| |
| Here’s a look at today's AI briefing: - OpenAI expands into Asia with first Tokyo office.
- Stanford HAI: AI outperforms humans in areas like visual reasoning.
- Steven Mnuchin seeks AI partner for TikTok bid.
- Tesla to lay off more than 10% of workforce.
- Adobe launches AI assistant to read PDFs.
Beth
p/beth-duckett | |
| 1 | | OpenAI has expanded into Asia with its first Tokyo office. Tadao Nagasaki was hired as president of OpenAI Japan to oversee commercial, marketing efforts, and team building in the country. More: - In a blog post, OpenAI said it chose Tokyo for its first Asian office due to its tech leadership, service culture, and innovation-friendly community.
- The office will be close to tech firms like Daikin, Rakuten, and Toyota Connected, which currently use OpenAI's corporate subscription known as ChatGPT Enterprise.
- Local governments like Yokosuka City have given their employees access to ChatGPT, with 80% reporting increased productivity, OpenAI noted.
Zoom out: - OpenAI is also giving Japanese businesses early access to a specialized GPT-4 model optimized for Japanese.
- The custom model is more cost-effective and better at Japanese text translation and summarization. It's also 3x faster than Speak, an English learning app in Japan, according to OpenAI.
|     | |
| 2 | | AI can perform better than humans in some areas like image recognition, visual reasoning, and English understanding, but still falls short in advanced math and planning, according to the Stanford Human-Centered AI Institute's (HAI) latest AI Index. Ten years ago, AI struggled with basic tasks like image classification and language but can now outperform humans on certain benchmarks, said Ray Perrault, one of the directors of the AI Index. 
What happened: The seventh annual AI Index report contains 500 pages of AI data, including insights in areas like training costs, responsible AI, AI investment, and technical performance. What it shows: The report says AI "has surpassed human performance on several benchmarks, including some in image classification, visual reasoning, and English understanding," though much of its progress occurred before last year. Despite doubling the number of language models in 2023, AI still struggles with facts, complex reasoning, and explanations, Perrault said. Humans beat AI in areas like competition-level math, visual commonsense reasoning, and planning. Other key findings: Stanford Hai reports skyrocketing AI training costs, with GPT-4 and Gemini Ultra training at $78M and $191M. respectively. The U.S. dominates AI model production, exceeding the output of the EU and China combined. The Index also shows a major inconsistency in responsible AI reporting, with leading firms like OpenAI and Google using different benchmarks, which limits comparisons of their models. What the numbers show: While overall AI private investment fell last year, generative AI funding soared to $25.2B, almost eight times its 2022 figure, with key players like OpenAI and Anthropic securing major funding rounds. | | | |
| A message from our sponsor, Lacework. | | 4/18 webinar: Compromised credentials in 2024? According to Lastpass, professionals manage up to 200 sets of credentials on average. When credentials are compromised, cyber attackers gain frictionless entry into sensitive systems and can often move laterally to find your crown jewels. Attend this webinar to understand: - Execution methods behind compromised credential attacks
- What the bad actors do with stolen identities
- Preventative best practices to implement today
Register now for Lacework's deep dive on what cybersecurity professionals need to know about the world's #1 attack vector. Register Now | |
|
| 3 | | Former U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin wants to partner with an AI company to rebuild TikTok's algorithm, should he manage to acquire the app. The ex-Trump cabinet member is forming an investor group to try and buy TikTok as the U.S. Senate weighs a bill that could force its sale. More: - Since China has banned the export of recommendation algorithms, Mnuchin has said he would rebuild the app from scratch, potentially reducing its sale price.
- Mnuchin believes that rebuilding TikTok's complex algorithm would require a partner skilled in advanced AI.
- Sources suggest Oracle could be a potential partner. The software giant nearly acquired TikTok during Mnuchin's tenure as treasury secretary.
- Tech experts warn that recreating TikTok's algorithm would be challenging for even big companies.
Zoom out: | | | |
| 4 | | Tesla will lay off over 10% of its workforce, affecting an estimated 14,000 employees. The automaker has doubled its headcount since 2020, reaching over 140,000 employees at the end of last year. It's unclear if the layoffs will impact the company's AI and Autopilot teams. 
