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| Here's a glance at today's AI briefing: - Meta and IBM launch AI alliance supporting open-source AI development.
- Elon Musk's AI company seeks to raise $1B in equity.
- Microsoft announces upgrades to its Copilot AI assistant.
Thanks for reading! Beth
p/beth-duckett | |
| 1 | | Meta and IBM are leading a new alliance of companies, universities, and organizations focused on open-source AI development. The AI Alliance counts more than 50 members, including Intel, Oracle, Dell, AMD, Sony, Hugging Face, UC Berkeley, Yale, NASA, Cleveland Clinic, CERN, and others. More: - The members have banded to "support open innovation and open science in AI."
- One of the efforts will center on expanding the range of open-source AI models rather than proprietary models offered by some companies.
- The alliance plans to start or improve upon projects with clear objectives, like creating benchmarks for responsible AI system development.
- It will also focus on safety, transparency, and education, including creating resources to inform the public and policymakers about AI and organizing initiatives for safe AI development.
Zoom out: - In a statement, Meta's Nick Clegg said the alliance "brings together researchers, developers, and companies to share tools and knowledge that can help us all make progress whether models are shared openly or not."
- Sriram Raghavan, IBM Research's VP, told VentureBeat that the timing of the announcement after the OpenAI drama is coincidental. "It is time for a more nuanced and a richer discussion around AI," he said.
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| 2 | | Elon Musk's AI startup, X.AI, is raising up to $1B in an equity offering, according to an SEC filing. The startup has already sold $134.7M in securities from four investors and has $865.3M left to sell. More: - The minimum investment for outside investors is $2M.
- According to the filing, Musk holds the position of executive officer and director at X.AI.
- Jared Birchall, formerly of Goldman Sachs, Merrill Lynch, and Morgan Stanley, is also listed as an executive
Zoom out: - Musk incorporated X.AI Corp. in Nevada on March 9.
- Several months later, he officially announced X.AI as a company that aims "to understand the true nature of the universe."
- The startup's team includes former engineers from Google, DeepMind, Twitter, Tesla, Microsoft, and OpenAI, who have worked on breakthrough projects like AlphaCode and GPT models.
- X.AI unveiled its first AI model, a called Grok, in November. The AI is modeled after "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" and is designed to provide witty and occasionally rebellious answers to questions.
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| 3 | | Microsoft is upgrading its Copilot AI assistant with OpenAI's latest model and image generator. GPT-4 Turbo will be widely integrated into Copilot in the coming weeks, according to a Microsoft blog post. Meanwhile, OpenAI's DALL-E 3 model for generating images is already incorporated into Copilot. More: - Copilot is Microsoft's AI-powered digital assistant for launching apps, answering queries, controlling PC settings, and more.
- It's available as an AI assistant for Windows, Office, Microsoft Edge, and Bing. A web version is available for anyone with a Microsoft account to use.
- The latest GPT-4 Turbo model will give Copilot a 128K context window, allowing it to better understand queries and deliver improved responses.
- The DALL-E 3 model in Copilot and Bing Image Creator can now create higher-quality images that more accurately reflect the text prompt, according to the blog.
Related: - Microsoft also unveiled a new code interpreter feature coming to Copilot. The capability will support more "complex tasks" such as data analysis, more accurate calculations, coding, math, visualization, and more.
- For Bing, Microsoft is adding a new "Deep Search" that uses GPT-4 to produce "optimized search results for complex topics."
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| 4 | | A recent survey revealed that U.S. employers are willing to pay higher salaries to workers who gain AI skills. The employers believe AI-skilled workers could potentially see their salaries rise by over 30%, depending on the department. 
What happened: Access Partnership and Amazon Web Services surveyed 1,340 U.S. employers across industries to gauge their views on AI in the workplace. What the numbers show: The employers believe IT workers who are AI-savvy could get the highest pay boost of 47%. This was followed by sales and marketing teams at 38%, finance and business operations at 37%, legal at 31%, and HR at 30%. What it means: According to the report, employers believe workers' AI skills will drive productivity and produce better-quality work, justifying the salary hikes. | | | |
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| 5 | | Vast Data, an AI data platform, is raising an undisclosed funding round that values the startup at over $9B, according to The Information. Some of the proceeds will allow Vast Data to purchase back stock from shareholders, sources said. More: - Fidelity Investments is leading the round, with participation from VC firms Bond and NEA.
- Vast's data platform, unveiled this year, combines a database, data storage, and an AI computing engine.
- The company said the platform "brings together storage, database and virtualized compute engine services in a scalable system" that helps businesses go beyond traditional intelligence and "support new deep learning applications."
- In May 2021, Vast closed an $83M Series D funding round led by Tiger Global Management, resulting in a post-money valuation of $3.7B.
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| 6 | | Who's hiring in AI: - Artificial Intelligence Partnerships Leader — NVIDIA
- Deloitte | Multiple locations
- AVP, Responsible AI
- MetLife | Cary, N.C., or NYC
- Staff ML Scientist (Recommender Systems)
- Sales Engineer, AI/ML
- UiPath | Remote — Multiple locations
- Senior Product Manager — AI & LLMs
- Snowflake | San Mateo, California
- Product Manager, Large Model Infrastructure Efficiency and Scaling
- Google | Mountain View, California
- Lead Artificial Intelligence Architect
- Boeing | Seattle, Washington; Hazelwood, Missouri; North Charleston, South Carolina
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| 7 | | QUICK HITS - The Kubernetes Cookbook is your comprehensive companion, equipping you with the knowledge and techniques to harness the full potential of Kubernetes.*
- Former President Donald Trump accused the Lincoln Project, an anti-Trump political advocacy group, of using AI to manipulate footage to portray him negatively.
- Singapore plans to triple its AI workforce to 15,000 and bolster its high-performance computing resources through tech company partnerships as part of its national AI strategy.
- The Calm meditation app debuted an AI-generated bedtime story narrated by Jimmy Stewart, recreated using AI voice-cloning technology with the consent of the late actor's family and estate. NOTE: Inside.com founder and CEO Jason Calacanis is an investor in Calm.
- Toast to 2024: Key affiliate marketing trends to help your campaigns start off on the right foot in the new year. Get the free report.*
*This is a sponsored post. | | | |
 | AI and technology writer | | Beth is a contributing editor and writer of Inside's AI and Tech newsletters. She has written for notable publications like USA Today and the Arizona Business Gazette. During her time as a public policy reporter at The Arizona Republic, she received recognition with a Pulitzer Prize nomination and a First Amendment Award for her collaborative reporting on pension cost increases. Beth also authored a book on the solar photovoltaic industry in 2016. You can reach her at Beth.Duckett@yahoo.com. | | This newsletter was edited by Aaron Crutchfield | |
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