Sam Altmans’ new $1B AI device – The Rundown
Welcome, AI enthusiasts.
Sam Altman and Jony Ive are no strangers to revolutionizing industries — and now they’re setting their sights on the world of AI-powered devices.
With a potential $1B in funding, could the secretive startup from the powerful duo be a new dark horse in the race for AI hardware dominance? Let’s explore…
In today’s AI rundown:
Altman and Ive’s AI device startup
Tesla Robotaxi coming in August
Craft a stylish new signature with AI
Cornell: More Agents, smarter AI systems
6 new AI tools & 4 new AI jobs
More AI & tech news
Read time: 4 minutes
LATEST DEVELOPMENTS
SAM ALTMAN
💰 Altman and Ive’s AI device startup
Image source: Bloomberg
The Rundown: OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and former Apple designer Jony Ive are reportedly in talks to raise up to $1B from high-profile investors for their secretive AI-powered personal device company.
The details:
The proposed device will not look like a phone, but will likely integrate with OpenAI’s conversational AI tech.
Emerson Collective and Thrive Capital are among the potential investors, both with close ties to Altman and Ive.
Altman was previously in discussions with Japanese investment giant SoftBank on funding, with news of the hardware ambitions leaking in late 2023.
Altman is also an investor in Humane AI, which will ship the first batch of its personal ‘AI Pin’ devices this month.
Why it matters: The Altman-Ive collab is a perfect combo of design and AI power — and could be a dark horse to compete with hardware giants as the on-device AI era grows. However, the venture also raises even more questions about the blurring lines between OpenAI and Altman’s growing web of companies/interests.
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TESLA
🚖 Tesla Robotaxi reveal coming in August
Image source: Tesla
The Rundown: Elon Musk just announced that Tesla will reveal its long-awaited fully autonomous Robotaxi at an event on Aug. 8th, which comes as rumors swirl that the company is abandoning plans for an affordable line of EVs.
The details:
On Friday, Reuters reported that Tesla’s entry-level EV will no longer be built.
Musk quickly called the Reuters report ‘a lie’, later posting that the Robotaxi will be unveiled on Aug. 8.
Musk previously said the company’s Robotaxis would be operational by 2020 and would feature no pedals or steering wheel.
Tesla just celebrated hitting the milestone of 1 billion miles driven by its fully self-driving (FSD) vehicles.
Why it matters: Tesla has a grand vision for the future of transportation — and AI advances coming from Musk’s companies suggest the tech could be closer than most believe. But given legal battles and inclination for bold timelines, we’ll see when the autonomous rubber actually meets the road.
AI TRAINING
✍️ Craft a stylish new signature with AI
The Rundown: With the prompt below, you can create a new signature or get inspiration using any AI image generator — perfect for the bottom of your emails!
The Prompt: “Highly minimalist, single-line drawing where the outline of a tiny [OBJECT] on the left smoothly and fluidly transitions continuing into a signature on the right. The signature, prominently spelling out ‘[NAME]’, should be clear, legible, and stylish on a [white/black] canvas. This drawing should embody simplicity and elegance, capturing the essence of a sophisticated and personal brand with an artistic and graceful feel.”
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Create personalized characters that look just like you with a single selfie
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AI RESEARCH
🧠 Cornell: More Agents, smarter AI systems
Image source: Midjourney
The Rundown: A new study from Cornell researchers just found that increasing the number of AI agents collaborating on a problem can significantly improve performance.
The details:
The researchers created many agents of an AI model and had them each work on a problem independently.
The agents’ answers were then combined using a voting system to determine the best overall solution.
Increasing the number of agents improved accuracy across tasks using various LLMs like Llama and GPT.
A smaller LLM could match or outperform a larger one by scaling up the number of agents, with a 13B parameter Llama model beating a 70B version on some tasks.
Why it matters: This study shows that there’s a simple and effective way to make AI systems smarter: strength in numbers. As compute power and abilities continue to scale, automating unlimited amounts of agents to complete tasks could lead to mind-blowing increases in capabilities.
NEW TOOLS & JOBS
Trending AI Tools
⚙️ Plandex AI- Open-source, terminal-based AI coding engine
♟️ Noctie AI- Practice chess against a humanlike AI
🔄 Autotab- Automate tedious tasks using AI
🎥 Infinity AI- Script-to-video generation tool
🧠 IKI AI- Knowledge assistant for professionals and teams
✍️ Metaforms- AI-powered form builder
Browse more AI tools →
New AI Job Opportunities
💡 Fiddler AI – Senior Solutions Engineer
🎙️ Cohere – Account Executive
👨🏫 OpenAI – Model Teacher, Technical
🖋️ C3 AI – Senior Copywriter
Browse more AI jobs →
QUICK HITS
Anthropic introduced ‘tool use’ to Claude, allowing the model to perform a wider variety of tasks and access external data sources and functions.
Canada PM Justin Trudeau revealed plans to allocate $2.4B in the budget to build up the country’s AI capabilities and boost technical infrastructure.
Huawei released a new iteration of its weather AI model called Zhiji, which can provide a five-day weather forecast with a precision of just 2 miles.
DataStax acquired Langflow, an open-source tool built on LangChain that enables developers to build AI applications faster and more easily.
Y Combinator showcased a wide range of startups at its Winter 2024 Demo Day, featuring companies across industries including healthcare, chip design, and AI.
Restaurants and grocery stores are using AI to analyze food waste by monitoring garbage and purchases, aiming to reduce the 30-40% of food that goes uneaten and trashed.
THAT’S A WRAP
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