Here is the daily technology #threadcast for 5/15/25. The goal is to make this a technology "reddit".
Drop all question, comments, and articles relating to #technology and the future. The goal is make it a technology center.
Here is the daily technology #threadcast for 5/15/25. The goal is to make this a technology "reddit".
Drop all question, comments, and articles relating to #technology and the future. The goal is make it a technology center.
Anthropic is about to break its silence: The Claude-maker is reportedly gearing up to release new versions of Sonnet and Opus that combine reasoning and tool use for the first time. That means they can propose an idea, then go check it themselves using external databases and apps. The same goes for coding: The models will test out what they’ve generated partway through and fix their mistakes before delivering a final output. We don’t have an exact timeline, but we expect the models to be out within the next few weeks.
https://www.theinformation.com/articles/anthropics-upcoming-models-will-think-think?utm_source=superhuman&utm_medium=newsletter&utm_campaign=gpt-4-1-is-the-new-4o&_bhlid=393a79d072c8cea771f93cd261c9475b854342b6
OpenAI finally brings GPT-4.1 to ChatGPT: The startup revealed that Plus, Pro, and Team users will soon get to try GPT-4.1, while free users can access the mini version. That means GPT-4o is going away for now, but OpenAI says you shouldn’t despair, since 4.1 is better in just about every regard. It essentially combines the coding power of o1 and o3 with the speed of OpenAI’s base models. Both 4.1 and 4.1 mini were announced in April, but only developers could use them until now.
https://openai.com/index/gpt-4-1/?utm_source=superhuman&utm_medium=newsletter&utm_campaign=gpt-4-1-is-the-new-4o&_bhlid=452dc2cfef162243c5fc8cf0c74758afbd44679c
DeepMind’s latest model could help solve AI’s biggest challenges: The research lab just unveiled AlphaEvolve, a coding agent that can help solve technical problems, like making data centers, chip designs, and even Gemini’s own training methods more efficient. When Google fed it over 50 open math problems, it solved 75% of them, and 20% of the time, it even improved upon the best-known solution up to that point. It was built by combining the creativity of Gemini with a sophisticated program that checks and scores the model’s outputs.
https://deepmind.google/discover/blog/alphaevolve-a-gemini-powered-coding-agent-for-designing-advanced-algorithms/?utm_source=superhuman&utm_medium=newsletter&utm_campaign=gpt-4-1-is-the-new-4o&_bhlid=a00da370baa20920cb25b8f44e2e8af958878ff1
Workspace platform Notion gets an AI overhaul: The popular productivity tool is joining the likes of Zoom, Granola, and Otter by introducing new AI-powered note-taking and transcription features. Plus, you can now use AI to search across all of your company’s data, conduct in-depth research, and draft documents. For now, you can switch between GPT-4.1 and Claude 3.7, with more models coming soon.
https://techcrunch.com/2025/05/13/notion-takes-on-ai-notetakers-like-granola-with-its-own-transcription-feature/?utm_source=superhuman&utm_medium=newsletter&utm_campaign=tiktok-gets-video-gen&_bhlid=76135c82d473ab97a9dfc2ae196c7309526fe4fd
TikTok brings video generation to the masses: With its 1.8B monthly users, the platform is rolling out a feature called AI Alive that turns still images into videos. The move makes sense, considering parent company ByteDance has recently been churning out VLMs left and right. While you won’t get the same level of control as dedicated video-gen tools, AI Alive wins in accessibility, since anyone can try it right in the app. But it’s also raising fears that AI slop could take over the platform.
https://newsroom.tiktok.com/en-us/introducing-tiktok-ai-alive?utm_source=superhuman&utm_medium=newsletter&utm_campaign=tiktok-gets-video-gen&_bhlid=13939cfe34436e53cedf2662070ecac967f4438f
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James White, chief technology officer at cybersecurity startup CalypsoAI, said newer models are sacrificing security for quality, that is, better responses by the AI chatbots. That means they're less likely to reject malicious kinds of prompts that could cause them to reveal ways to build bombs or sensitive information that hackers could exploit, White said.
"The models are getting better, but they're also more likely to be good at bad stuff," said White, whose company performs safety and security audits of popular models from Meta, Google, OpenAI and other companies. "It's easier to trick them to do bad stuff."
