OpenAI's New Superalignment Team Trying To Make Sure We Don't All Die

Plus VC funding is down 50% even with the AI frenzy

Author

Nathaniel Whittemore
July 06, 2023

The AI Breakdown First Five - Thursday July 6, 2023

Today on the First Five:

  • 5. VC Down 50% Despite AI Frenzy

  • 4. Major Entertainment Union Announces AI Rules

  • 3. US Military Testing Generative AI

  • 2. Tata Upskilling Developers for AI Era

  • 1. OpenAI Creates New Alignment Team So We Don’t All Die

/imagine prompt: a ghibli-style cartoon of a robot and a child holding hands skipping through a field

5. VC Down 50% Despite AI Frenzy

Even excitement about AI hasn’t been able to drag up the venture capital industry, which is in the midst of a major structural reset following the end of the zero-interest-rate era. Year over year, VC funding was down 49% in Q2, and 51% in H1. AI represented nearly 1/5th of all deals.

AI Was Q2’s Big Hope To Reverse The Global Venture Funding Slowdown. It Wasn’t Enough

Startup investors continued to scale back their pace in the second quarter despite large funding and M&A deals in the AI space.

news.crunchbase.com/venture/vc-funding-falling-report-data-q2-2023-global

4. Major Entertainment Union Announces AI Rules

IATSE, a labor union representing more than 160,000 professionals in the entertainment sector, has just announced its core principles when it comes to AI. The starting point is a recognition that AI isn’t going away, and so the emphasis is on research, education, and reskilling members.

3. US Military Testing Generative AI

Terminator time? The Defense Department is currently in the midst of testing 5 different LLMs. The models have been fed secret military data, and are being test in terms of speed of response, accuracy, and more. The goal is to improve efficiency and see if the benefits of AI outweigh the risks when it comes to military applications. The test runs until July 26th.

2. Tata Upskilling Developers for AI Era

Indian IT giant Tata Consultancy Services has announced a plan to train 25,000 engineers to get them certified on AI tools like Microsoft’s Azure Open AI. They’ve also announced a new generative AI offering. Will AI increase global competitiveness?

India's TCS to upskill 25,000 engineers on Microsoft's Azure Open AI

Indian information technology (IT) company Tata Consultancy Services on Thursday said it plans to train 25,000 engineers to get them certified on Microsoft's Azure Open AI.

www.reuters.com/technology/indias-tcs-upskill-25000-engineers-microsofts-azure-open-ai-2023-07-06

1. OpenAI Creates New Alignment Team So We Don’t All Die

According to a blog post yesterday, OpenAI recognizes that our ability to align AI with today’s techniques would be greatly diminished in the context of superintelligence. The company has announced a new “Superalignment” team led by their chief scientist and a co-founder which will have access to 20% of the company’s compute to work on alignment. Their moonshot goal is to solve alignment in 4 years.

Bonus: Harry Potter, But Make It Anime

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Signing off from the future’s past - NLW