Reid Hoffman's AI startup hires Google, Meta employees / Exoskeleton maker Sarcos acquires RE2 / AI beats bridge champions

Plus: Otter.ai is adding new features to its AI assistant.

Inside.com Part of   Network March 29, 2022

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Inflection AI, a startup developing AI software to help people communicate with computers, has hired its first AI experts from Meta and Google. The startup was recently co-founded by LinkedIn billionaire Reid Hoffman, DeepMind co-founder Mustafa Suleyman, and former DeepMind researcher Karén Simonyan. More: The Silicon Valley-based startup aims to develop new technologies that could enable people to speak to computers in plain language. Since launching earlier this month, the firm has hired former Facebook AI manager Heinrich Küttler and former Googler and LaMDA developer Joe Fenton as founding members, CNBC reports. Both men previously worked with Suleyman at DeepMind, the London-based Alphabet AI subsidiary and research lab. Hoffman and Suleyman are both investors at the VC firm Greylock.  It is the first company either has co-founded since Hoffman sold LinkedIn to Microsoft for $26.2B in 2016 and Suleyman sold DeepMind to Google for ~$600M in 2014.  CNBC

Sarcos full-body exoskeleton Robotic exoskeleton maker Sarcos agreed to acquire another robotics firm, RE2. The $100M deal will merge the two companies, which specialize in industrial robotics to boost worker safety and productivity. More: Sarcos' robotic systems are geared toward non-repetitive tasks to help industrial and military workers improve productivity. For example, its wearable devices have mechanical limbs that help workers move heavy items. The combined firm will have a bigger product portfolio made up of Sarcos' Guardian XO industrial exoskeleton, RE2 Robotics' Sapien robotics arms, and other AI-powered technologies: RE2's robots are both autonomous and teleoperated and used in aviation, defense, energy, and health care. It has sold 650+ robotic arm products to customers to date. RE2's existing contracts will remain, and Sarcos will retain all the firm's employees. About the deal: Salt Lake City-based Sarcos plans to purchase Pittsburgh-based RE2 for $30M in cash and $70M in stock. The deal will take RE2 public. Sarcos planned to share more details in its latest earnings release and conference call scheduled today.  TECHCRUNCH

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An AI system has successfully beaten eight world champions in the game of bridge. It took French startup NukkAI four to five years to develop the system, called NooK. More: In a two-day challenge in Paris, NooK won 67 of its 80 sets played against eight human champions. NukkAI trained its AI system using a "hybrid" approach. It was taught the rules of bridge and improved its gameplay through repeated practice. The "approach learns in a way that is much closer to human beings," said machine learning professor Stephen Muggleton. Unlike traditional black-box AI systems, the machine can explain its decisions as it plays, in a process known as explainable AI. Zoom-out: Bridge was one of the last popular games that an AI machine had yet to master. The game is more complicated for AI in that it involves several players who don't have complete information as they play. This differs from chess and Go, where AI has already surpassed human champions.  THE GUARDIAN

Qure.ai, a developer of AI technology that reads X-rays and other medical images, raised $40M in a funding round led by Novo Holdings and HealthQuad. Qure.ai says its AI tech can quickly read the images and help time-strapped doctors triage and diagnose patients. More: Qure.ai says its AI solutions are FDA cleared. In addition to X-rays, they can interpret CTs, ultrasounds, and MRI scans. Once those scans are transferred to the cloud, Qure's API processes them and churns out a radiology report that's sent to the doctor and patient. The data is anonymized before it reaches the API. MassMutual Ventures also supported the round. The new funding will help Qure "strengthen its global reach," particularly in the U.S and Europe, and boost its product development "for critical care and community diagnostics." Qure.ai has raised $60M+ to date.  THE ECONOMIC TIMES

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Otter.ai says it is adding new features to its AI assistant that transcribes meetings on Zoom, Microsoft Teams, and Google Meet. The startup's AI will now be able to automatically generate meeting summaries, highlighting the most important parts. More: The beta feature creates bullet-point summaries of what was said during a meeting.  Users can click on the bullets to read the transcript or re-listen to the section. Another new feature is a newsfeed-like view that pulls together a user's transcriptions as well as calendar information directly into Otter to display meetings and more. "Meeting Gems" is a new panel for users to assign items, highlight segments from notes, and create to-do entries. The new tools aim to appeal to enterprise customers and make Otter more of a collaborative hub for working. Otter.ai says its speech-to-text platform can transcribe in real-time. Competitors include Microsoft 365 and tools from Cisco, Scribie, Verbit, and others. FAST COMPANY

Who's hiring in AI: Machine Learning Engineer CrowdAI | San Francisco/Remote Data Scientist — Machine Learning Twitch | Seattle VP, Entertainment Product — Artificial Intelligence Comcast | Philadelphia Artificial Intelligence/Machine Learning Scientist General Motors | Multiple Locations/Remote NLP Applied Researcher eBay | San Jose, Calif. Applied AI/ML Personalization - Sr. Associate JPMorgan Chase Bank | New York, NY Senior Software Engineer — Conversation AI Backend Uber | San Francisco and Sunnyvale, Calif.

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Beth is a writer and analyst at Inside.com covering artificial intelligence and daily tech news. Since starting work at Inside, she has covered various topics including virtual reality, drones, and e-commerce. Prior to that she was a public policy and investigative reporter for The Arizona Republic, where she won a Pulitzer Prize nomination and First Amendment Award for reporting on the rising costs of pensions. Reach her at Beth.Duckett@inside.com.   Editor Aaron Crutchfield is based in the high desert of California. Over the last two decades, he has spent time writing and editing at various local newspapers and defense contractors in California. When he's not working, he can often be found looking at the latest memes with his kids or working on his 1962 Ford.

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