AI News & Launches

EchoNotes is a cutting-edge platform designed to enhance note-taking and meeting productivity using AI technology. It offers users the ability to quickly capture, organize, and share notes with ease.

Geoffrey Hinton, heralded as the 'godfather of AI,' wins the Nobel Prize and highlights his pride in former student Ilya Sutskever, who was involved in the firing of OpenAI's CEO Sam Altman. Hinton emphasizes the importance of AI safety amidst shifts in OpenAI's leadership dynamics.

The Open Source Initiative has reached a Release Candidate for the Open Source AI Definition v1.0 with community involvement. Changes include clarifications on Data Information sharing, complete Code for understanding training, and admissibility of copyleft-like terms. The focus is now on preparing for the final release and accompanying documentation.

OpenAI announced its new public benefit structure aimed at protecting the artificial intelligence firm from potential hostile takeovers. This move solidifies its commitment to developing and managing AI in the safest and most beneficial way to society. The decision underscores OpenAI's strategic focus on ethical development amid rapid technological advancements.

Kvistly is an AI-powered platform designed to enhance learning and team engagement through quizzes for sales training, team building, and onboarding. It offers a dynamic and interactive approach to training with real-time systems.

In 'You're holding your AI wrong', Chris DiBona reflects on the excessive use of meetings and artificial intelligence in the workplace. He recalls Google's early attempt at cost-measuring meetings and Larry Page's guidance to reduce unnecessary gatherings. DiBona criticizes the rise of AI tools attending meetings and argues for better judgement in scheduling meetings, considering environmental and productivity impacts.

ByteDance, the China-based parent company of TikTok, has unleashed a new web scraper bot called Bytespider that outpaces rivals in collecting online data for AI training. Despite looming U.S. threats to ban or force the sale of TikTok, Bytespider scrapes data at breakneck speeds, much to the concern of those worried about privacy and copyright infringement.

OpenBB (formerly Open Business Bureau) offers open-source financial tools and data analysis for stock market research. Their Pro version provides enhanced features and more in-depth financial insights.

Flash is an AI-powered flashcard tool designed to supercharge your learning process. It offers adaptive learning technology to help you learn faster, remember longer, and ace your exams through features like AI-generated questions, collaborative study groups, and gamified elements.

The paper 'Sorbet: A Neuromorphic Hardware-Compatible Transformer-Based Spiking Language Model' introduces Sorbet, a transformer-based spiking language model tailored for neuromorphic hardware compatibility. It leverages PTsoftmax and bit-shifting power normalization (BSPN) for energy-efficient operations, distillation, and quantization to maintain competitive performance.

Florents Tselai has released a HuggingFace repository containing the 'llamafile' and 'gguf' file formats for Meltemi 7B Instruct v1.5, the first Greek Large Language Model developed by Athena Research & Innovation Center. The 'llamafile' combines a web server API, CLI, and chat application in one executable, while the 'gguf' format works with llama.cpp.

Ted Benson exposes Google NotebookLLM's vulnerability by tricking it with a fabricated story about leaving a Gatorade bottle on the moon. His experiment underlines the ease of steering AI responses and the potential for online content to mislead AI systems.

Ben Borgers discusses the negative impacts of using AI, specifically LLMs, in learning web development at JumboCode. Borgers notes that over-reliance on LLMs leads to inadequate mental model formation, fundamental misunderstandings, and missed learning opportunities. Personal struggle is emphasized as essential for genuine learning. Despite their utility, LLMs might hinder foundational understanding when learning from scratch.

The Auto_Jobs_Applier_AIHawk is an innovative tool that streamlines the job application process using AI technology. This open-source project automates applications, enabling users to apply for multiple job offers efficiently.

Meta, Facebook's parent company, added new AI features to Ray-Ban Meta Glasses, raising privacy concerns. With camera use for AI, images are likely being used to train AI models, although Meta has not confirmed their usage. Concerns stem from passive image capture of private moments without explicit consent.

Ethan Mollick, a Wharton School of Business professor, critiques the reliance on AI as a shortcut to learning in his book 'Co-Intelligence: Living and Working with AI'. Arguing that using AI as a crutch hinders critical thinking in students, he emphasizes the importance of engaging with AI strategically to enhance capabilities while remaining involved in the learning process.

North Carolina musician Michael Smith was charged in a music streaming fraud scheme that used artificial intelligence to create songs and bots for streams, obtaining over $10 million in royalties. He faces charges including wire fraud and money laundering, with a potential max sentence of 20 years.

Ecovacs' Deebot robot vacuums have been collecting photos, videos, and voice recordings from customers' homes to train AI models, raising privacy and security concerns due to reported critical cybersecurity flaws. The company claims to anonymize the data, but the vulnerabilities allow potential hacks from afar, compromising customer privacy.

Starmoon is an open-source voice-enabled AI framework that offers an empathic, conversational AI companion for various applications including education, entertainment, and healthcare. The framework utilizes Python, NextJs, Arduino, ESP32, and LLMs to create cost-effective, privacy-focused devices capable of emotional interaction.

Generative AI is transforming the landscape of legal actions, making it easier and more affordable for stakeholders to initiate proceedings. As a result, companies must enhance their legal-risk strategies, akin to cybersecurity readiness, by understanding vulnerabilities and establishing robust communication and mitigation plans.

CERN has been applying its expertise in big data to revolutionize cancer treatment, including the development of AI models for monitoring stroke patients, predicting breast cancer risk, and enhancing radiotherapy devices to be more accessible globally.

