20th Edition: 12/29/23

New York Times sues OpenAI & MSFT for training LLMs on copyrighted content, and MSFT's Copilot goes "multi-modal"...

A year in review…

The top 10 biggest AI events of 2023:

• March 17: OpenAI launches GPT-4

• March 30: Elon Musk and AI experts call for a 6-month pause in developing AI systems more powerful than GPT-4

• May 26: Swiss scientists rebuild spinal cord with AI

• June 27: Breakthrough AI research can understand and decode whale language

• September 26: ChatGPT goes multimodal with voice and images

• September 29: Mistral AI unveils open-sourced 7B language model

• November 6: Elon Musk's xAI launches Grok

• November 7: OpenAI reveals GPT Builder, GPT-4 Turbo, Assistants API and more at DevDay

• November 22: Sam Altman fired and rehired as CEO of OpenAI

• December 6: Google DeepMind reveals Gemini

PNW AI News:

• New York Times sues OpenAI and Microsoft for training AI chatbots and models on its copyrighted body of work, spawning new challenges for general-purpose LLM training barriers

• Microsoft's upcoming Surface Pro 10 and Surface Laptop 6 will reportedly be its first "AI PCs," featuring new AI capabilities and next-gen Qualcomm Snapdragon and Intel chips

• GenAI is dramatically changing the video game development/testing process, with companies like Nintendo and Rec Room debuting in-game AI plug-ins for user generated content

• The Earth Species Project is partnering with AI2 and UW researchers to develop new tools for understanding complex animal vocalizations to help save wildlife

Key AI Product Updates:

• Microsoft has quietly built an impressive alternative to ChatGPT that's 100% free: Copilot matches ChatGPT's capabilities while exceeding in some areas including:

  • Multimodal prompting

  • Coding/calculations

  • Music creativity

  • Video comprehension

• Intuition Robotics' AI companion ‘ElliQ' shows promise in reducing loneliness for seniors by providing personalized conversations, entertainment, and health reminders

• LG introduces a roaming AI assistant, a wheeled robot, set to revolutionize the concept of smart home devices. It is a self-balancing, two-wheeled device equipped with optical and depth-sensing cameras

• Pika Labs opened its text-to-video AI platform Pika 1.0 to the public for free, allowing users to generate 3D, anime, and cinematic videos from text prompts

  • Elon predicting AI movies will become reality in 2024 using this tech

• Alibaba researchers just revealed Make-A-Character (Mach), an AI system that turns text prompts into realistic 3D avatars in minutes by utilizing LLM and vision models

• Australian researchers developed DeWave, a non-invasive AI translating thoughts to text via EEG-recorded brainwaves. Tested on subjects reading silently, DeWave achieved over 40% accuracy, aiming for 90%. Unlike invasive or MRI-based methods, it’s practical for daily use, potentially aiding stroke victims and controlling bionic devices

Key AI Business/Investment Updates:

• Apple is reportedly in talks with major news publishers to license their content for its generative AI initiatives. The New York Times revealed that Apple proposed multi-year agreements worth $50M+ to access extensive archives of news articles,

• Ahead of high-profile 2024 elections, Google announced it will be restricting the types of election-related queries its AI systems like Bard and Search Generative Experience can respond to

• Anthropic projects an impressive $850M in annualized revenue by Eo2024, way up from its initial $500M estimate. This delta is partly attributed to OpenAI’s internal CEO changes, which led to over 100 of OpenAI’s clients seeking Anthropic as a more stable alternative

PNW AI Fundings:

• GetWhys (Boise, ID) raised $425K in Pre-Seed funding from several angels

  • An AI-powered search platform to leverage proprietary dataset of deep user insights from product analysts - TFTD $425K

  • CEO: Philippe Boutros