CNBC spoke with more than a dozen AI professionals in Silicon Valley who collectively tell the story of a dramatic shift in the industry away from research and toward revenue-generating products. Some are former employees at the companies with direct knowledge of what they say is the prioritization of building new AI products at the expense of research and safety checks. They say employees face intensifying development timelines, reinforcing the idea that they can't afford to fall behind when it comes to getting new models and products to market. Some of the people asked not to be named because they weren't authorized to speak publicly on the matter.
"Our commitment to FAIR remains strong," a Meta spokesperson told CNBC. "Our strategy and plans will not change as a result of recent developments."
In a statement to CNBC, Pineau said she is enthusiastic about Meta's overall AI work and strategy.
"There continues to be strong support for exploratory research and FAIR as a distinct organization in Meta," Pineau said. "The time was simply right for me personally to re-focus my energy before jumping into a new adventure."
Meta on Thursday named FAIR co-founder Rob Fergus as Pineau's replacement. Fergus will return to the company to serve as a director at Meta and head of FAIR, according to his LinkedIn profile. He was most recently a research director at Google DeepMind.
"Meta's commitment to FAIR and long term research remains unwavering," Fergus said in a LinkedIn post. "We're working towards building human-level experiences that transform the way we interact with technology and are dedicated to leading and advancing AI research."
The Financial Times in March reported that Google DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis had installed a more rigorous vetting process for internal research papers to be published. The clampdown at Google is particularly notable because the company's "Transformers" technology gained recognition across Silicon Valley through that type of shared research. Transformers were critical to OpenAI's development of ChatGPT and the rise of generative AI.
Google co-founder Sergey Brin told staffers at DeepMind and Gemini in February that competition has accelerated and "the final race to AGI is afoot," according to a memo viewed by CNBC. "We have all the ingredients to win this race but we are going to have to turbocharge our efforts," he said in the memo.
AI research takes a backseat to profits as Silicon Valley prioritizes products over safety, experts say
Tech companies are focusing on AI products over research, say industry experts, who are sounding the alarm about safety.
Not long ago, Silicon Valley was where the world's leading artificial intelligence experts went to perform cutting-edge research.
Meta, Google and OpenAI opened their wallets for top talent, giving researchers staff, computing power and plenty of flexibility. With the support of their employers, the researchers published high-quality academic papers, openly sharing their breakthroughs with peers in academia and at rival companies.
But that era has ended. Now, experts say, AI is all about the product.
Since OpenAI released ChatGPT in late 2022, the tech industry has shifted its focus to building consumer-ready AI services, in many cases prioritizing commercialization over research, AI researchers and experts in the field told CNBC. The profit potential is massive — some analysts predict $1 trillion in annual revenue by 2028. The prospective repercussions terrify the corner of the AI universe concerned about safety, industry experts said, particularly as leading players pursue artificial general intelligence, or AGI, which is technology that rivals or exceeds human intelligence.
When Joelle Pineau, a Meta vice president and the head of the company's FAIR division, announced in April that she would be leaving her post, many former employees said they weren't surprised. They said they viewed it as solidifying the company's move away from AI research and toward prioritizing developing practical products.
"Today, as the world undergoes significant change, as the race for AI accelerates, and as Meta prepares for its next chapter, it is time to create space for others to pursue the work," Pineau wrote on LinkedIn, adding that she will formally leave the company May 30.
!summarize #ai #ericschmidt #technology
Saudi Arabia locks in historic deals with Nvidia, Amazon, AMD, and Google: Mark Zuckerberg, Elon Musk, and Sam Altman are just a few of the tech bigwigs visiting Saudi Arabia this week with hopes of landing multi-billion-dollar deals with the emerging AI powerhouse. For its part, Nvidia agreed to hand over 18,000 advanced chips to support the country’s newly announced AI startup, Humain. AWS is going in on a $5B project to build an “AI Zone” inside the nation. And Google will back Saudi VC STV’s new $100M AI fund. That’s just the start of a week that’ll likely be filled with billion-dollar handshakes.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-05-13/google-backs-saudi-ai-fund-as-trump-mbs-tout-new-investments?utm_source=superhuman&utm_medium=newsletter&utm_campaign=tiktok-gets-video-gen&_bhlid=4e09d8e47028f4a08e7cbd597444fe065698d270
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-05-13/google-backs-saudi-ai-fund-as-trump-mbs-tout-new-investments?utm_source=superhuman&utm_medium=newsletter&utm_campaign=tiktok-gets-video-gen&_bhlid=4e09d8e47028f4a08e7cbd597444fe065698d270