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- Amazon's new AI model, codenamed 'Olympus'
Amazon's new AI model, codenamed 'Olympus'
PLUS: Tesla Optimus shows off new hand upgrade
Rowan Cheung
November 29, 2024
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Welcome, AI enthusiasts.
Amazon is reportedly preparing to launch ‘Olympus’, its AI model that aims to compete with other models by focusing on advanced video analysis.
After staying quiet in the AI race and investing $8B in Anthropic, is the tech giant finally ready to make some noise? Let’s get into it…
In today’s AI rundown:
Amazon develops AI model codenamed Olympus
Tesla's Optimus gets major hand upgrade
Create an AI agent with Internet access
5 new AI tools & 4 new AI jobs
More AI & tech news
Read time: 4 minutes
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LATEST DEVELOPMENTS
OPENAI
Image source: DALL-E 3 / The Rundown
The Rundown: Amazon has reportedly developed a new AI model codenamed Olympus, focusing on advanced video and image processing capabilities — with a potential release slated as early as next week.
The details:
The model reportedly excels at detailed video analysis, able to track specific elements like a basketball's trajectory or underwater drilling equipment issues.
While reportedly less sophisticated than OpenAI and Anthropic in text generation, Olympus aims to compete through specialized video processing and competitive pricing.
This development comes despite Amazon's recent $8 billion investment in Anthropic, suggesting a dual strategy of partnership and in-house AI development.
Amazon’s Olympus model was first spotted by The Rundown over a year ago, marking a long development cycle.
Why it matters: Amazon has been suspiciously quiet in the AI race — but it looks like they’re finally preparing to make some serious noise. By focusing on video analysis capabilities, Amazon is targeting a relatively untapped market segment that could appeal to sports analytics, media companies, and more.
TOGETHER WITH INNOVATING WITH AI
The Rundown: Innovating with AI’s new program, AI Consultancy Project, equips AI enthusiasts with all the resources to capitalize on the rapidly growing AI consulting market – which is set to 8x to $54.7B by 2032.
The program offers:
Tools and framework to find clients and deliver top-notch services
A 6-month roadmap to build a 6-figure AI consulting business
Student landing their first AI client in as little as 3 days
Click here to request early access to The AI Consultancy Project.
TESLA
The Rundown: Tesla just showcased its humanoid robot Optimus with an upgraded hand, demonstrating new capabilities like catching balls in real-time — a significant leap in robotic dexterity.
The details:
The new hand-forearm system includes 22 degrees of freedom in the hand and 3 in the wrist/forearm, doubling previous capabilities.
All actuation mechanisms have been moved to the forearm, though this has also increased its weight.
The Tesla Optimus team is working on integrating extended tactile sensing, fine tendon controls, and reducing forearm weight by year-end.
While the demo was tele-operated (remote controlled), achieving smooth and accurate tendon control represents a complex engineering achievement.
Why it matters: More robotic dexterity brings us closer to humanoid robots that can perform human-like tasks with precision. Catching a ball might seem simple, but achieving this level of hand coordination in a robot requires an incredible amount of hardware engineering.
AI TRAINING
The Rundown: Using Mistral AI's free agent feature (the ChatGPT competitor from France), you can now create a custom writing assistant with Internet access that matches your unique writing style, tone, and structure.
Step-by-step:
Visit Mistral AI and create a free account.
Create a new agent and select "Pixtral Large" model.
Input your writing style instructions and examples. We wrote detailed instructions that premium members can copy and paste from here.
Deploy to Le Chat and start using your agent with a simple @mention.
Pro tip: Keep refining your assistant's instructions based on the outputs you receive. The more specific your examples and guidelines, the better your results will be.
NEW TOOLS & JOBS
🎙️ Hume + Anthropic Computer Use - Allows developers to create apps to control a computer with just your voice
🎯 snappy retro - Create a retro board in seconds, share the URL, and collaborate in real-time
⚡️ ElevenLabs GenFM - Generate personal podcasts from PDFs, articles, eBooks, links or text in 32 languages with the ElevenReader iOS app
👋 Replicate consistent-character - Create images of any given character in different poses
💻 aisuite - An open-source Python package by Andrew Ng that makes it easy for developers to use LLMs from multiple providers
🧑💻 The Rundown - Full Stack Developer
🍏 Grammarly - Software Engineer, macOS
🛡️ Palantir Technologies - Senior Advisor, DoD
📈 Anyscale - Head of Product Marketing
📊 Harvey - Software Engineer, Data
QUICK HITS
TikTok owner ByteDance is reportedly suing a former intern for $1.1 million, alleging deliberate sabotage of its AI language model training infrastructure through code manipulation.
Databricks is reportedly raising at least $5 billion at a whopping $55 billion valuation, with the funding round aimed at helping employees cash out and potentially delaying IPO plans.
Google Labs launched GenChess, a new web experiment using Gemini Imagen 3 that lets users create custom chess pieces with AI image generation.
OpenAI filed to trademark its o1 'reasoning' models, revealing a strange earlier application in Jamaica months before the model's announcement.
Mistral AI announced its Mistralship Startup Program, offering selected startups 30K platform credits, dedicated support, and early access to new models over a 6-month period.
Meta's Chief AI Scientist Yann LeCun stated that human-level AI could be possible within 5-10 years after recent statements that AGI would take atleast a decade —aligning with similar timelines suggested by Sam Altman and Demis Hassabis.
THAT’S A WRAP
That's it for today!Before you go we’d love to know what you thought of today's newsletter to help us improve The Rundown experience for you. |
See you soon,
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