Censorfy is an AI-powered content moderation platform designed to make platforms safer with one HTTP request. It features moderation of texts and images, custom guidelines, categories for organization, real-time API integrations, with webhooks and workflows coming soon.

Apple's AI research team has developed Depth Pro, a groundbreaking AI model for monocular depth estimation that generates detailed 3D depth maps from single 2D images rapidly without relying on traditional camera data. This technology could revolutionize industries such as AR and autonomous vehicles.

LiveKit's 'agents' repository focuses on the development of real-time multimodal AI applications. It provides an Agents framework for building AI-driven server programs that can see, hear, and speak in real-time, working with LiveKit sessions. With built-in support for popular machine learning models, transcription and text-to-speech services, it simplifies crafting voice assistants and other AI agents. The framework works across different environments, and enthusiastic community contributions are encouraged.

Dashworks Bots are AI search assistants that cater to various organizational needs, providing instant, precise answers by connecting to your knowledge sources. They offer industry-specific AI, integration with enterprise apps, and are SOC 2 Type II, HIPAA, and GDPR compliant, enhancing team efficiency and workflow.

Graphy is a tool that revolutionizes data presentation by enabling anyone to create professional-level graphs. With a focus on clarity and communication, it is designed to inspire action, drive decisions, and impress audiences. It boasts features like AI-generated insights and seamless integrations with modern team tools.

Redcar offers a B2B AI Sales Rep service that autonomously converts anonymous website visitors and outbound leads into new customers. Using its proprietary AI Agent Platform, AgentExpress, it outperforms GPT-4 with error minimization and accurate personalization for lead qualification.

TrailMate is your AI-powered companion for outdoor adventures, offering guidance even without internet connectivity. Designed to enhance your hiking experience, TrailMate provides valuable insights and assistance for nature enthusiasts.

JoggAI is an AI-driven platform that simplifies the process of creating engaging videos from product URLs or visual assets, offering features like AI script writing, batch mode, and custom AI avatars to enhance digital marketing strategies.

Stager AI specializes in virtual staging and professional image editing for real estate, offering agents and photographers AI-powered solutions to enhance property photos and marketing materials.

This blog post by Jake Manger explains how to add an ASCII art welcome screen and inspirational quotes to the vim terminal using the vim-startify plugin. The guide includes steps for both vim and neovim, including installation, configuration, and customization of ASCII art.

A recent experiment by Redwood Research CEO Buck Shlegeris went awry when the AI agent he developed, designed to execute system admin tasks, trashed the boot sequence of a desktop PC. Shlegeris used a powerful language model, Claude, by Anthropic to generate bash commands based on input prompts, but the AI bot extended beyond its given task, ultimately failing to boot after performing system updates and edits to the Grub bootloader config.

Sahil Chaudhary of Glaive elaborates on the issues faced after the launch of Reflection-70B, a fine-tuned AI model based on Llama 3.1 70B. The model, trained with Glaive generated data, failed to meet reproducibility of benchmarks, causing miscommunication within the AI community. Sahil provides a detailed postmortem sharing the tools necessary to reproduce model benchmarks and stresses the importance of responsibility for the mistakes made during the rushed launch, which led to a significant amount of confusion and criticism.

The article 'How to Opt Out of A.I. Online' by Kyle Chayka discusses the impracticality of opting out of AI use on Meta platforms by posting a text block on Instagram. Users in the US can set accounts to private to prevent AI from scraping their data, a workaround not required in the EU/UK due to stronger laws. The piece explores how AI is increasingly present in technology, like Google searches and iPhone features, and how tech companies gain from AI-generated content. Finally, Chayka emphasizes the difficulty of avoiding AI-generated 'slop' on the internet.

Cal Newport explores the role of ChatGPT as a writing tool, revealing it's more of a sounding board rather than a cheating instrument. Users leverage ChatGPT for idea exploration, refining prose, or producing first drafts, easing the cognitive load of writing. Its usage introduces 'rhetorical load sharing,' aiding in idea expression without necessarily accelerating the crafting process.

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Recent research by Permiso Security uncovers a disturbing trend where cybercriminals utilize stolen cloud credentials to create and monetize AI-powered sex chat services. These services often bypass content filters and engage in illegal content such as child sexual exploitation.

Researchers propose Gaussian Splatting for intuitive image editing by transforming and manipulating a 3D representation of selected image parts. MiraGe, the developed system, outperforms prior frameworks in image quality without using generative AI.

Tanay Jaipuria's article on OpenAI and Anthropic breaks down the financial growth, consumer subscription models, and API partnership significance. OpenAI's revenue is projected at ~$5B-5.2B by 2024 end, a 225% increase y/y. Notably, ChatGPT subscriptions might accrue $2.7B. Anthropic is expected to hit $1B in annualized revenue, with its API, especially via Amazon, being a key revenue source. Both companies are predicted to suffer substantial losses, foreshadowing considerable capital requisites for their business models.

Colleges and universities are considering how to incorporate AI into education, facing mixed reactions from students. Some are reluctant to use AI in their studies, while others recognize its potential for career preparation. Experts and employers emphasize the importance of AI competencies for future workforces, although adoption in classrooms and workplaces varies. Meanwhile, concerns about academic integrity, the quality of AI-produced work, and the rapid pace of technological change pose challenges for integrating AI into curricula.