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November 14, 2024
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4 minutes
Hello, Niuralogists!
Welcome to this week’s edition, where we dive into the latest advancements in artificial intelligence. We’ll explore how these innovations are shaping various aspects of our lives—from the workplace and business to policies and personal experiences. This issue highlights some fascinating updates, including AI consciousness and ethical treatment, uses in the medical and artistic fields, new pushes for open-source AI research, and more.
For more in-depth coverage, keep reading…
In a groundbreaking leap for medical robotics, Johns Hopkins and Stanford researchers have developed a robotic training system using imitation learning to teach surgical procedures. Instead of traditional programming, the robot learned by watching video footage of expert surgeons, effectively mimicking their movements with remarkable precision. The da Vinci Surgical System robot, trained on this model, demonstrated surgical skills on par with human doctors in tasks like needle manipulation, tissue handling, and suturing.
This advance marks a significant step toward fully autonomous surgical robots, potentially reducing medical errors and enhancing surgical accuracy. This model's adaptability even allows it to correct mistakes, such as picking up a dropped needle, without human guidance. Presented at the Conference on Robot Learning, this breakthrough could transform surgery, accelerating the path to AI-driven, autonomous healthcare.
Amazon’s new $110 million “Build on Trainium” initiative offers unprecedented support for AI research by providing university researchers access to AWS Trainium, Amazon's ML chip, to drive forward generative AI. The program enables researchers to develop new AI models, optimizations, and machine learning libraries using AWS’s ultra-scale Trainium UltraClusters, designed to handle complex AI workloads with up to 40,000 Trainium chips.
Participating institutions like Carnegie Mellon and UC Berkeley will leverage these resources for AI research in fields like tensor program compilation and ML parallelization. Additionally, researchers receive AWS Trainium credits and will publish their work as open-source, widening accessibility and accelerating AI advancements. By supporting AI infrastructure and student education, Amazon aims to empower future AI experts, creating a foundation for groundbreaking innovations across healthcare, finance, and more.
The Beatles' track "Now and Then," finalized with AI assistance, has received Grammy nominations for Record of the Year and Best Rock Performance, marking the first Grammy nod for an AI-assisted song. Released in late 2023, “Now and Then” used AI-driven stem separation technology to isolate John Lennon’s vocal from a low-quality demo recorded decades ago, allowing a polished final version. Contrary to initial fan speculation, no generative AI was used to simulate Lennon’s voice.
The Recording Academy has been exploring AI’s role in music and its eligibility for awards. This nomination highlights AI’s potential to enhance historical recordings and redefine creative boundaries. The Beatles’ nominations mark their first in decades and could bring a win in the Record of the Year category, where they’ve been nominated three times previously but never won.
In a promising development presented at the American Heart Association’s 2024 Scientific Sessions, researchers unveiled an AI-powered system using video analysis to detect high blood pressure and diabetes non-invasively. Developed in Japan, the system captures 5- to 30-second video clips of the face and hands, analyzing blood flow patterns to identify health conditions with accuracy comparable to traditional methods. For instance, it identified hypertension with 94% accuracy and diabetes with 75% accuracy.
If refined, this technology could offer affordable, contactless screenings, allowing individuals to monitor these risk factors at home using accessible devices like smartphones. Though preliminary, these findings open pathways toward non-invasive health diagnostics, potentially transforming routine health monitoring and enabling early intervention for cardiovascular diseases. Further validation and FDA approvals are anticipated as development progresses.
A portrait of World War II codebreaker Alan Turing, created by Ai-Da Robot, an AI-powered humanoid artist, has sold for $1,084,800 at Sotheby’s auction. Initially estimated to fetch between $120,000 and $180,000, the piece, titled "A.I. God," attracted 27 bids, far surpassing expectations. This historic sale marks the first time an artwork by a humanoid robot has been auctioned, establishing a new benchmark for AI-generated art in the global art market.
Ai-Da Robot, using advanced AI and robotics, completed 15 portraits of Turing, each taking up to eight hours. The artwork aims to spark dialogue on the ethical and societal implications of AI, aligning with Turing’s legacy as the father of computing and artificial intelligence.
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Anthropic recently hired Kyle Fish as its first dedicated “AI welfare” researcher to examine whether future AI systems might require moral consideration. This pioneering role, reported by AI newsletter Transformer, suggests growing interest in AI consciousness and ethical questions surrounding AI welfare. Fish’s recent report, "Taking AI Welfare Seriously," argues for the need to explore whether advanced AI might someday exhibit traits like consciousness or agency, potentially deserving ethical protections.
The report suggests companies should evaluate AI for signs of consciousness, using techniques like "marker methods" similar to those applied in animal consciousness studies. It also warns of the risks in wrongly anthropomorphizing AI, noting past incidents where users perceived AI as sentient, leading to emotional responses and ethical debates. While the field is still in early exploration stages, Fish and Anthropic aim to spark a broader conversation on AI welfare.
San Francisco-based Writer has secured $200 million in Series C funding, bringing its valuation to $1.9 billion, up from $500 million last year. Co-led by Iconiq Growth, Premji Invest, and Radical Ventures, with additional backing from tech giants like Salesforce Ventures and Adobe Ventures, the funding reinforces investors' confidence in enterprise-focused generative AI.
Writer’s platform leverages large language models (LLMs) to streamline complex workflows across sectors like healthcare, retail, and finance. CEO May Habib highlighted the company’s focus on creating "mission-critical" AI systems designed for security and adaptability in real-world enterprise environments. With clients like Accenture and Uber, Writer aims to transform enterprise operations with AI solutions that deliver immediate, practical value. October's $12.2 billion funding surge in AI shows this sector’s ongoing growth, with Writer at the forefront.
⏰ EarlyAI is an AI agent for test code generation to reduce the cost of bugs and deliver higher-quality software
🧠 Cerebrium is a serverless infrastructure for AI/ML apps to build faster and cheaper
✍️ Agree helps you securely send and sign any agreement with AI-powered workflows
🖍️ Webdraw takes your drawings and codes them into a web app instantly
⚙️ Segwise is an AI-powered monitoring of ad campaign data to boost your return on ad spend for games and apps
