xAI Raises $6 Billion to Build AGI

Today’s top AI Highlights:

1. Elon Musk’s xAI raises $6 Billion, will build the biggest AI supercomputer

2. AI headphones that let you listen to only the person in a crowd you’re looking at

3. OpenAI ex-Board members speak out on why Sam Altman was ousted

4. Apple finally closes deal with OpenAI to bring AI features to iOS 18

5. Transform Figma files to production-ready code with this VSCode plugin

& so much more!

Read time: 3 mins

Latest Developments 🌍

xAI will Build the Biggest AI Supercomputer 

Elon Musk’s xAI is making big moves. They just secured a massive $6 billion investment in Series B, which is one of the biggest funding rounds ever in the AI space. This cash infusion comes from a group of top investors, including Valor Equity Partners, Andreessen Horowitz, and Sequoia Capital. But the real news here is: Musk plans to build a supercomputer that could rival even the most powerful ones out there.

This supercomputer will be at least 4x bigger than the biggest ones. It will be powered by Nvidia H100 GPUs, and will be up and running by 2025 end.

The $6 billion investment puts a valuation of $18 billion pre-money on xAI. This shows just how much confidence these investors have in Musk’s vision for the future of AI.

Hear Only the Person You’re Looking At 🧏‍♀️

Imagine trying to have a conversation with a friend in a crowded, noisy restaurant. It's hard to focus on their voice, and you miss half of what they’re saying. A team at the University of Washington has developed a new system that uses AI to let users focus on a single voice in a noisy environment, even while moving around. This system, called “Target Speech Hearing” (TSH), uses off-the-shelf noise-canceling headphones with two microphones. The user simply looks at the person they want to hear for a few seconds, and the system learns their voice and filters out all other sounds.

Key Highlights:

1. User-friendly design: The TSH system is remarkably easy to use. All you need to do is look at the person you want to hear for a few seconds, press a button, and the system does the rest.

2. Focusing on the target voice: The system learns the speaker’s vocal patterns through the two microphones and plays back only their voice, even as the listener moves around.

3. Real-time performance: The system processes the sound in real-time, providing immediate and clear audio of the target speaker.

4. Continuous improvement: As the target speaker continues talking, the system gathers more training data, improving its ability to filter out unwanted noise and focus on the desired voice.

5. Potential for wider applications: The researchers are working to integrate the TSH system into earbuds and hearing aids, making this technology accessible to a wider range of users.

AI Companies Cannot Govern Themselves 📋

All the drama with OpenAI began in November 2023 when Sam Altman was suddenly ousted from the company as he was not “consistently candid” with the Board. While the major issues of prioritizing safety of AI over product releases were put on the back burner, Altman was soon reinstated and almost the entire Board had to resign. Since then, the company has been surrounded with controversies around the same issue.

Two former members of OpenAI’s Board, Helen Toner and Tasha McCauley, who had played a role in ousting Altman, have penned a strong note shedding light on the precarious nature of self-governance in big AI companies. They give a stark warning: for AI to benefit humanity, governments must play a more active role in regulating this rapidly evolving field.

Key Highlights:

1. OpenAI’s Failed Self-Governance: OpenAI, originally founded as a non-profit dedicated to ensuring AI benefits humanity, ultimately struggled to balance its mission with the demands of its for-profit subsidiary. Toner and McCauley reveal how Altman’s behavior of fostering a “toxic culture of lying” and undermining safety protocols, hampered the Board’s ability to uphold OpenAI’s mission.

2. Government Regulation is Necessary: Toner and McCauley argue that self-regulation is simply not enough. They draw parallels with the early internet, highlighting how a laissez-faire approach led to issues like misinformation, online exploitation, and mental health crises. They insist that government intervention is crucial to protect society and guide AI development towards a beneficial future.

3. Transparency and Incident Tracking: Governments should implement policies that increase transparency in AI development and track incidents related to AI’s impact on society. This would give policymakers greater insight into the rapid advancements in AI and allow them to proactively address emerging challenges.

Apple Still Wants Google’s Gemini along with OpenAI 👯

Apple is expected to release new AI features at its upcoming WWDC, and the most anticipated one is the partnership with OpenAI for using its AI models to power generative AI features in the upcoming iOS18. The deal has reportedly been inked finally! The details however are still under the wraps.

But Apple’s not putting all their AI eggs in one basket, they’re also working with Google to include their Gemini model as an option in iOS 18, too.You might have a choice of AI assistants on your iPhone soon!

In the meantime, Apple’s been working on their own AI model, Ajax, which will be used for things like on-device text analysis and quick replies. While they’ll rely on OpenAI for tasks like image generation, Apple’s got their own plans for the future of AI.

Tools of the Trade ⚒️

1. CodeParrot AI: A VSCode plugin that converts Figma designs into production-ready code, allowing you to build web and mobile apps quickly. Simply specify your Figma component and code preferences to get accurate, reusable code in no time.

1. Dumpling AI: Acrape clean data from websites and extract YouTube transcripts for your AI projects. It integrates with no-code platforms like GoogleMake and Zapier, making it easy to enhance your AI solutions without coding.

2. Primfusion V0: Converts any image, video, or mesh into editable 3D models using Liquid 3D technology. It makes creating high-quality 3D models simple and supports various export formats, running on any device with a web browser.

3. Awesome LLM Apps: Build awesome LLM apps using RAG for interacting with data sources like GitHub, Gmail, PDFs, and YouTube videos through simple texts. These apps will let you retrieve information, engage in chat, and extract insights directly from content on these platforms.

Hot Takes 🔥

1. Right now, we don't even have a hint of a design of a human-level intelligent system. So it's too early to worry about it. And it's way too early to regulate it to prevent "existential risk." ~Yann LeCun

2. Large language models are one of the worst genre of software products I’ve seen in my career. They are inherently and irredeemably unreliable narrators, offering tantalizingly coherent output that is dangerous in its ability to deceive, threatening in its casual toxic bias, distracting in its being a huge opportunity cost that sucks all the oxygen from the air for many other needs, insatiable in its energy costs, and operating at an unconstrained global scale and largely controlled by a very small number of companies such that there is little opportunity for meaningful accountability. ~Grady Booch

Meme of the Day 🤡

That’s all for today! See you tomorrow with more such AI-filled content.

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