AI 2030 Evangelist Digest 022- AI4Future: Top AI News (Feb 3-16, 2025)
The past two weeks have highlighted several key trends. Competition in the AI market has continued to intensify - researchers from Stanford and the University of Washington have announced their development of an LLM for less than $50, outperforming OpenAI’s o1-preview. Gemini 2.0 has become widely available. Additionally, another AI model from China has been unveiled. This time, ByteDance has introduced Goku, an open-source artificial intelligence model that poses a significant challenge to U.S.-based AI initiatives like OpenAI. Meanwhile, OpenAI has made a major announcement regarding the restructuring and simplification of its model lineup, promising new benefits for subscribers.
Despite increasing competition from free Chinese models, Big Tech is expected to invest more than $300bn in AI in 2025 - exceeding last year’s investments. Furthermore, global approaches to AI adoption are diverging, particularly between the U.S. and Europe. Notably, the US and UK refused to sign the Paris Summit Declaration on Inclusive AI (the UK citing security concerns and the US objecting to China’s participation), while French President Emmanuel Macron has unveiled a €109bn investment in artificial intelligence as a counterbalance to the U.S. Stargate project. Additionally, with the leadership change at the US AI Safety Institute, further shifts in AI-related personnel in the US can be expected.
Several controversies have also emerged. In particular, Christie’s announced an auction of AI-generated artworks. Immediately after the auction was announced, thousands of artists urged the auction house to cancel the sale of AI-generated art, arguing that the technology used to produce these pieces amounted to “mass theft.” Meanwhile, Italian police have discovered and frozen nearly one million euros ($1.04 million) that had been wired to a foreign bank account by a prominent businessman after he fell victim to an AI-driven scam.
On a more positive note, AI adoption has seen a breakthrough with ex-DeepMind scientist Simon Kohl, who has founded Latent Labs and raised $50mn to launch a startup focused on discovering new drug generations.
A round-up of the key developments.
US AI Safety Institute Chief Resigns Amid Trump’s Policy Shift
Biden appointee Elizabeth Kelly played a key role in shaping US policy. Trump seeks to roll back restrictions to bolster US dominance in AI. The head of the US AI Safety Institute is stepping down, adding fresh uncertainty to the future of a key government body overseeing artificial intelligence under the Trump administration. Elizabeth Kelly, the institute’s director and a prominent figure in US AI policy on the international stage, is set to leave her position by the end of the week, according to sources familiar with the matter. These individuals, who spoke on condition of anonymity, cited the sensitivity of the discussions.
Gemini 2.0 is now available to everyone
Google made the updated Gemini 2.0 Flash generally available via the Gemini API in Google AI Studio and Vertex AI. Developers can now build production applications with 2.0 Flash.The company is also releasing an experimental version of Gemini 2.0 Pro, the best model yet for coding performance and complex prompts. It is available in Google AI Studio and Vertex AI, and in the Gemini app for Gemini Advanced users. Gemini 2.0 Flash-Lite, the most cost-efficient model yet, is also available in public preview in Google AI Studio and Vertex AI. Finally, 2.0 Flash Thinking Experimental will be available to Gemini app users in the model dropdown on desktop and mobile. All of these models will feature multimodal input with text output on release, with more modalities ready for general availability in the coming months.
Digital Art Stars and Tech Pioneers Lead Christie’s First All-A.I. Sale
The auction includes pieces by Refik Anadol, Harold Cohen, Holly Herndon and Mat Dryhurst, and Claire Silver. Christie’s, not content with being the first auctioneer to sell an artwork created with artificial intelligence, will now be the first auction house to launch a sale dedicated exclusively to A.I. art. Launching February 20, “Augmented Intelligence” gathers more than 20 lots spanning painting, sculpture, digital works, and interactive experiences, and representing how artists have been weaving technology into their practices in innovative ways. Immediately after the auction was announced, thousands of artists urged the auction house to cancel the sale of AI-generated art, arguing that the technology used to produce these pieces amounted to “mass theft.” A letter claimed that many of the works sold at Christie’s auction had been created using AI models trained on human artists’ work without permission.
DeepMind AI crushes tough maths problems on par with top human solvers
The company’s AlphaGeometry 2 reaches the level of gold-medal students in the International Mathematical Olympiad. A year ago, AlphaGeometry, an AI problem solver created by Google DeepMind, surprised the world by performing at the level of silver medallists in the International Mathematical Olympiad (IMO), a prestigious competition that sets tough maths problems for gifted high-school students. The DeepMind team now says the performance of its upgraded system, AlphaGeometry 2, has surpassed the level of the average gold medallist. The results are described in a preprint posted on the arXiv1 server. “I imagine it won’t be long before computers are getting full marks on the IMO,” says Kevin Buzzard, a mathematician at Imperial College London.
