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✨ [Tiferes] AI Future Newsletter - Issue #25

✨ [Tiferes] AI Future Newsletter - Issue #25

Clark Valberg
November 28, 2023 • Estimated Reading Time: 13 minutes

Your weekly briefing on all things AI

This week, we saw Sam Altman return to Open AI with a new board (see last week’s newsletter if you missed the play-by-play). We also see a continued focus by major companies and world powers on AI research & development.

↩️ Sam Altman returns to OpenAI and creates a new board

💪Putin aims to elevate Russian tech to fight “Western Monopoly”

🧑‍🎓Amazon will offer free AI training and scholarships

🗣️ChatGPT with voice is now available for free users

📰 AI in the News

OpenAI Reinstates Altman and Reshapes Board

After a period of upheaval, Sam Altman has resumed his role as OpenAI's CEO. The board, traditionally composed of academics and researchers, now welcomes members with substantial business and technological expertise, signaling a strategic pivot towards a more commercially oriented approach.

This realignment, reflecting the company's adaptation to the evolving AI governance landscape, positions OpenAI to effectively navigate the challenges and opportunities in this dynamic field.

New Board Members:

Bret Taylor: The newly appointed board chair, Bret Taylor, is a business executive with a history of leadership in technology companies. He is a board member at Shopify and the former co-CEO of Salesforce, also having served as Twitter’s final board chair before Elon Musk's acquisition. Taylor co-founded Quip, which Salesforce later acquired, and he launched an AI venture earlier this year. His expertise in scaling tech enterprises is set to influence OpenAI’s strategic decisions. (Bio)

Larry Summers: With a distinguished background in economics and governance, Larry Summers brings to the board his experience as the former U.S. Treasury Secretary and President of Harvard University. His insights, particularly from his time leading the National Economic Council during the Global Financial Crisis, could prove invaluable as OpenAI faces regulatory scrutiny and explores AI's societal impacts. (Bio)

Adam D’Angelo: The CEO of Quora and the developer of an AI chat platform, Poe, Adam D’Angelo is the only holdover from the previous board. His tenure at Meta as CTO and his continuous involvement in the AI space provide him with a deep understanding of the technological and operational facets of the industry. (Bio)

OpenAI’s board restructuring, emphasizing technology and business acumen, suggests a more conventional Silicon Valley trajectory for the company. With Altman at the helm, the organization is poised to explore new commercial horizons while maintaining its capped-profit model under a nonprofit umbrella. (Full Story)

Putin Advocates for Russian AI Development Amidst Western Tech Dominance

Russian President Vladimir Putin has announced an endorsement for a national AI development strategy, aiming to mitigate what he considers an overreliance on Western AI technologies in Russia.

At an AI conference in Moscow, Putin described the dominance of Western AI technology in Russia as "unacceptable and dangerous," emphasizing the need for Russian solutions that adhere to local values and safety standards. He warned of the risk of cultural "cancellation" by Western AI systems and pledged additional resources for developing supercomputers and other technologies to bolster national AI research. The strategy focuses on generative artificial intelligence and large language models, reflecting Russia's cultural heritage and ensuring diverse global and stable international relations.

Putin's stance highlights the geopolitical implications of AI development and the drive for technological sovereignty. This move points to a broader trend of nations recognizing the strategic importance of AI and its potential impact on national security and cultural identity. (Full Story)

💡 Industry Insights

💰 Finance

AI Enhances Efficiency on Wall Street: Wall Street banks are increasingly turning to AI for tasks like writing performance reviews, with software firm Workday observing a surge in interest in its AI-driven workforce management tools. Deutsche Bank and others are implementing AI to reduce the time spent on routine tasks, enhancing productivity and potentially transforming the workforce. AI's promise of efficiency gains is underscored by leaders like JPMorgan's CEO, suggesting a significant reduction in the workweek by automating mundane tasks, potentially freeing up to 40% of working hours for more strategic activities. (link)

AI-Powered Financial Forecasting: South Dakota State University researchers have created an AI model named ALERTA-Net that can predict stock market trends, integrating social media, search engines, and macroeconomic data. This innovative approach outperforms traditional methods like technical analysis, which relies on historical data but can miss sudden market changes. The model's incorporation of vast data sources has shown superior accuracy in anticipating stock movements and could have broader applications beyond financial markets. (link)

🏥 Healthcare

AI Medical Innovation: Nvidia collaborates with SandboxAQ, an Alphabet spinoff, leveraging Nvidia's computational might to simulate chemical reactions for drug and battery material development. SandboxAQ's AI and Nvidia's processors are set to innovate in medicine, energy, and finance, using AI capabilities to tackle major global challenges without the current need for quantum computing. This partnership highlights the advancing frontier of AI in scientific discovery. (link)

🏠 Real Estate

AI in Commercial Real Estate: Cushman & Wakefield aims to revolutionize the commercial real estate (CRE) sector with its AI+ Digital Transformation Strategy. The firm seeks to enhance client service and operational efficiency by embedding AI throughout the CRE transaction lifecycle. AI+, built on strategic partnerships and proprietary data, will enable real-time, AI-powered insights and automation, setting a new industry standard. The strategy has already yielded significant operational improvements and will continue to leverage advanced technologies like AI marketing copilot Jasper to optimize data across the enterprise. (link)

🔐 Cyber Security

Microsoft Invests in Canadian Cybersecurity and AI: Microsoft is set to bolster Quebec’s digital infrastructure with a $500 million investment focusing on cybersecurity and AI. This move will expand local cloud infrastructure by 750% and accelerate AI innovation. The initiative includes partnerships for French language training in cybersecurity and GenAI skills and aims to boost digital economy skills. In augmenting previous investments, Microsoft's commitment aims to enhance cloud capacity and the digital ecosystem, benefiting MSPs and the broader economy with a sharp focus on cybersecurity and AI expertise. (link)

⚖️ Legal

AI Disclosure in Court: The Fifth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals is proposing a rule requiring lawyers to declare AI use in drafting legal filings. This move, a first among federal appeals courts, aims to ensure the accuracy of AI-assisted citations and legal analysis. Attorneys must verify human review of AI-generated text, with potential sanctions for misinformation. This follows incidents of AI-produced errors in legal documents and is part of a broader judicial effort to manage the integration of generative AI technologies in the legal process. Public feedback on the proposal is open until January 4. (link)

📈 Venture Deals

Chipmaker Broadcom completes $69 billion deal to buy VMware. (link)
Macquarie invests $190 million in green aviation fuel supplier SkyNRG. (link)
Israeli startup AI21 raises $155 million in funding round, for a total of $283 million, valued at $1.4 billion. (link)
Elon Musk’s Neuralink raises another $43 million under the radar. (link)
Munch, an AI-powered automation startup for social media, raises $7.2 million in seed funding. (link)
Lasso Security raises $6 million seed funding for gen AI and advanced LLM cyber. (link)
Irish AI firm Zerve raises $3.8 million in pre-seed funding round. (link)
Birdseye raises $3 million to revolutionize how brands and retailers target customers. (link)
Defog raises $2.2 million to build LLMs for data analysis. (link)
Austrian Impact AI receives €1.5 million in pre-seed funding. (link)

🛠️ Latest AI Tools

Capcut is a suite to create stunning videos.
StoryChief streamlines content collaboration for teams.
SphinxMind revolutionizes marketing with multi-platform tools.
Keplar enables scalable customer modeling with influencer data insights.
Jupitrr generates stock videos/images and captions for videos.
Fabric makes your screenshots organized and searchable.
Munch extracts the most impactful clips from your long-form videos.