Apple's Robotic Bet, AI's Electricity Demand
05 April 2024: Apple Explores Robotics, Princeton Prof on AI Power, OpenAI Expands, Google Books' AI Issues, Chinese AI Revives Deceased, SEO Backlink Scam
Good Morning & Happy Friday,
Latest in AI,
1. 1-Minute Roundup
2. Headlines
3. AI Investment Deals
4. Other AI News1-Minute Roundup
Apple explores personal robotics for new growth avenues
Princeton's Jesse Jenkins: AI won't stress power grids much, "not a crisis"
Fluid Topics: €15M for GenAI customer service platform
Lirvana Labs: $5.3M for personalized learning
Lexter.ai: R$16M Series A for AI legal services in Brazil
SiMa.ai: $70M for AI chips in consumer devices
Flowstep: €1M grant for AI-driven UX library
Ivo: $4.8M for AI legal contract review
Supersimple: €2M pre-seed for AI data analytics platform
Manifold: $15M Series A for AI clinical research platform
Aerospike: $109M Series E for real-time AI applications
Metaview: $7M, 500 clients for AI recruiter note-taking app
Aiorde: $1M seed for AI investment analysis
DataStax acquires Logspace (Langflow) for RAG applications
Shield AI acquires Sentient Vision for AI defence capabilities
Lambda Labs: $500M loan for accelerators-as-a-service
Fake AI "law firm" sends copyright threats for SEO backlinks
OpenAI expands Custom Model program for enterprise AI
Google Books includes low-quality AI-generated books
Chinese use AI to create digital avatars of deceased relatives
Opera browser enables local use of diverse AI LLM models
Meta study: increased optimism and awareness about AI chatbots
Headlines
Apple Bets on Personal Robotics as Next Growth Frontier
Apple is exploring personal robotics, including mobile robots and smart home devices with robotic capabilities, as it seeks new growth avenues.
Why It Matters: With its car project scrapped and mixed-reality still years away, Apple needs the "next big thing." Robotics could provide a path into homes and leverage the company's AI.
Key Details: The robotics work spans Apple's hardware and AI teams. While an advanced robotic display has faced challenges, a mobile robot remains in early research.
Bigger Picture: While tech giants like Amazon have had limited success with home robots, Apple views robotics as a potential new frontier for diversifying beyond smartphones. The company's failed car project has provided foundational tech for these efforts.
AI's Electricity Demand Manageable, Says Princeton Prof
Princeton's Jesse Jenkins says AI and data centres won't stress power grids as much as feared. "It's not a crisis," he says.
Why It Matters: Surging AI demand could slow climate fight by keeping fossil fuel plants running. But Jenkins downplays concerns.
Key Points:
Data centres may boost demand growth to 0.16% per year vs the recent 0.04%.
Still below 2.3% average annual growth from 1980-2005.
U.S. utilities have handled bigger increases before.
Big Picture: AI will increase power needs, but it is manageable compared to past demand growth that utilities have successfully navigated.
AI Deals
Fluid Topics secured €15M funding for its GenAI-driven customer service platform.
Lirvana Labs secured $5.3M in funding for personalised learning across English Literacy, Mathematical Reasoning, and Social-Emotional Skills.
Lexter.ai secured R$16M Series A funding to expand its AI-powered legal services through a freemium model, enhancing productivity for law firms in Brazil by up to 50%.
SiMa.ai secured $70M in funding to develop chips for accelerating AI applications in everyday consumer devices. The chip aims to mimic human capability and support various open standards.
Flowstep secured a €1M grant from Enterprise Estonia to enhance an AI-driven comprehensive UX library used by global brands like Wise, Paramount+, DoorDash, Spotify, and Meta.
Ivo, a generative AI legal contract review solution, secured $4.8M in funding led by Uncork Capital and Fika Ventures.
Supersimple raised €2M in pre-seed funding for its AI-native data analytics platform. This platform enables users to effortlessly derive precise insights from complex queries through a no-code, natural language interface.
Manifold secured $15M Series A funding to launch an AI-powered clinical research platform to accelerate research productivity, reducing time to insights from months to minutes.
Aerospike raised $109M in Series E funding from Sumeru Equity Partners. The company focuses on graph and vector capabilities, aiming to capitalize on the AI boom and become foundational for real-time AI applications.
Metaview raised $7M in funding and acquired 500 clients, including companies like Brex and Quora. It is an AI-powered note-taking app for recruiters and hiring managers.
Aiorde, an AI investment analysis startup, secured $1M in seed funding. The startup offers users comprehensive tools and educational platforms for informed investment decisions.
DataStax acquires Logspace, the startup behind Langflow, a low-code tool for building Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) applications. This move is part of its strategy to create a comprehensive GenAI stack.
Shield AI acquires Sentient Vision Systems to enhance defence intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) capabilities with AI-enabled situational awareness technologies, including ViDAR.
Lambda Labs, a GPU cloud provider, secured a $500M loans to expand its accelerators-as-a-service offering. The loan leveraged tens of thousands of Nvidia accelerators as collateral.
Others
AI-Powered Backlink Scam Threatens Websites with Fake Copyright Claims
A fake "law firm" called Commonwealth Legal, with AI-generated lawyer images, sent a copyright threat to Tedium demanding a backlink to a gadget site, part of an SEO scheme
The scam aims to pressure websites into providing backlinks to boost Google rankings despite having no legitimate copyright claims
OpenAI Expands Custom Model Training Program
OpenAI is expanding its Custom Model program, which helps enterprise customers develop tailored generative AI models for specific use cases, domains, and applications.
The expanded program includes "assisted fine-tuning" techniques for organizations to set up data training pipelines and infrastructure.
Google Books Indexes AI-Generated Books, Raising Concerns
Google Books search results include dozens of low-quality, AI-generated books.
Including these books could impact the reliability of Google Ngram Viewer, a research tool.
AI Technology Allows Chinese Mourners to "Revive" Deceased Loved Ones
Chinese mourners are using AI to create digital avatars of deceased relatives for as little as 20 yuan (£2.20) during the annual tomb-sweeping festival
China's expanding AI industry, valued at 12bn yuan in 2022 and expected to quadruple by 2025, is driving the trend of creating "digital humans" and clones of the departed
Opera Introduces Local LLM Support in Browser
Opera lets users download and use large language models (LLMs) directly on their computers.
This feature, available to Opera One users, offers access to over 150 models from various sources, but each model variant requires more than 2GB of local storage.
Meta Study Reveals Increased Optimism Towards AI Chatbots
A Meta and Stanford University study found that participants from Brazil, Germany, Spain, and the US felt more optimistic about the efficiency and potential of AI chatbots to reduce loneliness.
The study also showed heightened awareness of potential issues, with more participants recognizing concerns about bias, privacy, and data security in AI chatbots after the deliberations.
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