#178 - More Not-Acquihires, More OpenAI drama, More LLM Scaling Talk

Last Week in AI

Our 178th episode with a summary and discussion of last week's big AI news!

NOTE: this is a re-upload with fixed audio, my bad on the last one! - Andrey

With hosts Andrey Kurenkov (https://twitter.com/andrey_kurenkov) and Jeremie Harris (https://twitter.com/jeremiecharris)

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In this episode:
- Notable personnel movements and product updates, such as Character.ai leaders joining Google and new AI features in Reddit and Audible.
- OpenAI's dramatic changes with co-founder exits, extended leaves, and new lawsuits from Elon Musk.
- Rapid advancements in humanoid robotics exemplified by new models from companies like Figure in partnership with OpenAI, achieving amateur-level human performance in tasks like table tennis.
- Research advancements such as Google's compute-efficient inference models and self-compressing neural networks, showcasing significant reductions in compute requirements while maintaining performance.

Timestamps + Links:

• (00:00:00) Intro / Banter
• (00:03:14) Response to listener comments / corrections
• Applications & Business
  • (00:06:56) Google’s hiring of Character.AI’s founders is the latest sign that part of the AI startup world is starting to implode
  • (00:15:12) Investors in Adept AI will be paid back after Amazon hires startup’s top talent
  • (00:22:36) AI chip start-up Groq’s value rises to $2.8bn as it takes on Nvidia
  • (00:29:22) OpenAI co-founder Schulman leaves for Anthropic, Brockman takes extended leave
  • (00:36:18) Elon Musk files new lawsuit against OpenAI and Sam Altman
  • (00:41:40) Figure’s new humanoid robot leverages OpenAI for natural speech conversations
  • (00:47:01) ASML, Tokyo Electron dodge new US chip export rules, for now
  • (00:53:10) OpenAI reportedly leads $60M round for webcam startup Opal
• Tools & Apps
  • (00:55:40) OpenAI cuts GPT-4o prices, launches Structured Outputs amidst price war with Google
  • (01:02:08) Apple Intelligence could get a $20 Plus version
  • (01:04:05) Audible is testing an AI-powered search feature
  • (01:05:53) Reddit to test AI-powered search result pages
• Research & Advancements
  • (01:06:35) Scaling LLM Test-Time Compute Optimally can be More Effective than Scaling Model Parameters
  • (01:16:27) Achieving Human Level Competitive Robot Table Tennis
  • (01:20:19) Self-Compressing Neural Networks
  • (01:28:30) Let Me Speak Freely? A Study on the Impact of Format Restrictions on Performance of Large Language Models
  • (01:32:43) Berkeley Humanoid: A Research Platform for Learning-based Control
• Policy & Safety
  • (01:33:35) METR announces results of study on comparative capabilities of humans and agents
  • (01:39:35) ‘The Godmother of AI’ says California’s well-intended AI bill will harm the U.S. ecosystem
  • (01:49:13) Google Monopolized Search Through Illegal Deals, Judge Rules
  • (01:54:56) Amazon faces UK merger probe over $4B Anthropic AI investment
  • (01:55:44) GPT-4o System Card
• (02:03:09) Outro