- The AI Plug
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- #49 Meta loses 1/3rd of AI staff
Along with Alphabet (Google), Amazon, Apple, and Microsoft, Meta is considered one of the Big Five American information technology companies. So why is it being left out of AI talks at The White House? Well, for one thing, because hundreds of AI researchers are abandoning ship. Let’s dive in.
In today’s newsletter:
Top News: Meta getting left behind, AI Twitch streamers, and how (not) to win a Grammy with AI
TL;DR Rundown: We’re apparently not ready for the AI era, the world’s first AI DJ, and France wants to lead Europe’s AI efforts
Tool of the day: Never be anxious before a conversation again
Research: Fantastic applications for AI
But, what if…?: It just doesn’t work like that.
Top News 🔝
Three biggest stories if you’re in a rush
What’s a tough decision you’ve made recently? Maybe which school to send your kid to? Or which internet provider to go with? How about sacking 10,000 employees? We hope you haven’t had to do that…but that’s the kind of stuff Zuckerberg and the Meta execs have been wrestling with during the past year. Unfortunately, due to poor decision-making, burnout, or “no faith in the company,” 1 in 3 of Meta’s AI researchers have gone their own ways these last 12 months, leaving Meta in the lurch. Also, with Meta being left off of the White House's guest list for its summit of “companies at the forefront of AI innovation,” it seems the company has a long road ahead to competing with other organizations in the AI space.
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Lots of people don’t care about The Grammys. Even the people winning Grammy awards don’t care about The Grammys (think Eddie Vedder, Glen Hansard, Maynard James Keenan, Sinead O’Connor - all who either boycotted the ceremony or knocked it as they accepted their award). But if you’re one of the 12.5 million people who tuned in to watch the 2023 Grammy ceremony, then you (might be) interested to know that The Recording Academy, the organization being the Grammy awards, has recently announced that “an AI song is only eligible for a grammy if a human meaningfully contributed to the song.” Whatever that means…we don’t really care anyway.
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People watched 22.4 billion hours of Twitch streaming last year. That makes it at least 3X as popular for video streaming as Facebook and Youtube COMBINED. But typically, people watch people play and stream. Recently though, Neuro-sama, an AI Twitch streamer chatbot, has attracted nearly 400k subscribers and heavy viewership. Whether it’s the novelty of seeing what a LLM-based chatbot can do when she plays games like Minecraft, or some other facet that sparks human interest, that’s a lot of people watching a computer program play other computer programs.
TL;DR Rundown 🐂
Summary of note-worthy trending articles
The AI era will be marked by disinformation, deepfakes, and hallucinated “facts, and we’re not ready for it. (link)
Mercedes adds ChatGPT to its infotainment system, but why? (We don’t know). (link)
Leading stock picker beats 97% of peers with out-of-the-box AI selections. (link)
France is pushing to make itself Europe’s AI hub. (link)
Listen to the world’s first AI DJ, KBFF Live 95.5 FM from Portland, Oregon. (link)
Apparently, benefiting from AI also means “investing in middle managers.” (link)
JLR, the British luxury car maker, partners with AI supply chain firm Everstream Analytics to sure up their systems. (link)
How is AI changing the 2024 election? It’s reshaping history. (link)
Five ways Amazon is using AI to revolutionize its business. (link)
Learn how to use AI as a shopping assistant, and do your product research and list-making for you (better than you can!) (link)
Ian Holgarth to lead the UK government’s new AI taskforce. (link)
AI drive-thrus are good for business - but not for the rest of us. (link)
Blackbird AI, an AI risk-management tool startup, secures $20M to expand. (link)
Tool of the Day ⚒️
AI tools we’ve used, loved, and highly recommend
Today’s tool is talkberry.ai.
What are job interviews for you? Intimidating? Nerve-racking? A breeze, a walk in the park? If you fall into the first two categories, you’re not alone. In fact, 93% of people feel anxious before their job interview.
But do you know how to deal with anxiety? You prepare.
That’s what talkberry.ai helps you do - prepare for a job interview (or any other conversation) by running through potential Q&As with an AI hiring manager (who will also give you instant feedback on how you did). Handy.
Research
Peer-reviewed, academic papers on the cutting-edge
Pancreatic cancer accounts for 7% of all cancer deaths. This is because it’s often only detected at late stages, meaning that, sadly, many cases are too far gone for effective treatment.
In their recently published paper, “A deep learning algorithm to predict risk of pancreatic cancer from disease trajectories,” Placido et al. present their new model, which, trained on the clinical data from over 6 million patients, helps identify individuals with an elevated risk of pancreatic cancer, directly impacting lifespan and quality of life—fantastic stuff and worth a read.
But, what if…?
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