What happened: Yesterday, CEO Elon Musk announced the layoffs in an internal company-wide email. Tesla needs to "reorganize and streamline" roughly every 5 years "for the next phase of growth," Musk wrote on X. The bigger picture: The layoffs come after Tesla reported its first decline in deliveries since Q2 2020. Tesla delivered 386,810 vehicles in Q1 2024, down 20% from the previous quarter and an 8.5% drop year-over-year. The company also recently canceled plans for a cheaper "Model 2" EV in favor of a self-driving robotaxi, which it will reveal on Aug. 8. What's next: Despite the layoffs, Tesla is still increasing pay for its AI engineers to keep them from being hired by companies like OpenAI, which has been "aggressively recruiting Tesla engineers with massive compensation offers" and succeeding "in a few cases," according to Musk. | | | |
| |
|
| 5 | | Adobe launched an AI assistant to read PDFs in Acrobat. The tool is powered by Adobe's Liquid Mode, Sensei, and other in-house AI technologies. More: - Acrobat's AI assistant uses a chatbot interface to answer questions, find information, summarize, and cite content from PDFs and other documents.
- The assistant can comb through tax documents that are standardized in PDF form.
- Adobe is also launching a free mobile version of the assistant that responds to voice commands.
- The tool will also be available in Chrome and Edge browser extensions.
Zoom out: - Adobe will also launch new AI video editing tools for Premiere Pro, including GenAI features for editing objects in footage, later this year.
| | | |
| 6 | | AI Events and Conferences: - World Summit AI Americas: April 24-25, Montreal.
- Data Innovation Summit: April 24-25, Stockholm and online.
- Rise of AI Conference: May 14-15, Berlin, Germany, and virtual.
- Enterprise Generative AI Summit West Coast: May 21-22, Silicon Valley, California.
- AI Expo Tokyo: May 22-24, Tokyo.
- Data Cloud Summit 2024: June 3-6, San Francisco.
- SuperAI: June 5-6, Singapore.
- The AI Summit London: June 12-13, London, U.K.
- 2024 IEEE Conference on Artificial Intelligence: June 25-27, Singapore.
- Ai4 2024: Aug. 12-14, Las Vegas, Nevada.
- The AI Conference: Sept. 18-19, San Francisco.
| | | |
| 7 | | QUICK HITS: - Hims provides access to a range of hair loss treatments suited for your routine. Unlimited access to medical providers and complete care through the app.*
- Best Buy will use generative AI to provide tech support to customers. The AI venture, created with Google Cloud and Accenture, comes on the heels of mass layoffs at the retailer.
- X, formerly Twitter, could charge new users a "small fee" for posting to combat bots, according to Elon Musk.
- Medium will exclude AI-generated content from its Partner Program and may remove users for violations starting May 1.
- Microchip Technology acquired Neuronix AI Labs to improve its AI edge solutions. Neuronix is known for its technology that optimizes neural networks for better efficiency on FPGAs.
- Pattern released a 30-page insights report for beauty brands selling on Amazon.*
*This is a sponsored post | | | |
| Upcoming Events | | APR
18 | | Register now for Lacework's deep dive on what cybersecurity professionals need to know about the world's #1 attack vector. * | | | | | | | APR
18 | | Join us for pitches, drinks and networking at Pier 17 in SF on April 18, 2024 from 5:30pm. * | | | | | | | APR
25 | | Find out how to effectively align product and marketing teams during Optimizely's online session, "Bridging the Gap Between Marketing and Product."* | | | | | | * This is a sponsored event | | | |
 | AI and technology writer | | Beth is a contributing editor and writer of Inside's AI and Tech newsletters. She has written for publications including USA Today, the Arizona Business Gazette, and The Arizona Republic, where she received recognition with a Pulitzer Prize nomination and a First Amendment Award for collaborative reporting on state pension cost increases. You can reach her at Beth.Duckett@yahoo.com. | | This newsletter was edited by Beth Duckett | |
| |
 | Lacework is a data-driven security platform for the cloud and the leading cloud-native application protection platform solution. | |
|
| |
|
| |
Comments
Post a Comment