Advertise With Us | Join Discord Community

Hey friends 👋 ,

Happy Sunday, I’m grateful to see you here once again. It's been an interesting week in AI; with equal parts optimism and scrutiny. Luckily, you’re reading Sunday Signal where I filter > 500 pieces of AI-related content and deliver only the most important news directly to you. I’m enjoying a fairly brisk 7°C Sunday afternoon here in London, so in the spirit of colder weather, let’s get warmed up with this week’s AI news.

🤖 AI Summary

This week’s newsletter, summarised with humour, by ChatGPT in 3 sentences:

NASA has developed DAGGER, an AI system that uses satellite data to predict when and where solar storms will hit Earth, providing a 30-minute warning—so, you'll have enough time to build your impromptu bunker and stock up on snacks. Meanwhile, ChatGPT has been blocked in Italy due to a suspected data breach, prompting questions about its very existence in the EU. Looks like ChatGPT needs to work on its Italian job. Finally, check out OpusAI, which generates 3D virtual environments in seconds and CourseAI, which generates educational courses in minutes. Who knows, maybe AI will be teaching us how to speed-run Skyrim soon enough?

Today's Through the Noise is brought to you by Secureframe.

Demonstrating a strong security and compliance posture has increasingly become a prerequisite to doing business across many industries.

A SOC 2 report, for most companies, provides the necessary validation that customers are requiring; but achieving SOC 2 has historically been a time-consuming and expensive process.

Secureframe’s platform, through intuitive workflows and automated evidence collection via 1-click integrations, backed by a support team of industry experts; will let you obtain a SOC 2 report in weeks, not months, without requiring a heavy investment of your time or team’s resources.

⛏ 5 News Nuggets

• 🔗 Link: NASA boards the AI train—developing DAGGER to sound the alarm for dangerous space weather. A computer model combining artificial intelligence and NASA satellite data has been developed to predict where and when a solar storm is likely to strike on earth with a 30-minute advance warning. I could build an impromptu bunker in 30 minutes, right?

• 🔗 Link: Italy blocks ChatGPT due to a suspected data breach. The Italian data protection agency says that there’s no legal basis for such a massive collection and processing of data—claiming that the 2018 GDPR (Global Data Protection Regulation) directly opposes ChatGPT’s very existence in the EU.

• 🔗 Link: UNESCO, Elon Musk, Steve Wozniak & more sign “Pause Giant AI” Open Letter—citing safety & ethics concerns. The authors call for a six-month pause on the training of AI systems more powerful than GPT-4 and for the development of shared safety protocols.

• 🔗 Link: MidJourney pauses new sign-ups amid free trial exploitation. CEO David Holz announced that their servers were overburdened due to a viral how-to video in China. I guess we’ll have to hold fire on pictures of The Pope looking dapper in a puffer (for now).

• 🔗 Link: According to a report by Goldman Sachs, AI has the potential to replace 300 million full-time jobs globally, but could also increase the total annual value of goods and services produced by 7%.

😎 4 Cool Creations

• 🔗 Link: Opus AI generates 3D virtual environments in seconds. Their live demo is currently available and looks incredible—watch as a user generates a bustling city, with interactive NPC’s, in less than 4 minutes. Waitlist is open, and I can’t wait to get my hands on this, what will you create?

• 🔗 Link: CourseAI generates educational courses in minutes. Of course I had to play with it myself, and I’ve found that it’s awesome at structuring a course on traditional subjects like entrepreneurship—and even has the nuance to make a Skyrim speed-run course.

• 🔗 Link: RewindAI allows you to ask any question, about anything with perfect memory. From what you had for lunch last week, to how you met OpenAI CEO Sam Altman 10 years ago—Rewind’s built to collate your digital resources and augment your memory.

• 🔗 Link: LemonaidAI allows musicians to generate new drum samples, overcome creative block and combine AI with music production. Is it just me that loved their spelling of LemonAId?

🔦 3 Startup Spotlights

• 🔗 Link: FetchAI raises $40M in funding from singular investor—DWF. The Cambridge-based blockchain startup plans to provide a more equitable and traceable approach to AI by way of distributed ledgers. Fetch illustrates the potentially lucrative combination of Cryptocurrency and AI.

• 🔗 Link: PerplexityAI raises $25.6M in series A funding through investors Peter Sonsini, Nat Friedman, Susan Wojcicki & more. The bay-area company is focused on developing a conversational AI model—with a prioritisation on accuracy and sourcing.

• 🔗 Link: Fixie raises $17M in seed round funding from SignalFire, Bloomberg Beta, Kearny Jackson & more. The Seattle-based tech company was founded by ex-Google & Apple Engineers & focuses on automation LLM’s for larger organisations.

🐥 2 Top Tweets

• 🔗 Link: User Yohei creates a “Task-driven autonomous agent” that completes tasks, generates new tasks based on results & prioritises tasks in real-time. GPT-4 is supplemented with long-term memory models & prompt-engineering software to create a truly autonomous program. I wonder how close ChatGPT plug-ins will get to full autonomy?

• 🔗 Link: AI dentistry is now in the works with Dentium USA’s latest creation. Whilst only a prototype, the video shows an AI dentist at work on a dummy model (thank god). Is it just me or is the thought of an AI dentist just absolutely terrifying?

😮 1 Media Marvel

• 🔗 Link: Eliezer Yudkowsky makes an appearance on the Lex Fridman podcast. In typical Lex fashion, the duo range from Aliens to the larger existential threat of AGI. The balance of Lex’s unwavering optimism & Yudkowsky’s unfaltering pessimism (perhaps realism) makes for an amazing 3 hours, 57 minutes, and 10 seconds listen.

What was your favourite find in AI this week? Reply to this email and let me know!

— Alex