?? Welcome to AI Insights Unleashed! ?? - Vol. 28

Embark on a journey into the dynamic world of artificial intelligence where innovation knows no bounds. This newsletter is your passport to cutting-edge AI insights, thought-provoking discussions, and actionable strategies.

?? What's New This Week ??

Salesforce unveils AI agents for sales

Salesforce just?introduced?two fully autonomous, AI-powered sales agents, Einstein SDR Agent and Einstein Sales Coach Agent, designed to help sales teams accelerate growth through automation and personalization.

• Einstein SDR Agent engages with inbound leads 24/7 to answer questions, handle objections, and book meetings.
• Einstein Sales Coach Agent helps salespeople rehearse pitches and offers real-time suggestions during calls.
• The agents both leverage Salesforce’s CRM data and external data uploaded via Data Cloud to generate accurate, contextually relevant responses.

By integrating AI agents into existing platforms, Salesforce is lowering the barrier for AI adoption in business processes. These agents offer 24/7 support and automate repetitive tasks like qualifying leads and booking meetings, freeing human sales teams to focus on high-value tasks and potentially close more deals.

AGIBOT reveals new humanoid robot family

AGIBOT, a China-based robotics startup, just?unveiled?a family of five advanced humanoid robots, directly challenging Elon Musk and Tesla’s upcoming Optimus bot.

• AGIBOT’s five new models are both wheeled and biped humanoid robots specifically designed for diverse tasks — from household chores to industrial operations.
• The flagship model, Yuanzheng A2, stands 5'9" (175cm), weighs 121 lbs (55kg), and can perform delicate tasks like needle threading.
• The company aims to start shipping 300 units by the end of 2024, claiming better commercialization and cost-control abilities than Tesla.
• Unitree, another high-performance robot manufacturer from China, also?showcased?its new G1 mass production-ready robot with better functionality and appearance.

The humanoid robotics and AI race between the US and China is intensifying. While it’s been months since Tesla?unveiled?its Optimus 2 prototype, four Chinese startups, including AGIBOT revealing five new humanoid robots, have showcased major technical progress in just a few days.

ChatGPT runs for mayor in Wyoming

Victor Miller, a mayoral candidate in Wyoming’s capital city, just?vowed?to let his customized ChatGPT GPT named Vic (Virtual Integrated Citizen) help run the local government if elected.

• Miller created VIC using ChatGPT, feeding it city ordinances and related documents to make municipal decisions.
• Miller filed for him and VIC to run for mayor, proposing that the ChatGPT GPT provides data-driven insights and solutions while Miller ensures legal execution.
• Wyoming's Secretary of State raised concerns, but local officials allowed Miller's candidacy with his human name on the ballot.

While Miller's chances of winning seem slim, and his grasp of data privacy and LLMs seem slimmer, this marks the first time a political candidate has openly advocated for AI in governance. Whether Cheyenne, Wyoming is ready for an AI co-pilot in City Hall is debatable, but AI will certainly infiltrate politics in the coming years.

AMD signs $4.9 billion deal to challenge Nvidia's AI infrastructure lead

AMD has agreed to buy ZT Systems, an artificial intelligence infrastructure group, for $4.9 billion in cash and stocks. The acquisition will help AMD accelerate the adoption of its AI data center chips, which compete with Nvidia's popular GPUs. The transaction is subject to regulatory approval. It is expected to close in the first half of 2025.

California compromises on AI safety bill

California’s?SB 1047, an aggressive AI safety bill aimed at preventing AI disasters, just got significantly revised to address concerns raised by AI companies like Anthropic and open-source developers.

• The bill no longer allows California’s attorney general to sue AI companies for negligent safety practices before a catastrophic event occurs.
• AI labs are now only required to submit public “statements” about their safety practices vs certifications “under penalty of perjury.”
• Likewise, developers must now provide “reasonable care” vs “reasonable assurance” that AI models do not pose significant risks.

There’s a fine line between advancing technological progress and mitigating potential existential risks that governments are navigating — and California is showing that regulation can be practical and adaptive. These changes are a big step towards fostering responsible AI development through collaborative governance.

Luma Labs launches Dream Machine 1.5

Luma Labs just?released?Dream Machine 1.5, a major upgrade to their current AI video generation model, with higher quality text-to-video, smarter prompt understanding, and better image-to-video capabilities.

• Dream Machine 1.5 builds on the original model’s ability to generate high-quality, realistic 5-second video clips from text and image prompts.
• The upgraded model showcases better natural language processing, interpreting and executing prompts at a higher accuracy.
• It excels in creating smooth motion, cinematography, and dramatic shots, turning static concepts into dynamic stories, but lags in morphing, movement, and text.

With text-to-image AI generation nearly indistinguishable from reality, the next big frontier is text-to-video — and Dream Machine 1.5 is another big leap forward for realism. While AI video still has some catching up to do, expect fast-moving startups like Luma Labs to close that gap for AI video, fast.

