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This week’s highlight: We take a peek at the end of era for social media and uprising of Robo buddies, the Youtube AI makeover, and so much more.

Table of Contents

• AI in Spotlight

• AI Shorts

• Decoded: AI's Latest Moves

• Top AI Tools of the Week

• AI Learning Lab

🚀 AI in Spotlight

🤖 Robo-Buddies: The New Social Circle

As traditional social media growth slows, AI companionship apps are gaining traction. This shift marks a significant change in how we interact digitally.

- Character AI leads the pack with over 200 million monthly website visits and an average user engagement of 12+ minutes per visit.

- Replika, boasting 30+ million users, offers an AI companion eager to see the world through your eyes.

This trend represents a move from parasocial relationships with celebrities to "robo-social" interactions with AI, potentially reshaping our digital social landscape.

▶️ YouTube's AI Makeover: Lights, Camera, Automation!

Article to read

YouTube has unveiled a suite of AI-powered tools to enhance content creation:

- Veo: Google's text-to-video generator for six-second Shorts

- AI "Inspiration": Assists with video ideation and comment responses

- Dream Track: Generates instrumental tracks for Shorts

- Music AI Sandbox: Creates musical "loops" for content

- Enhanced Auto-Dubbing: Improved translations mimicking original audio characteristics

YouTube CEO Neal Mohan notes that 92% of creators already use AI tools, emphasizing AI's role in augmenting human creativity.

Snap's Spectacle Spectacular: AR Gets a Glow-Up

Snap has introduced its latest AR glasses, powered by the new Snap OS:

- Features multi-modal AI and contextual understanding

- Integrates with My AI and immersive Lenses

- Offers AI-powered video and portrait generation tools

- Available to US developers with a $99/month subscription (12-month commitment)

While battery life and field of view have room for improvement, these Spectacles represent a significant step towards seamless AR and AI integration in wearable devices.

OpenAI's Fork in the Road: To Profit or Not to Profit?

OpenAI's latest model, o1, has garnered attention for its impressive capabilities, including:

- 120-point IQ scores (20 points above average human intelligence)

- Unprompted conversation initiation

- Advanced coding skills

However, OpenAI faces a crucial decision:

- A potential $6.5B funding round could boost its valuation to $150B

- This funding may require abandoning its nonprofit structure

- The decision could impact future model development and public trust

As OpenAI navigates this crossroads, the outcome could significantly influence the future of AI development and industry standards.

🗞️ AI Shorts

AI in Action

AI in Business & Technology

• Luma Labs launched the Dream Machine API, allowing developers to integrate their popular video generation AI model into applications.

• Google announced significant performance improvements for Gemini 1.5 Flash, reducing latency by over 3x and increasing output tokens per second by more than 2x.

• Together AI's LlamaCoder app generates full applications from prompts using Llama 3.1 405B, gaining 2,000+ GitHub stars and creating 200,000+ apps since launch.

• Alibaba released Qwen 2.5, a multilingual AI model with 72B parameters, rivaling larger models in performance across various benchmarks.

• Microsoft and Blackrock launched a $100 billion fund to invest in AI data centers and additional related power infrastructure, raising $30 billion to start.

• Google introduced 10 voice options for Gemini Live, allowing users to customize their AI assistant's vocal interface.

• Sakana AI secured ~$200 million in Series A funding from Japanese companies to accelerate AI development and market expansion.

• OpenAI increased rate limits for 01-mini and 01-preview models, allowing Plus and Team users more daily and weekly interactions.

• Perplexity introduced "reasoning" focus for Pro users (up to 10 uses per day), utilizing OpenAI's o1-mini model for puzzles, math, and coding tasks.

• Intel announced a partnership with Amazon to manufacture custom AI chips, expanding their foundry business and semiconductor capabilities.

• Lenovo announced plans to manufacture AI servers in India and opened a new AI-focused R&D lab in Bengaluru, aiming to produce 50,000 units annually.

AI in Healthcare & Science

• A Canadian study showed that an AI early warning system reduced unexpected patient deaths by 26%, monitoring vital signs and alerting staff to intervene earlier.

• Northwestern University received $20 million to lead a new AI research institute developing tools for astronomy and astrophysics data analysis.

AI in Entertainment & Media

• James Earl Jones agreed to let AI replicate his Darth Vader voice before his death, allowing the character to continue in future Star Wars productions.

• TikTok Ban Threat Has Made ByteDance Stock 'Ridiculously Cheap,' Says Lead Edge's Green.

AI Ethics & Governance

• AI pioneers called for international oversight to address potential catastrophic risks from rapidly advancing AI technology, warning it could soon surpass human control.

• OpenAI announced enhanced safety and security measures, including establishing a Board oversight committee chaired by Zico Kolter to monitor model development and deployment.

