Dive in — The strategic genius of Taylor Swift || Microsoft’s design chief on the AI era || An entire company staffed with AI Agents || Elon's visit to Pope Francis || The OpenAI mafia, and more
Expand your understanding of artificial intelligence daily, with a curated, daily stream of significant breakthroughs, compelling insights, and emerging AI trends that will shape tomorrow.
The strategic genius of Taylor Swift
Less than two decades since making her debut recording, Taylor Swift has conquered the music industry.
Historically, musicians have found it difficult to sustain success. Today, Swift is already a multigenerational phenomenon: The teenage girls who bought her 2006 debut album are now bringing their own children to her shows. Indeed, Swift’s ability to reinvent herself and attract new fans while retaining the core of what her existing fans love is key to her unique cultural momentum.
What is the secret to Swift’s long-term success? It can be attributed to four behaviors: targeting untapped markets, finding opportunities to create stickiness, maintaining productive paranoia, and adapting to radical shifts in platforms
Read more | HARVARD BUSINESS REVIEW
Microsoft’s design chief on human creation in the AI era
Jon Friedman’s own job has changed because of AI, so he’s focused on the content as well as its design. ”Suddenly the design job is how do you edit,” says Friedman. “Even my job over the past 6–8 months has become an editor-in-chief job of the product, not just the design leader.”
Read more | THE VERGE
An entire company was staffed with AI Agents and you'll never guess what happened
A recent experiment by researchers at Carnegie Mellon University staffed a fake software company entirely with AI Agents — an AI model designed to perform tasks on its own, basically — and the results were laughably chaotic.
The simulation, dubbed TheAgentCompany, was fully stocked with artificial workers from Google, OpenAI, Anthropic and Meta. They filled roles as financial analysts, software engineers, and project managers, working alongside simulated coworkers like a faux-HR department and a chief technical officer.
Read more | FUTURISM
The OpenAI mafia: 15 of the most notable startups founded by alumni
Move over, PayPal mafia. There’s a new tech mafia in Silicon Valley. As the startup behind ChatGPT, OpenAI is arguably the biggest AI player in town. Its meteoric rise to a $300 billion valuation has spurred many employees to leave the AI giant to create startups of their own.
Read more | TechCrunch
Elon Musk’s private visit to Pope Francis
In July 2022, the worlds of religion and technology came together at the Vatican, where Pope Francis received Elon Musk, along with several of his children, for a private 40-minute meeting at his residence, Casa Santa Marta.
The pontiff and the head of Tesla exchanged views on the future of humanity and technology, as well as shared perspectives on the so-called “demographic winter,” analyzing the low birth rates in many countries and the need for regulations in the field of Artificial Intelligence.
Read more | AS.com
China hosts first robot half-marathon
When humanoids and robots were invited to join real flesh-and-blood runners for a half-marathon in Beijing this past weekend, the race garnered attention but also laid bare the challenges still facing the industry as China seeks to dominate technologies of the future.
Some of the robots barely got started. One, designed with a woman’s body and face, collapsed moments after getting started, sending a group of engineers rushing to its side with laptops. Another that was mounted to a platform with propellers crashed into a barrier.
Read more | NBC NEWS
AI-Powered Rescue Dogs
A new relationship, really, between artificial intelligence, animals, nuts-and-bolts technology, and humans. In this test, AI-enabled tools are being put through their paces to see if they can enable search-dog teams to help rescuers find people faster after a catastrophic event, such as an earthquake or tornado.
High above the scene hovers a drone, gathering information about the dog’s movements. Combining this data with stats on the location, including its topography and weather conditions, AI-powered software can make predictions of where someone in need of rescue is most likely to be. This information in hand, the human handler in a real rescue could then send drones equipped with cameras and infrared sensors out ahead of the dog—faster and more efficiently than either mammal could go—to pinpoint the victim.
Read more | NAUTILUS
I let AI design my home. Here’s what happened.
I wanted someone to look at my space and tell me what actually needed fixing—not just make it prettier. Enter ChatGPT. When you upgrade to the pro version (GPT-4), you get both image analysis and generation capabilities—meaning it can create design concepts as well as actually assess my existing rooms.
Before long we were deep in collaborative conversation in a way that felt collaborative rather than condescending. “We'll hang full-length drapery panels well above the window frame,” it told me. It suggested Kravet, Schumacher, and Romo for sourcing the fabric, which met my approval. When I asked about costs, it broke down everything from fabric yardage to installation fees in my area.
Read more | ELLE
Godfather of AI Geoffrey Hinton warns AI could take control from humans
"The best way to understand it emotionally is we are like somebody who has this really cute tiger cub," Hinton explained. "Unless you can be very sure that it's not gonna want to kill you when it's grown up, you should worry." The AI pioneer estimates a 10% to 20% risk that artificial intelligence will eventually take control from humans.
"People haven't got it yet, people haven't understood what's coming," he warned.
Read more | CBS NEWS
Victim of AI-generated revenge porn tells the incident changed her ‘whole personality’
Deepfake sex crimes, generated with AI tools, have become a particular concern at South Korean universities and schools, with only a fraction of the perpetrators arrested.
CNN’s Mike Valerio spoke to a victim who took action after explicit deepfakes of her surfaced online.
Read more | CNN
Unmissable AI
Your daily dose of curated AI breakthroughs, insights, and emerging trends. Subscribe for FREE to receive new posts, thanks!