What's Inside

• OpenAI acquires Global Illumination (Minecraft Clone)

• Google DeepMind building AI for Life Advice

• Will AI steal my Job? Or Creates New Opportunities also.

• Cracking the Code: Hackers Put A.I. to the Test, Unveiling Startling Weakness

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OpenAI acquires Global Illumination (Minecraft Clone)

• OpenAI has acquired New York-based company Global Illumination, known as a "digital product company."

• The acquisition includes the entire Global Illumination team, which will contribute to OpenAI's core products, including ChatGPT.

• Global Illumination has experience with AI-driven creative tools, infrastructure, and digital experiences.

• The team has a background in designing and building products for companies like Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, Google, Pixar, Riot Games, and others.

Google DeepMind building AI for Life Advice

• Google's AI unit, DeepMind, is utilizing generative AI to develop over 21 tools for life advice, planning, creating budgets and tutoring.

• DeepMind has become a key driver of Google's AI efforts.

• Google's AI safety experts warned about the potential negative impacts of users taking life advice from AI tools.

• Google contracted with Scale AI to test the tools, involving over 100 people with Ph.D.s.

• Tools include prompts for relationship advice and handling interpersonal conflicts.

Will AI steal my Job?

• New job roles are emerging due to the AI revolution.

• Coding and development skills for AI models and adaptation are in demand.

• UK government supports AI startups; DeepMind is a significant player.

• Specialized AI startups customize AIs for specific industries (e.g., customer service agents).

• High-paying roles exist in building and creating AI models.

• Companies, including Netflix, are venturing into AI with new types of jobs.

• Netflix's product manager for its machine-learning platform offers high compensation.

Cracking the Code: Hackers Put A.I. to the Test, Unveiling Startling Weakness

• Dr. Ghosh participated in a competition at the Defcon hackers conference to test A.I. vulnerabilities.

• He tried to manipulate an A.I. model, Zinc, into biased decision-making based on race, but the model refused as it was deemed "harmful and unethical."

• Dr. Ghosh then succeeded in getting the A.I. model to rank potential job candidates based on a discriminatory metric, referring to the hierarchical caste structure in India.

• The Defcon competition aimed to identify vulnerabilities in various A.I. programs through red-teaming, addressing issues before they are exploited by criminals and misinformation spreaders.

• Participants were exposed to political misinformation, demographic stereotypes, surveillance instructions, and more.

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Product Launches

Unitree H1: Its First General-purpose Humanoid Robot| Embodied AI, Price below $90k

• Chinese robotics startup Unitree Robotics, known for $2,700 robotic dog

• A competitor to Boston Dynamics' Spot and Atlas robots

• Announced first general-purpose humanoid robot, Price below $90k

Marqeta Unveils Docs AI Question & Answer Tool

• Global card issuing platform Marqeta unveils Docs AI tool

• Streamlines the process of launching Embedded Finance solutions

• Marqeta Docs AI introduced alongside initial findings from the internal code generation tool

• Potential for reducing coding and testing workload

Release of external-facing generative AI tool showcases innovation capabilities

Game production is streamlined with NCSoft's new AI suite

• A South Korean game developer and publisher known for Guild Wars MMORPG has created four new AI large language models called VARCO to enhance game development.

• VARCO represents the quartet of language models as well as the future products and services built upon them, including digital humans, generative AI platforms, and conversational language models.

• The four models include VARCO base LLM, Art, Text, and Human, with the base LLM being the first to be released in Korean on August 16, followed by English and bilingual versions later.

VARCO LLM is trained with datasets from publicly available sources, the internet, and internally constructed data to ensure high-quality outputs while adhering to societal values.

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AI Financials

Lindus Health's $18M Surge, Championed by Peter Thiel

• Lindus Health, a U.K. startup, aims to streamline and expedite clinical trials.

• The company raised $18 million in a Series A funding round from investors including Creandum and Peter Thiel.

• Founded in 2021, Lindus was inspired by frustrations and observations of clinical trial inefficiencies.

• Co-founder Meri Beckwith, a former venture capitalist, recognized the challenges faced by healthtech startups during clinical trials.

• Beckwith's involvement in COVID vaccine studies highlighted further dysfunction in the process.

• Co-founder Michael Young, a former special adviser, realized clinical trial inefficiencies hindered R&D progress.

DynamoFL Raises $15.1M in Series A Funding

• Including a previous $4.2M seed round, the company's total funding to date is $19.3M.

• Led by CEO Vaikkunth Mugunthan and co-founder Christian Lau, DynamoFL offers proprietary technology incorporating optimization techniques, privacy training, and evaluation suites for Generative AI.

• Their flagship technology enables safe training of Large Language Models (LLM) on sensitive data and is utilized by Fortune 500 companies in various sectors.

• DynamoFL's privacy evaluation suite provides testing for data extraction vulnerabilities and automated documentation to ensure secure and compliant LLMs.

Caden Raises $15M to Allow Users to Monetize Personal Data

• Startups are emerging to help individuals monetize their data as privacy awareness grows.

• Datacy enables users to aggregate and sell their browsing data, while Pogo and Tapestri offer rewards for access to behavioural and purchasing data.

• Caden takes a unique approach by giving users control over data sharing with third parties.

• Caden AI leverages behavioural data to provide personalized content and product recommendations.

Apica acquires Logiq.AI and raises $10M in funding

• Synthetic monitoring and observability company Apica raised $10M in funding and acquired Logiq.AI, an observability data fabric startup.

• Apica offers a platform for active observability, automated root cause analysis, and advanced data management to address complex digital performance issues proactively.

• The acquisition of Logiq.AI and the recent funding enable Apica to enhance its capabilities and bridge gaps in analysis.

Marqo Raises US$5.2M in Seed Funding

• The company's goal is to use the funding to expand its cloud service and develop search technology that improves relevance through user engagement.

• Marqo, founded by Jesse Clark and Tom Hamer, offers an end-to-end multimodal vector search engine utilizing machine learning models for more accurate results.

• The technology supports text and image searches and initially targets end-user search applications in ecommerce and marketplaces, with potential in generative AI, analytics, and security.

DeckMatch Raises €1M in Pre-Seed Funding

• DeckMatch, based in Oslo, Norway, raised €1M in Pre-Seed funding for its technology platform designed to assist VCs in handling and evaluating startup pitch submissions.

• DeckMatch aims to use the funds to enhance its AI and machine learning capabilities.

• The platform generates AI-driven feedback and insights for startup founders to aid in their growth as entrepreneurs.

• Currently in closed beta testing with over 60 VCs, DeckMatch streamlines the process of startup pitching and investment consideration.

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Cogniziv Highlights

• With a heavy heart, Disney's ongoing struggles, as they have now led to the unfortunate closure of Lucasfilm in Singapore

• Into the Omniverse: Reallusion Enhances Character Animation Workflows with Bidirectional Live Sync and OpenUSD Support

• How To Disable My AI On Snapchat? - Numerous users flocked to X (formerly known as Twitter) after encountering a technical issue in Snapchat's AI chatbot, which resulted in My AI posting stories

• Bill Gates Reveals His AI Vision for Education System -

  • AI overcoming current software limitations in education by offering valuable feedback to students, similar to the guidance provided by dedicated teachers.

  • AI could mimic skilled high school teachers, providing detailed essay feedback to enhance students' writing quality.

• AMD optimistic about AI: survey shows 50% enterprises risk lagging in AI adoption.

• Police catch 300 drivers breaking law in three days using AI system

• Microsoft Azure expands healthcare offerings

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