Big Tech lines up over $300bn in AI spending for 2025
Amazon, Meta, Microsoft, and Alphabet forecast record capital investments despite investor concerns over profitability and the impact of DeepSeek.Tech giants’ spending on artificial intelligence is set to remain at record levels in 2025, after Amazon outpaced its rivals by planning over $100bn in infrastructure investments this year. The combined capital expenditure of the four leading US tech firms surged by 63% last year, reaching all-time highs. Now, executives are vowing to accelerate AI investments even further, dismissing concerns over the vast sums being poured into this emerging technology. Microsoft, Alphabet, Amazon, and Meta spent a combined $246bn in capital investments in 2024, a sharp increase from $151bn in 2023. Projections suggest spending could surpass $320bn this year, as all four companies race to build data centres and equip them with specialised chips to support large language model AI research.
New LLM developed for under $50 outperforms OpenAI’s o1-preview
The researchers, from Stanford and the University of Washington, first detailed their model in a paper naming the algorithm s1-32B. The creators of s1-32B write that their LLM marks the first publicly disclosed successful attempt at replicating “clear test-time scaling behavior.” “Our model s1-32B exhibits test-time scaling,” the researchers wrote in their paper. “Further, s1-32B is the most sample-efficient reasoning model and outperforms closed-source models like OpenAI’s o1-preview.”
Macron Announces €109bn AI Investment to Strengthen France’s Position in the Sector
French President Emmanuel Macron has unveiled a €109bn investment in artificial intelligence over the coming years, as part of Europe’s efforts to strengthen its position in a rapidly growing industry dominated by the US and China. Macron announced the new funding ahead of the AI Action Summit in Paris, bringing together world leaders and AI industry executives, including OpenAI CEO Sam Altman. The initiative follows last month’s announcement by US President Donald Trump of a $500bn AI infrastructure project, named Stargate, to be developed in the US in partnership with OpenAI and SoftBank.
Musk-led consortium offers $100bn for control of OpenAI, complicating Altman’s commercial ambitions
Elon Musk and a group of co-investors have submitted a nearly $100bn bid to acquire the nonprofit entity that controls OpenAI, creating a major obstacle for CEO Sam Altman’s efforts to turn the AI research group into a commercial enterprise. Altman is currently working to transition OpenAI into a fully commercial entity, moving away from its original role as a research organisation by separating its nonprofit arm. One of the key challenges in this process is determining the fair market value of the nonprofit entity that currently oversees the company.
US and UK refuse to sign Paris summit declaration on ‘inclusive’ AI
The US and the UK have refused to sign a declaration on “inclusive and sustainable” artificial intelligence at a landmark Paris summit, in a blow to hopes for a concerted approach to developing and regulating the technology. The communique states that priorities include “ensuring AI is open, inclusive, transparent, ethical, safe, secure and trustworthy, taking into account international frameworks for all” and “making AI sustainable for people and the planet”. The document was backed by 60 other signatories on Tuesday, including France, China, India, Japan, Australia and Canada. A UK government spokesperson said the statement had not gone far enough in addressing global governance of AI and the technology’s impact on national security.
AI chatbots unable to accurately summarise news, BBC finds
Four major artificial intelligence (AI) chatbots are inaccurately summarising news stories, according to research carried out by the BBC. The BBC gave OpenAI's ChatGPT, Microsoft's Copilot, Google's Gemini and Perplexity AI content from the BBC website then asked them questions about the news. It said the resulting answers contained "significant inaccuracies" and distortions. In the study, the BBC asked ChatGPT, Copilot, Gemini and Perplexity to summarise 100 news stories and rated each answer. It got journalists who were relevant experts in the subject of the article to rate the quality of answers from the AI assistants. It found 51% of all AI answers to questions about the news were judged to have significant issues of some form. Additionally, 19% of AI answers which cited BBC content introduced factual errors, such as incorrect factual statements, numbers and dates.
Law firm restricts AI after 'significant' staff use
An international law firm has blocked general access to several artificial intelligence (AI) tools after it found a "significant increase in usage" by its staff. In an email seen by the BBC, a senior director of Hill Dickinson, which employs more than a thousand people across the world, warned staff of the use of AI tools. The firm said much of the usage was not in line with its AI policy, and going forward the firm would only allow staff to access the tools via a request process. In the email, Hill Dickinson's chief technology officer said the law firm had detected more than 32,000 hits to the popular chatbot ChatGPT over a seven-day period in January and February. During the same timeframe, there were also more than 3,000 hits to the Chinese AI service DeepSeek, which was recently banned from Australian government devices over security concerns.
GPT-5 launch plan revealed: All ChatGPT users to get free access, but Plus, Pro users to get more
OpenAI has officially announced its plans for the launch of GPT-5, its next major AI model, which aims to simplify and improve the company’s AI offerings. The model will integrate various OpenAI technologies, including o3, which will no longer be released as a standalone product.
