Meta AI goes Hollywood

Welcome, AI enthusiasts.

Meta is making moves in Hollywood, offering celebrities hundreds of thousands to make use of their voices for its recent AI assistant project.

Are we entering a brand new world with billions of celebrity-powered AI voice agents, or heading for an additional ScarJo/OpenAI-style controversy? Let’s get into it…

In today’s AI rundown:

• Meta AI’s recent Hollywood hires

• Google absorbs Character AI talent

• Large 2: A free-to-use GPT-4 competitor

• Tesla unveils recent AI vision for robots

• 6 recent AI tools & 4 recent AI jobs

• More AI & tech news

Read time: 4 minutes

LATEST DEVELOPMENTS

META

⭐ Meta AI’s recent Hollywood hires

The Rundown: Meta is reportedly offering hundreds of thousands to celebrities like Awkwafina, Judi Dench, and Keegan-Michael Key to make use of their voices in upcoming AI projects.

The main points:

• The AI voices could be used across Meta’s platforms, including Facebook, Instagram, and Meta Ray-Ban smart glasses.

• Meta is reportedly rushing to secure deals before its Meta Connect conference in September.

• Contracts are reportedly temporary, with actors having the choice to renew.

• Meta has previously experimented with celebrity-inspired chatbots, though that program has ended.

Why it matters: In our exclusive interview with Mark Zuckerberg, he predicted that “we’ll live in a world where there are going to be a whole bunch of hundreds of thousands or billions of various AI agents”. If it holds true, celebrity voice-powered AI could possibly be a part of Meta’s next big play to drive user engagement and growth on the platform.

TOGETHER WITH ZAPIER

⚡️ Learn AI and automation at ZapConnect 2024

The Rundown: Zapier is hosting its annual virtual user conference on September 26, 2024. 4 content tracks, including a special keynote, will offer insights on using AI and automation you don’t need to miss.

Get exclusive access to:

• How AI and automation can make it easier to revolutionize your workflows

• Way forward for work insights from Zapier CEO Wade Foster and HubSpot CTO Dharmesh Shah

• The newest Zapier features with insider suggestions from automation experts

Click here to secure your spot to ZapConnect 2024 today.

GOOGLE

💰 Google absorbs Character AI talent

The Rundown: Google has signed a non-exclusive licensing agreement with AI startup Character AI for its large language model technology, while also reabsorbing the startup’s co-founders and key talent back into its AI team.

The main points:

• Character AI co-founders Noam Shazeer and Daniel De Freitas return to Google, their former employer.

• Google gains a non-exclusive license to Character AI’s language model technology.

• About 30 of Character AI’s 130 employees, mainly those working on model training and voice AI, will join Google’s Gemini AI efforts.

• Character AI will switch to open-source models like Meta’s Llama 3.1 for its products, moving away from in-house models.

Why it matters: This deal highlights the intensifying race to secure top AI talent, mirroring Microsoft’s recent deal with Inflection and Amazon’s take care of Adept. As AI becomes increasingly critical to tech corporations’ futures, these talent grabs could reshape the landscape, while raising antitrust concerns.

AI TRAINING

🧠 Large 2: A free-to-use GPT-4 competitor

The Rundown: Mistral AI recently released Mistral Large 2, an open-source AI model that rivals GPT-4 in performance across a couple of key benchmarks, available totally free and unlimited use.

Step-by-step:

1. Visit Mistral AI Chat and create an account totally free.

2. Find the “Model” dropdown menu within the chat interface.

3. Select “Large 2” from the list of obtainable models.

4. Start interacting with Mistral Large 2 by typing your prompts or questions.

Get more AI tutorials →

PRESENTED BY ASSEMBLY AI

🎙️ Construct AI products with breakthrough speech AI

The Rundown: AssemblyAI’s developer-approved API offers probably the most AI speech capabilities in the marketplace, including speech-to-text, speech understanding, and full access to Claude 3 models.

AssemblyAI leads the market with:

• Industry-leading accuracy at 95% and WER at 4.8%

• 30% less hallucinations than competitors

• Robust capabilities including access to Claude 3 models for in-depth call evaluation, summarization, and more

Start constructing today with 100 free hours

TESLA

🤖 Tesla unveils recent AI vision for robots

The Rundown: Tesla just filed a patent for an AI-powered vision system that would transform how autonomous robots perceive and navigate their environment using only camera inputs.

The main points:

• The system uses a single neural network to process camera data and output detailed 3D environment information without LiDAR or radar.

• It divides space into 3D voxels, predicting occupancy, shape, semantic data, and motion for every in real time.

• The tech is designed to run on a robot’s onboard computer, enabling immediate decision-making.

• This method could possibly be implemented in each Tesla’s vehicles and humanoid robots like Optimus.

Why it matters: By relying solely on camera inputs and onboard processing, Tesla’s recent vision system could enable robots to navigate diverse environments more efficiently and adapt to changes in real time. This could eliminate the necessity for extensive pre-mapping and speed up the arrival of reasonably priced, autonomous robots.

NEW TOOLS & JOBS

Trending AI Tools

• 🎨 Black Forest Labs FLUX.1 – Generate high-quality from prompts

• 🎵 Neutone Morpho – Transform sounds into auditory experiences in real-time

• 👨‍💻 Llama coder – Generate full React apps with Claude Artifacts and Llama 3.1

• 🔍 Felo Search – Multilingual AI search engine

• 🤗 mgamate – Supportive 1-on-1 AI copilot for managers

• 📈 Clarity – Customer-focused sales with AI meeting recording and tracking

Browse more AI tools →

Recent AI Job Opportunities

• 💳 Luma AI – Senior Backend Engineer – Payments

• 👨‍💻 Limitless AI – Principle Design Engineer

• 💼 Cohere – Head of Product Marketing – AI & Language Models

• 📅 OpenAI – Workplace Events Coordinator

Browse more AI jobs →

QUICK HITS

Adobe Illustrator introduced recent AI-powered generative vector features, allowing users to create complex vector art and patterns from text prompts.

UC Berkeley unveiled the ‘Berkeley Humanoid’, a 2 ft. 9 in. humanoid research platform designed for learning-based control and robust locomotion over various terrains.

Britain canceled $1.7 billion price of computing infrastructure projects, including plans for an exascale computer, dealing a setback to the country’s AI ambitions.

China’s Cixin Technology unveiled the Cixin P1, a brand new 6nm Arm-based 12-core AI chip for PCs, able to 45 TOPS (trillion operations per second) and compatible with multiple operating systems.

Microsoft modified its AI partnership with UAE-based G42, opting to lease AI products as an alternative of transferring sensitive technology amid concerns over G42’s ties to China.

An autonomous robot dentist performed the world’s first human dental procedure, preparing a tooth for a crown in about quarter-hour — significantly faster than human dentists.

THAT’S A WRAP

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