Last Week in AI Podcast Notes

Introduction

• Hosted by Andri Rankov and Jeremy Harris
• Discussion on AI news and events
• Andri Rankov works at a generative AI startup and has a PhD in AI from Stanford
• Jeremy Harris is the co-founder of Gladstone AI, focusing on AI and national security

Personal Updates

• Jeremy's wife is expecting a baby
• Use of GPT-4 for voice replication noted

Listener Feedback

• Reviews on Apple Podcast and YouTube
• Comments about podcast positivity and content

AI Industry Trends

Google and Character AI

• Google hired Character AI's founders, indicating potential struggles in AI startups
• Similar moves from Microsoft with Inflection AI
• Competition for AI talent and data is intense

Amazon and Adept

• Amazon hired Adept's top employees, reimbursing investors
• Trend of acquiring talent rather than companies

Groq's Valuation Rise

• Groq's valuation increased due to a $640 million funding round
• Focus on inference chips, aims for large-scale production

OpenAI Departures

• Co-founder John Schulman left for Anthropic, focusing on AI alignment
• Greg Brockman taking leave, Peter Deng departed

Elon Musk Lawsuit

• Musk filed a lawsuit against OpenAI alleging breach of founding agreement

Figure's Humanoid Robot

• Figure 02 unveiled, powered by GPT for conversational capabilities

ASML and Tokyo Electron Export Rules

• Able to continue selling to China despite new US rules

OpenAI's Investment in Opal

• OpenAI invested in a webcam startup, Opal

Tools and Apps

OpenAI's Price Cuts

• GPT-4 prices reduced by 50% for input tokens, 33% for output tokens
• Introduced structured outputs feature

Apple Intelligence Plus

• Potential new service with extra features for a monthly fee

Audible's AI Features

• Testing AI-powered search feature and AI-curated collections

Reddit's AI Search

• Testing AI-powered search results with summaries

Research and Advancements

Test-Time Compute Optimization

• Study on scaling test-time compute optimally
• Could outperform larger models by using efficient compute strategies

Robot Table Tennis

• Achieving human-level performance in table tennis through hierarchical modular policies

Self-Compressing Neural Networks

• Method for reducing neural network size while maintaining accuracy

Impact of Format Restrictions

• Study on how format restrictions impact LLM performance

Berkeley Humanoid

• New research platform for learning-based control in humanoid robots

Policy and Safety

Meter's AI Audit

• Meter performed audits of AI models, examining autonomy and survival capabilities

California AI Regulation Bill

• Fei-Fei Li voiced opposition, citing potential harm to AI ecosystem

Google Monopolization Ruling

• Judge ruled Google monopolized search through illegal deals

Amazon and Anthropic Investigation

• UK investigating Amazon's $4 billion investment in Anthropic

GPT-4 System Card

• OpenAI released a system card with safety evaluations for GPT-4