• The Biden administration announced an international AI safety meeting in San Francisco for this November, gathering experts from nine countries and the EU.

• OpenAI reportedly warned users against probing its new o1 AI models' reasoning processes, threatening bans for policy violations.

AI Education & Outreach

• Google announced $25 million in funding to support AI education initiatives, aiming to train over 500,000 educators and students in new artificial intelligence skills.

• Mark Cuban Foundation launched a free AI bootcamp for Dallas teens, partnering with the Mavericks to teach AI fundamentals and applications.

🔎 Decoded: AI’s Latest Moves

Oracle's Vision: AI-Powered Surveillance

The All-Seeing AI  

According to Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison, AI technology will become increasingly linked with surveillance:

• AI could monitor security cameras, police body cameras, doorbell cameras, and dashboard cameras.

• Ellison believes this level of surveillance will make people behave better, knowing they're being watched.

Policing 2.0

Ellison's predictions for AI in law enforcement:

• AI will supervise police officers, spotting and reporting problems in real-time.

• AI drones could replace police cars during high-speed chases, which Ellison calls "a simple task in the era of autonomous drones."

Oracle's AI Ambitions

• Oracle is pushing hard into the AI space with big projects, including one with Elon Musk's SpaceX.

• Ellison briefly became the second richest man in the world this week after Oracle stock surged.

• His influence extends beyond technology, with his children making moves in the entertainment industry.

Public Opinion

🎞️ Hollywood Meets AI: Lionsgate Partners with Runway

The Collaboration

Lionsgate, the film company behind The Hunger Games, John Wick, and Saw, has teamed up with AI video generation company Runway.

Key Details

• Development of a custom AI model trained on Lionsgate's proprietary content library.

• The model will generate a cinematic video that filmmakers can manipulate using Runway's tools.

• Lionsgate sees AI as a tool to augment and enhance its current operations.

• Runway is considering offering similar custom-trained models as templates for individual creators.

Industry Impact

This partnership marks one of the first major collaborations between an AI startup and a major Hollywood company. Its success or failure could set a precedent for years to come, especially as many writers, actors, and filmmakers strike against AI tools like ChatGPT.

🛠️ Top AI Tools of The Week

This Week's Standouts:

Productivity & Workflow

• Indigo: Save prompts and run them in any app

• Paradigm: AI native workplace designed for data workflow

• Zivy: Automatically prioritize and organize messages in Slack

• Void: Open-sourced AI code editor (Cursor alternative)

Customer Support & Communication

• CX Genie: Enhance customer support with no-code AI solutions

• Bolna: Build human-like AI agents to answer all calls

Content Creation & Editing

• Choppity: Clip important moments in videos based on visuals, audio, and sentiment

• Trupeer: Create guides and videos for any product

• Remini: Transform old photos into high-definition images

Education & Learning

• Essay Grader: AI that grades essays and provides improvement suggestions

• Quil Reading for Evidence: Read nonfiction and build comprehension through writing prompts

💡AI Learning Lab

AI Research Highlight: Google's Whale Vocalization Model

Google Research has developed a groundbreaking AI model capable of identifying vocalizations from eight distinct whale species, including the mysterious "Biotwang" sound recently attributed to Bryde's whales.

Key Features:

• Classifies 12 different whale vocalizations across a broad acoustic range (10 Hz to 120+ kHz)

• Designed to aid conservation efforts through improved tracking of whale populations and movements

• Includes newly identified sounds like the Bryde's whale "Biotwang", solving a decades-old mystery

• Available for download via Kaggle Models for researchers and conservationists

Why It Matters:

This AI model demonstrates the far-reaching impact of artificial intelligence, extending even to the depths of our oceans. By enhancing our understanding of diverse whale species, it could lead to more effective protection strategies for endangered marine life.

Interesting Fact: The "Biotwang" sound, which puzzled marine biologists for decades, was finally attributed to Bryde's whales in 2020. This low-frequency call can last up to 3.5 seconds and is described as a mix of moans, chirps, and "Star Wars" sound effects!

💡AI Tutorial of the Week: Analyzing Data with Julius AI

Learn how to leverage Julius AI for comprehensive data analysis:

1. Log in to your Julius AI account

2. Upload your CSV or PDF file

3. Use prompts to visualize and analyze your data

Sample Prompts for Data Analysis:

1. Data Manipulation: "Filter the data to include only rows where [column A] is [enter number], then sort by [column B]."

2. Data Cleaning: "Remove any duplicate entries, and fill values in the [x] column with the mean [x]."

3. Apply Formulas: "Create a custom formula and apply it to the data to generate total revenue by [x]."

4. Automation: "Write a script to automate the monthly report generation process."

5. Formatting: "Change the font color of the 'total' column to [insert color] and highlight values above [enter value]."

💡See you on the flip side!