AI’s Billion-Dollar Bubble Bath & Sweaty Smart Band-Aids
From robotic skin smiles to Costco-built homes, the future is weirder than we thought
The Thin Wisps of Tomorrow
AI Funding Twilight Zone — On one hand, investors keep pouring ungodly amounts of money into AI startups (to the tune of $27 billion out of a total funding of $56 billion from April to June of this year). On the other hand, VC super-firm Sequoia just calculated that all those AI startups need to generate a whopping $600 billion to turn those investments into cold, hard cash again...
Eyes Wide Shut — LLMs such as GPT-4 and Claude 3.5 Sonnet have gained the ability to interpret visual inputs, allowing them to understand a much broader range of the world. However, they still struggle with even the most basic tasks, such as determining if two circles overlap, as demonstrated in a recent paper.
Prompts Galore — Struggling to write effective prompts for your language model? Try Anthropic’s Prompt Generator. It offers a unique, layered approach that feels a bit like Inception.
AI is Biased, But Different Than You Might Think — A recent study uncovered unexpected gender biases in OpenAI’s GPT-4 model. Of course, this shouldn’t come as a surprise, given how AI isn’t even good at using a diverse vocabulary.
Sweat It Out — Scientists have developed a wearable, film-based laser to measure, for example, the exact amount of minerals the wearer sweats out. In other words, it’s a super-smart band-aid that could provide a new avenue for healthcare monitoring.
Move Over Dr. AI — Doctors and researchers are urging Britain’s National Health Service (NHS) to focus on the interventions that actually save patients’ lives, instead of pursuing the latest technological advancements (i.e. AI). As one expert stated, “AI is a workflow tool, but does it truly improve survival? The evidence for that is limited so far.”
The Watch Will See You Now — Meanwhile, in a completely different part of the healthcare universe, doctors are loving the data they are receiving from their patients’ Apple Watches.
Robo-Cars Build by Robots — Only about a year ago, robots could barely make you a cappuccino. Now, Figure’s humanoid robots are building your BMW. The real news here is the robots’ neural network, which means they don’t need (much) training and can operate in (somewhat) messy environments.
Fusion is Coming, Maybe — Wondering if and when fusion power will become a reality? For decades, the promise of fusion power has been “just 20 years away.” However, this excellent primer provides an informative overview on whether this time the technology will finally come to fruition.
The End of Coal — The United Kingdom has shut down its last coal-powered power plant, marking a significant milestone in the country’s remarkable transition to renewable energy sources.
Costco Everything — You may know Costco as the beloved “everything store” that people genuinely enjoy. Now, the retailer is expanding into the housing market. That $1.50 hot dog has never tasted better than when savored within the comfort of your own Costco-built home.
Lights Out — Chinese tech company Xiaomi has unveiled a fully autonomous factory capable of producing 10 million phones annually. The factory operates with minimal human involvement, no light necessary.
The Kids Are Forming a Mob Now — Discuss the negative influence social media can have. A group of middle schoolers found it amusing to orchestrate a full-blown virtual mob against their teachers by impersonating them online. They depicted “long-time, dedicated teachers sharing ‘pedophilia innuendo, racist memes,’ and homophobic posts, along with posts fabricating ‘sexual hookups among teachers.’”
Meta-Ouch — Investing $50 billion into technology that appears to have limited demand is... well, painful. Considering the alternative ways Meta could have utilized those $50 billion is an intriguing thought though…
What We Are Reading
🐘 Wild Elephants May Have Names That Other Elephants Use To Call Them A new study suggests that wild elephants may use distinctive, rumbling sounds that could be akin to individual names to address each other. Researchers, using machine learning, analyzed hundreds of recordings and found that elephants responded more strongly to calls originally addressed to them. @Jane
💸 ‘Upflation’ Is The New Retail Trend Driving Up Prices For Us Consumers We’re familiar with shrinkflation, where brands maintained revenue by raising prices and reducing package sizes. Now there’s upflation: a practice where companies try to create new applications for things people have decided they no longer need as much of, and of course upcharging for them. @Mafe
🗣️ White-collar Work Is Just Meetings Now In our inherently collaborative work environments, communication is undoubtedly essential. But to what extent? A Microsoft analysis on the utilization of their tools shows 43% of time spent creating and 57% talking about, presumably, the creations. @Julian
🤔 Microsoft Quits OpenAI’s Board Amid Antitrust Scrutiny Microsoft quit OpenAI’s board after the FTC opened a broad investigation of Microsoft’s investment in OpenAI, while the U.K.’s Competition and Markets Authority said it was looking at whether the partnership should be considered a de facto merger. @Pedro
🚀 Gradually, Then Suddenly: Upon The Threshold As technology advances and crosses Geoffrey Moore’s chasm, it transitions from a novelty to a ubiquitous tool. In many ways, AI is reaching that point. @Pascal
(Random) Bits & Pixels
This might very well be the creepiest thing you have seen for a while: Researchers crafted this happy, smiling face from living human skin cells. Yep, not creepy at all...
The Fun Stuff
🧑🏼🚀 With space launches becoming increasingly common, the temptation to witness the spectacle in person at a launch site is understandable. Here’s what you need to know.
🎓 Larger rooms with higher ceilings appear to correlate with poorer exam performance among students…
🕵🏼♂️ A multi-person large language model to play a murder mystery? Absolutely!