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- Meta AI Joins Apple
Meta AI Joins Apple
PLUS: Synthesia's Multilingual Video Creation, HeyGen Raises $60M, Valued at $500M and more.
Today:
Meta AI Joins Apple
OpenAI Acquires Rockset
ByteDance Partners with Broadcom
Stability AI Welcomes Akkaraju
Synthesia's Multilingual Video Creation
HeyGen Raises $60M, Valued at $500M
Character.AI's Advances in AI Inference
Arch-rivals Apple and Meta reportedly discuss AI partnership for iOS 18
Apple and Meta, traditionally rivals, are reportedly discussing a partnership to integrate Meta's AI models into iOS 18's Apple Intelligence feature. This collaboration would be similar to Apple's existing deal with ChatGPT, which allows users to access third-party AI for complex queries. Under such agreements, external AI models can't collect user data and must delete information after processing requests.
Apple aims to offer multiple AI model options, with Meta potentially joining alongside ChatGPT. Apple Intelligence, set to launch with iOS 18, iPadOS 18, and macOS Sequoia updates, will initially be available in US English on newer devices, with gradual expansion to other languages and regions.
OpenAI’s first acquisition is an enterprise data startup
OpenAI has acquired Rockset, an enterprise data startup, marking its first acquisition. The deal aims to enhance OpenAI's retrieval infrastructure across its products. Rockset's technology helps businesses turn data into actionable insights, which OpenAI plans to offer its customers. While financial details weren't disclosed, Rockset had previously raised $105 million in funding.
OpenAI's COO Brad Lightcap emphasized the benefits of integrating Rockset's foundation into their products. Rockset's CEO Venkat Venaramani assured current customers of a gradual transition off the platform. Some Rockset team members will join OpenAI as part of the acquisition.
China's ByteDance working with Broadcom to develop advanced AI chip
ByteDance, the Chinese company behind TikTok, is working with US chip designer Broadcom to create a cutting-edge AI chip. This 5-nanometer chip will comply with US export rules and be made by Taiwan's TSMC. The partnership aims to secure a steady supply of high-end chips for ByteDance amid US-China tensions.
This collaboration is rare, as there haven't been public US-China chip partnerships at this advanced level since 2022 due to US restrictions. ByteDance needs these chips to power its AI-driven apps like TikTok and Doubao. The company has also been stockpiling chips from Nvidia and Huawei to support its AI efforts.
Stability AI gets new leadership as gen AI innovations continue to roll out
Stability AI, the company behind Stable Diffusion, is undergoing significant changes. CEO Emad Mostaque resigned to pursue decentralized AI, with COO Shan Shan Wong and CTO Christian Laforte stepping in as interim co-CEOs. This shift comes amid financial struggles, with the company reportedly facing low revenue and high debt. In June 2024, Prem Akkaraju was appointed as the new CEO, accompanied by a funding round led by tech entrepreneur Sean Parker.
The leadership change reflects the volatile nature of the AI startup landscape and intensifying competition in the field. Stability AI's future now depends on its ability to adapt and find a sustainable business model in the rapidly evolving AI industry.
Nvidia-backed AI startup Synthesia now lets you make multilingual video presentations using just your phone or webcam
Synthesia, a British AI startup backed by Nvidia, has introduced new features that allow users to create AI avatars using just a webcam or phone. The company now offers full-body avatars with hand movements and a screen recording tool with AI avatar guidance. Users can make multilingual video presentations with voice cloning capabilities.
Synthesia aims to make video creation accessible to a wider audience, moving beyond its initial focus on high-budget productions. The company's latest innovations include an AI video assistant for summarizing content and plans to customize avatars for specific regions. Valued at $1 billion, Synthesia is positioning itself as a comprehensive video production suite for large corporations.
AI Video Startup HeyGen Valued at $500 Million in Funding Round
HeyGen, an AI startup that creates realistic digital avatars, has raised $60 million in funding, valuing the company at $500 million. Led by Benchmark, the investment will help HeyGen expand its AI-powered video creation tools. Founded in 2020, HeyGen allows users to generate lifelike avatars that speak in their voice and translate content into various languages. The technology has been adopted by businesses for training videos, ads, and chatbots.
While concerns about deepfakes exist, HeyGen's CEO Joshua Xu believes the tool opens new possibilities for visual storytelling. The company has been profitable since 2023 and plans to enhance security and AI ethics with the new funding.
Optimizing AI Inference at Character.AI
Character.AI, a company aiming to develop advanced artificial intelligence, has shared insights into their efforts to make AI language models more efficient. They currently handle an impressive 20,000 queries per second, which is about 20% of Google Search's volume. The company has managed to reduce the cost of an hour-long conversation to just one cent through various optimization techniques. They're focusing on improving "inference," the process by which AI generates responses, to make their technology more cost-effective and scalable.
While they claim to be working towards artificial general intelligence (AGI), some experts question whether they mean true AGI or simply more human-like AI conversations.
🧠RESEARCH
This paper examines the performance and biases of large language models (LLMs) used as judges to evaluate other models. Using TriviaQA as a benchmark, the study assesses various LLMs and finds that while some align well with human evaluations, others do not. Key findings highlight alignment issues and suggest improvements for future use.
The paper introduces LongRAG, a new framework that improves retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) by using longer text units for both retrieval and reading. By processing larger sections of text, LongRAG reduces the number of units needed and enhances performance, achieving high recall and accuracy in answering questions from Wikipedia.
This paper introduces nabla²DFT, a comprehensive quantum chemistry dataset designed for training neural network potentials (NNPs). The dataset includes a wide range of molecular structures and properties, offering extensive data for accurate drug discovery simulations. It also provides a new benchmark for evaluating NNPs in molecular property prediction and conformational optimization tasks.
This paper introduces HARE-1.1B, a small language model (SLM) optimized using human priors to enhance data efficiency. By focusing on a concise, high-quality dataset with semantic diversity, HARE-1.1B outperforms existing SLMs in resource-constrained settings, demonstrating the value of incorporating human insights into language model training.
This paper presents Instruction Pre-Training, a framework that enhances language models by using supervised multitask learning. By generating 200 million instruction-response pairs across 40+ tasks, this method significantly improves model performance. The approach enables smaller models, like Llama3-8B, to match or surpass larger ones, such as Llama3-70B.
🛠️TOP TOOLS
Claude - AI assistant built for work and trained to be safe, accurate, and secure.
Captions - The next generation of storytelling.
Lens Studio - Custom creation of ML models, 2D and 3D assets, and more for anyone to use.
Mojo - Create amazing logo animations with AI reveals
Amazon Q - Generative AI–powered assistant for accelerating software development and leveraging companies' internal data
📲SOCIAL MEDIA
At OpenAI, we’re working to advance scientific understanding to help improve human well-being. The AI tools we are building, like Sora, GPT-4o, DALL·E and ChatGPT, are impressive from a technical standpoint. But what really matters is how they’re starting to change the way we… x.com/i/web/status/1…
— Mira Murati (@miramurati)
5:28 PM • Jun 22, 2024
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