Welcome, humans.☕

What to decode:

• 🧠 Google Brain and DeepMind merge

• 💰 Humane secures $230m funding for AI wearable.

• 🧑‍💻 Stack Overflow Will Charge AI Giants for Training Data

• 🤖 Synthesis AI develops text-to-3D (Realistic digital humans)

Read time: 4 minutes

🧠 Google Brain and DeepMind merge

Google has recently announced the merger of its two flagship departments, Google Brain and DeepMind, to form a single division called Google DeepMind. Although the choice of name may not be well-received by the Brain team, the move aims to bring together the best minds and talent from both divisions to achieve breakthroughs in AI.

Despite previous issues with autonomy from Alphabet, the DeepMind team is expected to work in unison with the Google Brain team to challenge Microsoft and OpenAI more aggressively. The new team is likely to focus on integrating language models into their search engine as a key area of development.

WSJ article here and un-paywalled here.

💰Humane secures $230m funding for AI wearable.

Humane, a company founded by a former Apple employee, has secured a significant amount of funding for its latest project. The company has raised $230 million to develop an AI-powered wearable device that utilizes both voice and gesture-based interaction.

Similar to Siri or Alexa, this device is expected to offer advanced features beyond existing personal projects in the market. Humane recently showcased their work in a TED talk and a video demonstrating the device's capabilities is set to be released soon.

[Read More]

 🧑‍💻 Stack Overflow to Charge for Content Usage

In a move reminiscent of Reddit, Stack Overflow has started charging larger corporations for the use of their content in training models. Previously, companies like OpenAI were able to scrape Stack Overflow's online data for free, but now the website has announced that they will be implementing a fee.

This decision could have significant implications for the development of language models like ChatGPT, which heavily rely on Stack Overflow's content for answering coding-related questions. Additionally, Stack Overflow's CEO has accused OpenAI of violating their terms of service by using their contributors' content without proper attribution.

[Read More]

 🤖 Synthesis AI develops text-to-3D

The innovative text-to-3D technology from Synthesis AI, a San Francisco-based startup, creates realistic 3D digital human models from text inputs. According to the company, they are the pioneers in developing high-quality and detailed text-to-3D digital human models, which can provide accurately labeled synthetic data for training machine learning models.

Although the technology is currently in its nascent stages, it has the potential to revolutionize multiple industries including gaming, virtual reality/augmented reality, filmmaking, advertising, virtual try-on apps, specialized training simulations, and many others.

[Read More]

FASCINATING FINDS

• Dr. Gupta - The world’s first physician chatbot, from Martin Shkreli (link)

• On this day - On April 21, 1993, Tim Berners-Lee launched the first-ever web browser called WorldWideWeb, which later became Nexus. It allowed users to easily navigate through web pages and access information from different servers, marking the beginning of the modern internet.(link)

• Weird but interesting - The first-ever computer mouse was made of wood. In 1963, Douglas Engelbart, a computer engineer, created the first prototype of a mouse which was made of wood and had only one button. The wooden mouse was connected to a computer using a cable and was used to control the cursor on the screen. (link)

• Mind-boggling statistics - Google processes over 3.5 billion searches per day, which amounts to 1.2 trillion searches per year.

MISCELLANEOUS

(News, podcasts, videos, blogs etc)

• The inside story of ChatGPT's astonishing potential, the TED talk from Greg Brockman. (link)

• Betterdata uses synthetic data to keep real data safe. (link)

• Github repository dedicated to organising affordable but powerful language models. (link)

• Halcyon lands $44M to defend against ransomware. (link)

• AI companies ask US federal court to dismiss artists' copyright infringement lawsuit. (link)

• China gave AI control of a satellite, and it started staring at bizarre areas. (link)

• The API-first approach to software development should be the new standard. (link)

That's all for now!

As always, thanks for reading, and see you next time. ☕