailand for the creation of a new data center and expansion of the country's cloud infrastructure. The move marks a ramp-up of Google's expansion in Asia, putting artificial intelligence at the heart of its international push at a time when it is facing intense competition from companies such as?Microsoft ?and OpenAI. The investment would see the company create its first data center in Thailand, Google said in a post on its Thailand blog Monday.
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Microsoft is launching an updated Copilot with voice, vision, and chain reasoning capabilities
“Copilot will ultimately be able to act on your behalf, smoothing life’s complexities and giving you more time to focus on what matters to you. It’ll be an advocate for you in many of life’s most important moments. It’ll accompany you to that doctor’s appointment, take notes and follow up at the right time. It’ll share the load of planning and preparing for your child’s birthday party. And it’ll be there at the end of the day to help you think through a tricky life decision. This is a new era of technology that doesn’t just “solve problems,” it’s there to support you, teach you and help you. In this sense, Copilot really is different from that last wave of the web and mobile. This is the beginning of a fundamental shift in what’s possible for all of us,” company’s blog says.
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Anthropic hires OpenAI co-founder Durk Kingma
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Durk Kingma, one of the lesser-known co-founders of OpenAI, today?announced ?that he’ll be joining Anthropic. In a series of posts on X, Kingma revealed that he’ll be working mostly remotely, from the Netherlands (where he’s based), but didn’t say which Anthropic org he’ll be joining - or leading. Reached for comment, an Anthropic spokesperson pointed to Kingma’s posts.
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OpenAI Nearly Doubles Valuation to $157 Billion in Funding Round
OpenAI has raised $6.6 billion in new funding, capping a complex fundraising process that involved negotiations with multiple tech giants and large private investors at the same time it has been experiencing disruptive internal turmoil. Investors are valuing the startup behind ChatGPT at $157 billion, a total that puts it on par with the market capitalizations of publicly traded household names such as Goldman Sachs Group, Uber and AT&T.
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Character.ai abandons making AI models after $2.7bn Google deal
The new head of an AI startup has warned that the race to develop large language models against tech giants has become prohibitively expensive. Character.ai , which lost its founders to Google in a $2.7 billion deal, is now shifting focus towards enhancing its consumer offerings rather than competing in the costly AI model arms race. Concerns are mounting that major tech firms are squeezing out competition from smaller rivals. Dominic Perella, the company’s interim CEO, told the Financial Times that the San Francisco-based startup has largely withdrawn from the battle to build large-scale AI models, unable to match the deep pockets of industry titans like OpenAI, Amazon, and Google.
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Google begins rolling out AI to organise search results and add adverts to AI-generated reviews
Google is introducing major updates to its core search platform and the Google Lens visual search app. The company announced it would start rolling out AI-organised search results pages for users in the United States. Additionally, it revealed that users can now search for real-time video footage captured using the Lens app. These updates are part of Google’s broader efforts to monetise its substantial investments in generative AI technologies.
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Mike Ashley’s Frasers Group backs ￡40m AI startup fund
Billionaire Mike Ashley’s Frasers Group has joined backers of a ￡40m investment fund targeting early-stage startups in the AI and data space. London and Belfast-based VC firm Iona Star has raised ￡22m in the first close of its new fund. The Iona Star fund will target AI and data startups with investments between ￡1m and ￡3m. The fund has received ￡10m in backing from House of Frasers and Sports Direct owner Frasers Group. Michael Murray, CEO of Frasers Group said data and AI technologies have become “fundamental to our strategy, unlocking new ways for us to operate more efficiently while elevating the shopping experience for our customers”.
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Nvidia just dropped a bombshell: Its new AI model is open, massive, and ready to rival GPT-4
Nvidia ?has released a powerful open-source artificial intelligence model that competes with proprietary systems from industry leaders like OpenAI and Google. The company’s new?NVLM 1.0 ?family of large multimodal language models, led by the 72 billion parameter?NVLM-D-72B , demonstrates exceptional performance across vision and language tasks while also enhancing text-only capabilities.
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ABOUT Kate Shcheglova-Goldfinch
Kate has over 20 years of expert experience in the financial market, including 5 years of experience as an EBRD (NBU) consultant on fintech projects, including the development of the NBU Fintech Strategy 2025 and the creation and launch of the NBU regulatory sandbox. She has extensive experience in creating and moderating educational programmes for the financial market and regulators on topics such as fintech, digital assets (blockchain, DeFi), open banking, open finance, and AI. Currently, she is focused on AI regulation on a global level and in Ukraine, particularly on ethical implementation in the financial sector, and is preparing to launch an educational programme on AI for regulatory institutions. She has successfully launched educational programmes with Cambridge Judge Business School over the past three years. Since 2019, Kate has been ranked in global lists such as TOP50 Fintech Global, TOP100 Women Thought Leaders, Influential Fintech Women UA and UK, TOP10 Regulatory Experts and Policy Makers UK, TOP3 UK Banker of the Year23 (Women award), and TOP100 Thought Leaders in Govtech by Thinkers360 (24). She is AI2030 (community) fellow. In 2024, Kate was elected as a delegate of United Nations Women UK. Kate sees her mission as spreading innovative knowledge at all levels, including professional financial and regulatory spheres, enhancing Ukrainian expertise through creating global collaborations, and improving the representation of women in the tech industry and the AI sector.
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