GPT-5 is designed to be more versatile, intelligent, and user-friendly. According to CEO Sam Altman, one of its key goals is to eliminate the complexity of switching between different AI models and create a system that can handle a wide range of tasks efficiently.
Italian police freeze cash from AI-voice scam that targeted business leaders
Italian police have found and frozen nearly one million euros ($1.04 million) that was wired to a foreign bank account by a leading businessman after he fell victim to an artificial intelligence scam. Fraudsters used AI to mimic the voice of Italian Defence Minister Guido Crosetto, making calls that claimed to seek urgent financial assistance for the release of kidnapped Italian journalists in the Middle East.
Some of Italy's most prominent business figures, including fashion designer Giorgio Armani and Prada co-founder Patrizio Bertelli, were targeted. However, only Massimo Moratti, the former owner of soccer club Inter Milan, was believed to have sent the requested funds. Officials said they thought it would be hard to retrieve the missing funds, but they revealed the cash had been located to the Netherlands.
China's Open-Source AI Model 'Goku' Challenges U.S. Dominance
Another AI from China has been announced. This time, ByteDance has introduced 'Goku,' an open-source artificial intelligence model that presents a significant challenge to U.S.-based AI initiatives like OpenAI. Developed by a consortium of Chinese researchers and engineers, Goku aims to advance AI capabilities and promote global collaboration in the field. The emergence of Goku underscores the increasing global competition in AI development. Open-source models like Goku offer flexibility, accessibility, and customization, allowing organizations to tailor AI solutions to specific needs.
Ex-DeepMind scientist launches AI drug discovery venture
A scientist who helped build DeepMind’s protein prediction programme, which won the company’s co-founder a Nobel Prize, has raised $50mn to launch a start-up to discover new drugs. Simon Kohl has founded Latent Labs to capitalise on his experience working on the AI-powered AlphaFold2 system, which solved an important problem for life sciences researchers by allowing the prediction of the 3D structure of proteins based on their chemical composition.?Latent Labs, which has offices in London and San Francisco, will work with the pharmaceutical industry to design synthetic proteins, which could be used in drugs such as antibody treatments. Kohl said generative AI, which creates new content, had the potential to change how drugmakers operate by making biology “programmable”.
ABOUT
Kate Shcheglova-Goldfinch, MSc MBA is a regulatory innovations specialist and consultant with five years of hands-on experience as a Senior Project Manager at the EBRD and the National Bank of Ukraine. Her expertise lies in fintech strategy, digital transformation, and developing regulatory frameworks for public institutions, including central banks. She’s led capacity-building, business development, and multi-stakeholder collaboration across diverse regions, with a focus on crafting regulatory sandboxes and driving a culture of innovation within established financial systems.
Currently, Kate is at the forefront of advancing AI competencies at the National Bank of Ukraine, where she’s embedding an AI-driven approach throughout the organization. She also supports regulators at the Cambridge Centre for Alternative Finance, helping navigate the complexities of emerging technologies. Selected as a delegate for UN Women UK (CSW68) 2024, Kate is advocating for greater diversity and equity within the AI landscape.
Kate’s academic credentials include an MSc in Digital Communications from London Metropolitan University and numerous certificates from leading academia and market players, such as a Fintech certificate from Cambridge Judge Business School, Leadership and AI from Oxford Sa?d Business School, Generative AI for Decision Makers from AWS, expertise in the EU AI Act from AI & Partners, and certifications in Global Internet Governance and Data Privacy from Carnegie Mellon University.
Her achievements are extensive:
? Ranked in the TOP 3 UK Bankers of the Year 2023 (Women in Finance Awards series)
? Named among the TOP 10 Regulatory Experts and Policymakers of 2023 (Innovate Finance Women Powerlist)
? Featured as one of the Top 50 Global Fintech Influencers (2019), Top 100 Global Women Thought Leaders (2020-2021), and TOP 100 AI Experts (2024) by Thinkers 360
? Recognised as one of the Top 50 Most Powerful Women in Fintech by UAFIC (2020-2024)
Kate has a track record of achievements she’s particularly proud of:
? In 2022-2023, as a Senior Project Manager at the EBRD, she led the world’s first deployment of a central bank regulatory sandbox under active war conditions.
? In 2022, as Programme Lead, she launched an Executive Fintech Programme at Cambridge Judge Business School. This initiative aimed at developing a “Ukrainian Marshall Plan” and was presented at the institutional level both in the UK and Ukraine.
Link to original article: https://www.dhirubhai.net/pulse/ai4future-top-ai-news-3-16-february-shcheglova-goldfinch-msc-mba-ur6ke/
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1 周Great newsletter, Kate Shcheglova-Goldfinch, MSc MBA!