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🤖 Is Your Next BFF an AI Necklace?

Plus: OpenAI and Microsoft are officially competitors

August 08, 2024

Hello AI Enthusiast,

This week we're seeing a new AI companion that aims to combat loneliness, but it's got us wondering about the price of artificial empathy. Meanwhile, Microsoft and OpenAI's relationship status is transforming and competition is getting in the way. And Meta's latest open-source AI model might change how machines see the world, with potential ripple effects across industries.

Ready to dive in?

The Big Picture 🔊

AI Necklace Aims to Cure Loneliness

The company Friend has raised $2.5 million to fund the development of an AI device shaped like a necklace. This device combats loneliness by listening to users and providing responses via an app connected through Bluetooth. Friend aims to offer constant companionship, ensuring that no recordings are stored. You can pre-order it for $99.

Gianluca Mauro
Gianluca MauroCEO and AI Rockstar

Fun fact: Friend spent $1.8 million of their $2.5 million funding on the domain friend.com (!). Their business model is questionable: you pay once for the device and nothing else, but the company continues to pay for the user’s AI usage. We wonder how long that can last.

The big question is: If we are trying to fix loneliness is fake empathy better than no empathy?

How would you feel about an AI companion?

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Microsoft Calls OpenAI Both Partner and Rival

Microsoft now identifies its long-term partner OpenAI as a competitor in AI offerings and search advertising. Despite this competition, both companies maintain a strong collaborative relationship, with Microsoft continuing to integrate OpenAI's models into its Azure service and other products.

Helin Yontar
Helin YontarCPO and Podcast Host

Microsoft now calls OpenAI a competitor, but they're still close partners. Microsoft funds OpenAI, and OpenAI provides the tech.

We're curious to see how this relationship evolves. Will they grow more competitive, or find a way to keep this unusual alliance going?

Meta Unveils Smarter AI Vision

Meta has unveiled the Segment Anything Model 2 (SAM 2), an AI model for real-time object segmentation in both images and videos. SAM 2 excels in accuracy and efficiency and requires less interaction time. And it’s open source.

Gioele Mottarlini
Gioele MottarliniCOO and Image Addict

SAM 2 could be a game-changer for many fields. It'll help AR better understand what's around us, self-driving cars could spot obstacles faster, doctors might catch issues in scans earlier, and your phone camera could get a lot smarter at focusing.

Being open source, these improvements might pop up everywhere.

Bits and Bobs 🗞️

  • OpenAI developed a watermarking system for ChatGPT text, but nearly 30% of surveyed users said they’d use it less, sparking internal debates about its implementation.

  • Perplexity has launched the Perplexity Publishers Program, partnering with media organizations like TIME and Fortune following plagiarism accusations.

  • Google has launched Gemini 1.5 Pro, its latest AI model that, they declare, outperforms competitors like OpenAI's systems.

  • Reddit CEO Steve Huffman criticizes Microsoft, Anthropic, and Perplexity for using Reddit data without proper agreements.

  • GitHub is launching Models a public beta to enable over 100 million developers to build AI applications with models like GPT-4o and Mistral.

  • Google Chrome is introducing three new AI features: enhanced Google Lens for desktop searches, Tab Compare for product comparisons, and improved history search.

  • Two key figures, John Schulman and Greg Brockman, are leaving OpenAI, with Schulman focusing on AI alignment and Brockman taking a break until the year's end.

  • Elon Musk has refiled a lawsuit against OpenAI and its executives, alleging the company abandoned its nonprofit mission and engaged in racketeering, now in a different court.

  • Midjourney released new 6.1 version offering enhanced image coherence, faster processing speeds, improved text accuracy in prompts, and advanced personalization options.

  • NVIDIA reportedly trained its AI models using data from YouTube and other sources, sparking ethical and legal concerns.

Tribal News🫂

We recently shared the story of Giacomo, a past student from our GenAI Project Bootcamp. His project and growth were impressive, and we enjoy highlighting our students' achievements.

If you’re interested in the Bootcamp or other student stories visit our webpage. Our next cohort starts in September, a great time to learn new AI project skills after the holiday season. Get on the waitlist for a discount.

From Our Channels 🤳

While AI companies like Midjourney keep improving their models, creating unconventional realistic images remains challenging. Gianluca comments on a recent, already iconic picture from the Olympics’ surf competition.

@gianluca.mauro

Why AI cannot replicate this image #Ai #learnontiktok #artificialintelligence #machinelearning #entrepreneur #olympics #gabrielmedina #surf

LOLgorithms 😂

Some people are already showing appreciation for the new AI companion.

That's a wrap on our newsletter! Here’s a quick recap before you go:

Catch you next week! 👋