Adobe rival Procreate bets against GenAI to support human creativity

Procreate, a popular illustration and animation app, has chosen not to integrate generative AI features into its products, going against the trend embraced by competitors like Adobe and Canva. CEO James Cuda expressed strong opposition to generative AI, believing it undermines human creativity. Procreate aims to support creativity by focusing on human-driven artistic processes rather than AI-generated content.

While Procreate's competitors have adopted generative AI tools, Procreate stands firm in its commitment to human creativity, similar to Clip Studio Paint, which also resisted AI integration due to concerns over intellectual property and user focus.

Claude sued for copyright infringement

A group of authors?filed?a lawsuit against AI startup Anthropic, alleging the company committed “large-scale theft” by training its Claude chatbot on pirated copies of copyrighted books.

• This is the first lawsuit from writers targeting Anthropic and Claude, but similar lawsuits have been filed against competitor OpenAI and ChatGPT.
• The lawsuit accuses Anthropic of using a dataset called The Pile, which includes numerous pirated books.
• Anthropic and others, including OpenAI, have argued that training AI models is protected under the “fair use” doctrine of U.S. laws, which permits the limited use of copyrighted materials.

This is not the first time an AI company has been sued over copyright infringement, but it resurfaces an important debate about AI training data. While similar cases have been largely?dismissed?in the past, courts have yet to definitively address the core issue of using unauthorized internet-scraped material for AI training.

Runway's Gen-3 Alpha Turbo can make AI videos faster than you can type

Runway ML's new Gen-3 Alpha Turbo is now available, offering 7x faster AI video generation at half the price of its predecessor across various subscription plans, including free trials. This speed advancement significantly reduces time lag, fostering more efficient workflows, particularly for time-sensitive industries. Runway continues to push for improvements, including enhanced control mechanisms, while navigating the ethical landscape surrounding AI training data practices.

?? Key Developments ??

Creating AI using human brain cells

Swiss startup FinalSpark just?launched?a service allowing scientists to rent cloud access to "biocomputers" made of human brain cells for $500 a month, in an effort to create AI that uses 100,000x less energy than current systems.

• The system uses organoids (clumps of human brain cells) that can "live" and compute for up to 100 days.
• AI models are trained using dopamine for positive reinforcement and electrical signals for negative reinforcement, mimicking natural neural processes.
• FinalSpark claims these biocomputers could be up to 100,000 times more efficient for AI training than traditional silicon-based technology.

AI is an energy-hungry industry, and alleviating its dependence on CPUs and GPUs is?generally?a step in the right direction. That said, using brain organoids for biocomputing is completely uncharted territory and is bound to raise ethical concerns — such as the sci-fi possibility that cell masses somehow achieve consciousness.

Microsoft’s new AI beats larger models

Microsoft just?released?Phi-3.5-MoE, an advanced AI model that rivals the reasoning capabilities of much larger models while maintaining a compact and efficient architecture.

• Phi-3.5-MoE uses a new mixture-of-experts (MoE) approach, which selectively activates only the most relevant parts of the model for each task to save compute power.
• The new model excels at understanding and following complex instructions and can handle up to ~125,000 words in a single prompt.
• In head-to-head benchmarks, Phi-3.5-MoE outperformed popular models like Meta’s Llama 3 8B and Google’s Gemma 2 9B, but fell short against OpenAI’s GPT-4o mini.

While the mainstream media focuses on the most advanced?large?language model, there’s also another race amongst tech giants for the smartest, fastest, and smallest AI. Breakthroughs like Phi-3.5-MoE are paving the way for advanced AI models to run directly and privately on our mobile devices.

OpenAI adds free fine-tuning to GPT-4o

OpenAI just?launched?free fine-tuning (up to 1 million tokens per day through September 23) for GPT-4o, allowing developers to customize the model for higher performance and accuracy.

• Developers can now, for the first time ever, fine-tune GPT-4o to improve the model’s structure, tone, and domain-specific instructions for their AI applications.
• OpenAI suggests that developers should see strong results from fine-tuning with only a few dozen training examples.

Just last week, a company that was granted early access to fine-tune GPT-4o, produced?Genie?and achieved state-of-the-art scores on both SWE-bench Verified (43.8%) and Full (30.1%) benchmarks. With free fine-tuning now available to all developers, get ready for a new wave of smarter, faster and more capable AI bots.

Nvidia and Mistral make laptop-ready AI

Nvidia and Mistral just?released?Mistral-NeMo-Minitron 8B, a highly accurate small language model that can run efficiently on laptops and PCs.

• The model uses optimization techniques like pruning (removing certain weights) and distillation (retraining the pruned model on a small dataset) to achieve high accuracy with a smaller footprint.
• These optimizations resulted in up to 40x cost savings in terms of raw compute during training.
• Laptops and PCs can run the model locally for faster and more secure interactions with AI.
• Minitron 8B leads nine language-driven AI benchmarks for similarly sized models from language understanding to reasoning and coding.

