☕️ Apple Intelligence & The iPhone 16 are Coming - It's Glowtime

Apple's highly-anticipated Apple Intelligence-powered iPhone 16 might see the light of day at Apple's 2024 event, set for September 9th. Other key highlights of the week include:

• Beijing's World Robot Conference sees a record amount of new humanoid robots and industry interest

• Kim Jong Un oversees North Korea's latest AI-powered "suicide drone" tests

• Former OpenAI researcher shares that nearly half of the company's AGI safety team has left

Join us at AI Tangle as we untangle this week's happenings in AI!

Apple announces its 2024 event for September 9th with new iPhone 16 and Apple Intelligence showcases expected

Apple recently announced the company's 2024 event for September 9th at 1 PM ET at the Steve Jobs Theater at Apple Park with an alluring tagline: "It's Glowtime." Apple's long-awaited iPhone 16 lineup is expected to be the star of the show, with other releases and announcements potentially including the rumored Apple Watch Series 10 and two versions of new AirPods. The event will be streamed on the Apple website and the Apple TV app.

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What to expect going into Apple's 2024 event?

​Though slightly delayed, Apple Intelligence is anticipated to make another big showing at the event with new feature displays, as the iPhone 16, the focal point of the event, is likely to be the first Apple device designed fully with AI in mind. The iPhone 16 and 16 Plus are expected to feature a new vertically aligned camera system, while the iPhone 16 Pro and 16 Pro Max could sport larger screens and a possible bronze color option. All models are expected to include the Action Button, previously exclusive to the iPhone 15 Pro models.

Beijing's World Robot Conference sees a record of 27 new humanoid robot reveals

With over $14 billion invested, China's robotics sector is rapidly advancing toward commercial viability, and the World Robot Conference in Beijing is where Chinese companies showcased their progress with a record 27 reveals. Startups like Agibot and Stardust Intelligence demonstrated robots capable of complex actions like intricate martial arts moves and Chinese brush calligraphy. Tesla's Optimus was also present at the event, however, unlike most of its competitors, Optimus remained sealed shut in a glass box.

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North Korea's Kim Jong Un oversees testing of the country's AI-powered suicide drones

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un recently oversaw tests of the country's new "suicide drones" designed to crash into targets and to be used for tactical infantry, special operations, reconnaissance, and multi-purpose attacks. Photos from the tests, which included blowing up a mock tank, revealed various drone types, with South Korean analytics likening them to Russian and Iranian models. Following previous incidents of unwarranted North Korean drone visits over the border, Seoul has announced plans to deploy laser weapons to counter North Korean drones.

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Former OpenAI employee reports that nearly half of the company's AGI safety team has bid farewell

Nearly half of OpenAI's staff focused on long-term AGI safety have left the company, including members of OpenAI's Superalignment team, reports a former researcher of the company, Daniel Kokotajlo. Kokotajlo says the recent exits have "not been like a coordinated thing," but rather "people sort of individually giving up." He also believes that Big Tech has been "reckless" in trying to develop AGI, and the mass exodus from OpenAI gives the image that it, too, is shifting attention away from safe AGI development to instead focus on commercial gain.

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Internal documents show Amazon aiming to implement questionable paid AI-powered features to Alexa

According to internal documents passed to The Washington Post, if true, Amazon's Alexa might receive a paid makeover with advanced AI chat capabilities in October called Alexa Plus. The conversational Alexa Plus, which could cost up to $10/month, will include "Smart Briefing," a feature that delivers AI-generated news summaries based on user preferences, tools to assist with daily tasks like finding recipes, and shopping tools. Though the current, classic version will remain free, the news is plagued with a slew of consumer backlash.

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Mark Zuckerberg and Daniel Ek say that the EU should learn to embrace open-source AI

In a recently released joint statement, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Spotify CEO Daniel Ek criticized the EU's "incoherent and complex" privacy regulations that actively hinder open-source AI progress. They argue that the lack of a clear picture makes it, for example, difficult for Meta to train its AI models on public data from Facebook and Instagram, which delays the integration of modern European cultures into the most powerful AI models. Spotify, too, wasn't shy about pointing out the benefits of its early investments in AI technology by creating highly personalized experiences for individual users.

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Viggle AI raises $19 million in Series A funding to further advance its 3D-video generation platform

Canadian startup Viggle AI, known for viral memes like Lil Yachty stage remixes, recently raised $19 million in a Series A round led by Andreessen Horowitz. Viggle's mainstay 3D-video foundation AI model, JST-1, generates realistic character motions and is gaining traction among filmmakers, animators, and game designers. Their platform allows users to create animations from videos, images, or text prompts. However, the startup dug itself a hole when it admitted to using YouTube videos to train its AI, which could be violating YouTube's terms of service.

​Hexus - Create interactive product demos, videos, step-by-step guides, and more in minutes with Hexus, an easy-to-learn stack for driving engagement and conversion.

​Airtrain - Airtrain is the no-code compute platform for large language models, allowing you to scale beyond proprietary AI and fine-tune open-source models on your data.

​Bagoodex - Bagoodex is a new AI-powered search engine designed to give users a seamless and private search experience with an emphasis on the most relevant information.

​Minusx - Minusx seamlessly integrates into your analytics apps like Jupyter, Sheets, Metabase, and more, to automatically operate and handle your data for efficient and quick insights.

Stephen Wolfram on AI and Philosophy (4-min read)

Once uninterested in philosophy, the creator of WolframAlpha, Stephen Wolfram, now emphasizes its importance in understanding AI's implications. He argues that as AI advances, philosophical questions become crucial to guiding its development and impact on humanity.

The Potential for AI in Science and Mathematics (53-min watch)

Mathematical genius and professor at Oxford University Terence Tao recently held a talk with fellow mathematician Po-Shen Loh. Together, they discussed the potential implications of AI on mathematics and the unprecedented scale at which AI could solve theorems and accelerate the field.