☕️ Runway Debuts Gen-3 Alpha to Compete With Sora & Veo

The video generation market grows fierce as Runway adds its Gen-3 Alpha model to the mix with the likes of OpenAI's Sora and Google's Veo. Elsewhere, NATO's NIF fund sees its first few companies getting awarded, Meta puts its plans to train AI using European users' social media posts on hold, and McDonalds begins shutting down its AI drive-thru ordering system. Join us at AI Tangle as we untangle this week's happenings in AI.

Runway releases its Gen-3 Alpha video generation model to compete with OpenAI's Sora and Google's Veo

Runway, a startup building generative AI tools for multimedia content creators, debuted its latest video-generating AI model, Gen-3 Alpha, just a few weeks after raising an impressive $141 million in funding. Available shortly to subscribers, it boasts improved controls for video structure, style, and motion, particularly in generating human characters, with company co-founder Anastasis Germanidis stating that Gen-3 is just the first and smallest of several video-generating models to come in a next-gen family trained on much more capable infrastructure.

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What is Gen-3 Alpha capable of?

​In a blog post by Runway, the company details that Gen-3 Alpha can currently generate 5 to 10-second high-resolution clips at significantly quicker speeds than the previous model, Gen-2. Runway also claims it has partnered with "leading entertainment and media organizations" to create tailor-made versions of the model. Owing to copyright issues, the company says that Gen-3 Alpha also comes with a new set of safeguards and an improved moderation system. However, the model can occasionally struggle with simulating physics properly and complex scenes between characters and objects.

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NATO's post-Ukraine invasion $1.1 billion NIF fund looks into advancing AI, robotics, and space

Introduced back in the summer of 2022, a few months after Russia's invasion of Ukraine began, the NATO Innovation Fund (NIF for short) sees the first companies getting a piece of the NIF pie, backed by 24 of NATO's 32 member states. These companies include London-based chipmaker Fractile AI, Germany's unmanned robotics firm ARX Robotics, Britain's vehicle material manufacturer iCOMAT, and the Welsh-based Space Forge, which uses space conditions to build in-orbit semiconductors.

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Meta slams the breaks on its plans to use European users' social media posts to train AI

Meta is pausing its AI training using EU and UK user data following concerns from the Irish DPC and the UK's ICO. The pause addresses GDPR compliance issues raised by the planned use of public content for AI improvement, with non-profit privacy activist organizations, like NOYB (none of your business), filing numerous complaints with constituent EU countries. Meta's easily missable single notification about the privacy policy changes regarding the opt-out process was heavily criticized for being unclear and needlessly difficult.

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McDonalds says goodbye to its AI chatbot-based ordering system developed with IBM

After partnering with IBM way back in 2021 to develop an AI drive-thru ordering system, McDonald's recently announced that it is discontinuing it by "no later than July 26, 2024." However, future voice-ordering solutions could still be expected, with one possibly involving a new partnership with Google. More and more fast-food companies have been hopping on the trend towards adding AI to their experience, with companies like White Castle and Wendy's also exploring similar avenues.

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AMD's latest AI 300-series APUs could be on the same graphics performance level as actual discrete low-end GPUs

AMD's recently announced Ryzen AI 9 300 series processors reportedly offer noticeable performance boosts, with around 20% in CPU and integrated graphics. Taiwanese tech manufacturer MSI compares the processor's gaming performance to older discrete GPUs, such as Intel's Arc A370M or Nvidia's GTX 1650. However, it's important to note that some details, including benchmarks, remain unverified - take it with a grain of salt.

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Cybersecurity startup Aim Security rakes in $18 million in Series A funding

Aim Security, an Israeli firm helping businesses safely adopt AI, recently secured $18 million in one of the "fastest Series A rounds in cybersecurity," according to the company, reaching a total funding number of $28 million. Aim's mission is to continue handling data and security challenges posed by enterprise AI integration at a time when AI-derived system vulnerabilities are at a high, offering a platform that mitigates risks like data exposure and supply chain vulnerabilities.

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Spacial AI video startup Gracia AI raises $1.2 million in funding

​​Gracia AI​, a startup focused on photorealistic three-dimensional AI video generation, raised $1.2 million in funding led by The Venture Reality Fund, Triptyq Capital, LVL1 Group, and Future Fund. The company aims to address the limited diversity in the VR market with new avenues for creators, allowing them to develop lifelike volumetric videos. Gracia says the raised money will go towards further building the team and a new platform.

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​How AI is Accelerating The Pharmaceutical Industry (6-min read)

The future of drug discovery is happening at this very moment in a California lab, where robots and AI work together to identify promising new medications faster and more efficiently than ever before - but how is it done?

When will AI be AGI? (33-min watch)

The clearest demonstration yet of why current LLMs are not just "scale" away from general intelligence, and in this video by AI Explained, a YouTube channel covering recent AI developments and research, he goes over what's holding AI back from becoming truly general.