AI models that are small enough to run locally on laptops and PCs means less reliance on cloud services, improved data privacy, and faster responses. As this tech evolves, we could soon see advanced AI in everything from smartphones and watches to home appliances.

AI Revolutionizes Content Creation: A New Era for Game Development and Video Production

Emerging AI-powered tools, including text-to-game platforms and AI-driven video generators, are set to lower entry barriers for content creation, but their impact on professional roles and the future of digital entertainment raises questions.

Text-to-Game Platform:

• AI startup Exists announced a text-to-game platform that allows users to generate 3D computer games from text prompts without coding. This cloud-based tool integrates neural networks with gaming engines, aiming to democratize game creation. Currently in closed beta, Exists is seeking partnerships with gaming studios to use this technology for user-generated content.

Impact on Gaming Industry:

• The gaming industry is increasingly influenced by AI, as shown by a Sandsoft report that highlights AI's role in mobile game development. AI is helping streamline development and enhance gameplay personalization. However, challenges like talent shortages and concerns about job security persist, with ongoing tensions between developers and publishers.

AI Video Creation Platform:

• Kunlun Tech introduced SkyReels, an AI platform for creating short-form videos. It automates the production process from scriptwriting to rendering, offering high-quality video outputs. While SkyReels enters a competitive market, the long-term effects of AI on the quality and originality of creative work remain uncertain.

These advancements reflect the growing influence of AI in content creation, raising both opportunities and concerns for the future of the digital entertainment landscape.

Chinese Tech Giants Embrace AI for Online Interactions

China's top tech companies, including Baidu, Tencent, ByteDance, and Alibaba, are rapidly integrating artificial intelligence (AI) into their services, transforming how millions of people interact, learn, and work online. This trend is reshaping China's digital economy, especially in social media, eCommerce, and workplace tools. The adoption of large language models (LLMs) and generative AI (GenAI) is expected to redefine commerce and consumer behavior in the world's largest online retail market. As China continues its digital transformation, the global implications of its AI adoption are significant.

Disney AI brings robots to life

ETH Zurich and Disney Research scientists have?developed?an AI system that can generate realistic, physics-based movements for virtual characters and robots from simple text or image inputs.

• The system uses a two-stage approach: first, it learns a latent representation of motion from a large dataset, then trains a control policy using reinforcement learning.
• It can handle a diverse range of motions, from simple walking to complex acrobatics, outperforming previous methods in accuracy and generalization.
• The AI adapts to physical constraints, allowing it to transfer motions to real robots while maintaining balance and style.

This AI system bridges the gap between animation and robotics, helping humanoids move more naturally and adapt better to new situations. With personal robots?coming?as soon as 2025 and the rapid pace of AI and robotics advancements, we might be coexisting with robots sooner than most people realize.

What does Bitcoin smell like? AI startup wants to ‘teleport' digital scents

Osmo, an AI startup, is developing technology to enable computers to interpret and recreate scents, potentially aiding in disease detection and digital scent transmission. Unlike audiovisual AI advances, scent detection lacks a standardized "smell map," challenging the team to establish a molecular bond scent database. Osmo's applications could revolutionize medical diagnostics and digital marketing by incorporating olfactory experiences.

?? Reflections and Insights ??

The Top 100 Gen AI Consumer Apps - 3rd Edition

Andreessen Horowitz's latest consumer AI report ranks the top 100 generative AI apps, dividing them into the top 50 AI web products and the top 50 AI mobile apps based on consumer patterns of engagement. The report provides detailed insights into emerging categories, new industry challengers, and trends.

North America added a whole Silicon Valley's worth of data center inventory this year

The eight primary data center markets in North America added 515 megawatts (MW) of new supply in the first half of this year. All of Silicon Valley has 459 MW of data center supply. Data center space under construction is currently at a record high. The vast majority is already leased. The insane amounts of data center capacity being built are still not enough to meet the growing demands of cloud computing and artificial intelligence providers. This demand has raised national rental rates by 6.5% on average.

Three Archetypes of AI Application Startups

AI applications are evolving into three common archetypes: AI Copilots that assist with tasks, AI Colleagues that autonomously manage specific tasks alongside human workers, and AI-Native Services which offer end-to-end services that integrate AI with human input. GitHub Copilot and Devin exemplify AI Copilots and Colleagues, aiding in coding and engineering, respectively. AI-Native Services, such as Pilot for bookkeeping, compete with traditional service firms by offering automated solutions in areas like law and accounting.

Small Teams, Big Impact: How AI Is Reshuffling The Future Of Work?

AI is reshaping the future of work, leading to smaller, more efficient teams and an increase in entrepreneurship thanks to AI capabilities being more accessible. While companies are prioritizing hiring for AI skills, there's a need for an honest discussion about AI's impact on job replacement and the creation of new roles. Adoption hiccups persist with AI technologies requiring significant "handholding" due to immature data or systems.

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