E60: 10/11/24
Anduril AI strike drones, Tesla Robotaxi, Meta's Movie Gen model, AMD chip releases, and much more...
We’ve reached #60! It’s been a crazy few days w.r.t. AI product announcements... Be sure to check out the demo video of the Harvard students doxing strangers with Meta/Rayban's new AI glasses. Freaky stuff.
Enjoy!
PNW AI News:
Amazon’s new Vision-Assisted Package Retrieval system in delivery trucks projects green and red markers onto packages to streamline deliveries
Coincides with announcements of next-gen fulfillment centers with new robotics automation fleets
Amazon introduced AI Shopping Guides for 100+ product categories, using generative AI to streamline product research and offer tailored recommendations within its US app
OpenAI is reducing its reliance on Microsoft for compute power and has started exploring options to set up its own data servers and secure AI chips independently
OpenAI CFO Sarah Friar told shareholders that Microsoft "hasn’t moved fast enough" to supply computing power capacity
Key AI Product/Research Updates:
Elon introduced the Tesla Cybercab, a prototype robotaxi that seats 20, designed for full autonomy without traditional controls like steering wheels and pedals, priced at ~$30K a pop and set for production in 2026
Two Harvard students just demoed a proof-of-concept Doxing system using Meta’s Ray-Ban smart glasses that allow the wearer to access personal information about strangers, raising major privacy concerns
Anduril unveils autonomous AI drones designed for "simple, flexible and lethal precision firepower", which weigh roughly 6kg and can fly beyond visual line of sight (BVLOS)
Meta just announced Movie Gen, a powerful new suite of AI models for generating and editing video and audio content (30B parameter video gen, 13B for audio gen), a direct competitor to OpenAI’s Sora
AMD just launched its new lineup of AI-focused processors, showing off a range of releases to compete with Nvidia in the booming data center/AI chip market
The Ryzen AI PRO 300 is an enterprise-focused processor for AI PCs, with 40% better performance than Intel's Core Ultra chips
The MI325X AI accelerator, set to begin production by EOY, boasts 1.8x higher memory capacity and 1.3x more bandwidth than Nvidia's H200 GPU
Adobe announced a new free web app called 'Adobe Content Authenticity' to help creators protect their work and receive proper attribution in the era of AI-generated content
Walmart revealed new AI platforms to create hyper-personalized shopping experiences, including its Wallaby LLMs trained on the company’s data and a Customer Support Assistant that can take actions for the user
AI startup Writer just introduced Palmyra X 004, an LLM that sets a new standard for action capabilities and function calling in enterprise AI, outperforming top models from OpenAI and Anthropic
Writer is set to raise between $150-200M at a $1.9B valuation, doubling its valuation from its $100M Series B round last September
OpenAI released MLE-bench, which tests new models with data science challenges. The o1-preview model achieved medal-level performance in 16.9% of cases, but had ongoing struggles with adaptability and creative problem-solving
ChatGPT’s new Advanced Voice Mode (AVM) allows you to practice and improve your language skills through interactive conversations and role-play scenarios
Zoom unveiled a suite of new AI-driven features including AI companion 2.0, a custom AI add-on plan, personalized avatars, and more
Scientists at Penn State just created an AI-powered 'electronic tongue' that can identify subtle differences in liquids, detect food spoilage, etc.
Qualcomm's AI Orchestrator aims to bring personalized AI assistants to your devices on the edge, running locally
Key AI Business/Investment Updates:
OpenAI Chairman Bret Taylor's AI startup Sierra is raising >$300M in funding at a >$4B valuation for its conversational enterprise AI agents
KoBold Metals raised $527M for its AI-powered mineral discovery tech that leverages extensive data analysis to uncover deposits with energy-critical minerals like copper, lithium, and nickel
PNW AI/ML/CV Fundings:
Auger (Seattle, WA) raised $100M in Series A funding from Oak HC/FT
Offer an AI-powered system that unifies data, targets inefficiencies, provides real-time insights and automation, and aims to helps big companies make better decisions – TFTD $100M
CEO: Dave Clark, ex Amazon exec
Distributional (Portland, OR) raised $19M Series A funding led by Two Sigma Ventures. Andreessen Horowitz, Operator Collective, Oregon Venture Fund, Essence Venture Capital and Alumni Ventures also participated.
Developer of an AI testing and evaluation platform designed to make AI safe, reliable and secure – TFTD $30M
CEO: Scott Clark
Wokelo (Redmond, WA) raised $4M in seed funding from Array Ventures, Geek Ventures, KPMG Ventures, Rebellion Ventures, Ahead VC, and Perpetual Venture Capital.
Developer of an artificial intelligence-powered research assistant platform designed to automate tasks traditionally performed by humans – TFTD $4M
CEO: Siddhant Masson