Is OpenAI looking to work with the military?

Plus: Apple's AI relocation DRAMA 😱

Author

Business Bloopers
January 18, 2024

Gidday,

I have found this week to be rather interesting and I think you will too. Let’s get straight into it.

🧵 In today's edition:

  • 🎖️ OpenAI x US Military

  • 💼 Apple closing San Diego AI team, shifting work to Texas

  • 🎩 AI takes centre stage at Davos World Economic Forum

  • ❤️ My favourite AI tools this week

  • 🌍 AI News Roundup

  • 🐦 That’s a wrap

Read Time: 5 min

LATEST ADVANCEMENTS

The Bloopers: In 2022, The United States led the world in military spending at 877 billion U.S. dollars.

The reason I’m giving you this seemingly pointless fact is to illustrate that there is A LOT of money to be made for folks who build products that serve the defence sector. 

And OpenAI has certainly taken notice. 

The Details:

  • In a subtle policy update, OpenAI quietly removed its ban on military and warfare applications for its AI technologies.

  • Previously prohibiting activities with a "high risk of physical harm," the revised policy, effective from January 10, now only restricts the use of OpenAI's technology, including LLMs, in the "development or use of weapons."

  • It sparks speculation about potential collaborations between OpenAI and defence departments to apply generative AI in administrative or intelligence operations. 

  • It raises questions about the broader implications of AI in military contexts, as the technology has already been deployed in various capacities, including decision support systems, intelligence gathering, and autonomous military vehicles.

My Thoughts: While the company emphasizes the need for responsible use, AI watchdogs and activists have consistently raised concerns about the ethical implications of AI in military applications, highlighting potential biases and the risk of escalating arms conflicts. 

So naturally, OpenAI's revised stance adds a layer of complexity to the ongoing debate on the responsible use of AI in both civilian and military domains.

The Bloopers: Apple is reportedly shutting down a 121-person artificial intelligence team in San Diego. Asking staff to relocate to Texas by the end of February or Lose Their Job! Ok Apple what is it this time  

The Details:

  • This 121-person team is responsible for listening in multiple languages to Siri voice queries, judging its accuracy to help optimize the assistant

  • Those who choose not to relocate will be fired on April 26 but many employees are opposed to make the move

  • The group was told last Wednesday that they would be relocating to Austin to merge with the Texas portion of the same team

  • The AI team was reportedly caught off guard by the announcement and had previously been preparing for an internal move within San Diego.

  • The announcement to close the San Diego group was made by Christine DeFlippo, a top deputy to Apple AI chief John Giannandrea, the people said

My Thoughts: While Apple isn’t undergoing traditional layoffs, the sudden forced relocation move seems disingenuous. However, the current viral social media trend of showcasing brutal layoffs has illustrated that many companies aren’t graceful when it comes to cuts — and maybe Apple is no exception.

The Bloopers: AI is one of the main themes of this week’s World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland — with big leaders like Sam Altman, Satya Nadella, Yann LeCun, Mustafa Suleyman, and others holding discussions at the annual meeting of the world’s most rich and powerful.

The details (what were some things talked about in the meeting):

  • OpenAI revealed it is working with the Pentagon on cybersecurity projects, coming after recently removing a blanket ban on ‘military and warfare’ uses on ChatGPT’s ToS.

  • The ChatGPT creator is also accelerating work on addressing election disinformation risks, including new tools for ID’ing DALL-E generated images and more guardrails to prevent abuse.

  • Sam Altman also said more climate-friendly power is critical for training billion-parameter models, with future AI breakthroughs depending on energy innovation.

  • Nadella urged attendees on a global regulatory approach to the technology but said he feels a ‘broad consensus’ is emerging on guardrails.

Why it matters: In the annual meeting of global leaders and elites, it’s no surprise that AI has a key at the table. With businesses and governments across the globe rushing to get a grasp on the tech, this year’s meetings will provide a key opportunity to get more globally aligned on adoption and safety.

❤️ MY FAVOURITE AI TOOLS THIS WEEK

🏠 HomeDesignAI - Are you a designer? Take a photo of any room and this AI will redesign it with over 40 different options for you in 30 seconds (link)

💡Robot Revolution AI - A free course about AI copywriting and Marketing. Check it out 👉 (link)

✍️ CreativAI - An AI writing assistant helps to create content up to 10x faster (link)

⚙️ Api Hunt- Access over 500 tech APIs (link)

🌎 AI NEWS ROUNDUP

A writer from the Wired blog named Will, got to experience Toyota’s research lab in Massachusetts. He had the task of teaching a robot to use a dustpan and brush. He did this by using two bike handle-like levers that controlled the robot. The actions that Will took when sweeping some trash up, the robot was learning from, and within a few hours the robot was able to perform the action of sweeping up trash on its own.

Microsoft has launched Copilot Pro, a new $20 monthly subscription service that integrates AI-powered features into Office apps like Word, Excel, and PowerPoint, offering priority access to the latest OpenAI models and the ability to create custom Copilot GPTs - and people love it

Elon Musk pushes Tesla for 25% voting control, threatening to take AI and robotic ventures elsewhere. Despite holding just 13% of Tesla, he sold $40 billion in shares for Twitter. He says, “I am uncomfortable growing Tesla to be a leader in AI & robotics without having ~25% voting control.” Musk awaits a court ruling on a shareholder's claim.

OpenAI is negotiating with CNN, Fox News, and Time Magazine to license their content for use in training its AI models. The firm aims to make ChatGPT more accurate by training it on up-to-date content, as its current knowledge is limited to pre-January 2022 data.

OpenAI is tackling election misinformation by forbidding its tools, like ChatGPT, from being used to fake candidates or governments. They're also against using the tools for campaigns, lobbying, or discouraging voting. OpenAI plans to add digital credentials to images to spot fake content, and their tools will guide U.S. voting questions to CanIVote.org. However, it's a work in progress, relying on users reporting issues.

Samsung just revealed its latest flagship Galaxy S24 smartphone lineup at the company’s Unpacked conference, featuring extensive new AI capabilities for communication, photography, gaming, and more powered by Google’s Gemini AI model.

💭 Quote of the Week 

❝ 

The great thing about this level of automation is that it frees people up. They don’t have to focus on these manual labour tasks that a machine can do

Josh Steimle

🐦 THATS A WRAP

That’s it for this week.

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Keep Embracing the Future, One Byte at a Time! 🔄

See you next week

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