A new humanoid robot emerges

PLUS: AI accelerates Parkinson's treatment by 10x

Welcome, AI enthusiasts.

Boston Dynamics said goodbye to its iconic hydraulic Atlas robot this week — but its successor didn’t take long to make a BIG impression.

A demo of the new all-electric Atlas showcased mind-bending flexibility and a revamped look, signaling a new chapter for the robotics firm. Let’s get into it…

In today’s AI rundown:

  • Boston Dynamics reveals the new Atlas robot

  • Google AI to assist U.S. in disaster responses

  • Generate an AI song for free with just a prompt

  • AI accelerates Parkinson’s treatment

  • 6 new AI tools & 4 new AI jobs

  • More AI & tech news

Read time: 4 minutes

LATEST DEVELOPMENTS

BOSTON DYNAMICS

Image source: Boston Dynamics

The Rundown: Boston Dynamics just unveiled a sleek, all-electric version of its Atlas humanoid robot, designed for real-world applications and boasting impressive new dexterity and agility.

The details:

  • The video showcases Atlas’ flexibility, including the ability to push itself up from a prone position and rotate its head and torso 180 degrees.

  • The release comes just one day after announcing the retirement of the original hydraulic Atlas robot.

  • The new Atlas features a more streamlined design than its predecessor, with a ring-light-like head and no more exposed cables.

  • Atlas will be tested in experiments with Hyundai (a Boston Dynamics investor) in the automaker’s factories.

Why it matters: With over a decade of experience in jaw-dropping demos, Boston Dynamics has done it yet again. Despite the ‘humanoid’ label, the new Atlas robot shows that the optimal design isn’t always perfectly human — with mind-bending flexibility that strays away from trying to mirror our (soon to be) inferior bodies.

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Mixtral 8x22B:

  • Shows significant improvements over Mixtral 8x7B

  • Beats QWEN, DBRX, and GPT 3.5 across multiple benchmarks

  • Features an increased parameter count with enhanced efficiency

Experience Mixtral 8x22B firsthand with $10 in free tokens on OctoAI. Sign up here to get started.

GOOGLE

Image source: Project Bellwether

The Rundown: Google's Alphabet X is working with the U.S. National Guard to provide AI tools that can quickly analyze images of disaster zones — enabling faster responses to wildfires, floods, and other natural disasters.

The details:

  • The AI tool can process aerial photos, compare them with satellite imagery, and automatically identify locations, roads, buildings, and infrastructure.

  • The system can complete image analysis tasks in seconds, a process that previously took hours or days when performed by human analysts.

  • The National Guard, which coordinates the military's response to domestic disasters, will deploy the tools for the upcoming summer wildfire season.

Why it matters: As climate change fuels more frequent and severe natural disasters, the need for rapid and effective disaster response grows. By harnessing AI to quickly analyze vast amounts of imagery and data, first responders can dramatically improve the speed and precision of their efforts.

AI TRAINING

The Rundown: In this tutorial, you’ll learn how to use Udio AI to generate an AI-generated song for free by using just text prompts and tags.

Step-by-step:

  1. Visit the Udio website.

  2. Click “Log in” in the top right corner and either sign-in or sign-up for free. You can make up to 600 free songs per month.

  3. Describe your desired song. You can select among several “Suggested Tags” and add your own lyrics to personalize your song even further.

  4. Wait a few minutes and enjoy your new AI-generated song!

Pro tip: Once it creates your AI song, you can remix it, download it, and even extend it.

PRESENTED BY RETOOL

The Rundown: As an AI innovator, your insights are invaluable. Retool wants to know your thoughts on the current state of AI development and what you're most excited about for the future.

Take Retool’s new State of AI survey and:

  • Evaluate your satisfaction with your current AI tools

  • Provide feedback on your company's AI strategies

  • Share predictions for the next generation of AI models and tools

Complete the survey now for a chance to win a $500 Amazon gift card.

AI RESEARCH

Image source: Midjourney

The Rundown: Researchers from the University of Cambridge just developed an AI method to quickly find potential treatments for Parkinson's disease.

The details:

  • The AI screens millions of compounds to pinpoint those that prevent a key protein from forming harmful clumps.

  • The most promising compounds identified by the AI are then tested in the lab, and the results are fed back into the model for further refinement.

  • This iterative process led to the discovery of five highly potent compounds that are hundreds of times more effective than previously reported options.

  • The AI method accelerates the initial screening process 10x and reduces costs by 1000x.

Why it matters: AI’s ability to speed up and lower the cost of uncovering new treatments brings hope that some of the world’s most challenging health problems will eventually have a solution. As models and compute power continue to increase, humanity may find itself in a new golden age of medical discovery.

NEW TOOLS & JOBS

  • 🧠 Omnipilot- Your AI copilot for Mac, providing context-aware assistance in every app you use*

  • 🐙 Spline AI 3D Generation- Free browser-based 3D design generation

  • 🙌 NSWR- Respond to social media comments with just one click

  • 🧰 Akool- All-in-one AI platform for visual marketing

  • 🎨 Deblank- Texts to unique color palettes and fonts for your brand

  • 🗣️ Superwhisper- Fast and accurate voice to text

  • 👨🏼‍🔬 Anthropic - Team Manager, LLM Training Research

  • 🕵️‍♀️ OpenAI - Senior Intelligence Collections Engineer

  • 📈 Rad AI - VP of Finance

  • 👥 Mistral AI - People Ops

QUICK HITS

Event: How Will AI Change Education? Join Section's free, 1-hour event to learn how AI will upend higher ed, homework assignments, corporate learning, and everything in between.*

Stability AI announced that Stable Diffusion 3 is now available via API, introducing advanced text-to-image generation and coherent text generation that rival DALL-E 3 and Midjourney.

Google DeepMind researchers shared new demos of its low-cost ALOHA 2 autonomous robots, showcasing the ability to tie shoelaces, hang shirts, and more.

Wayve introduced LINGO-2, the first vision-language-action model for autonomous vehicles tested on public roads, linking natural language with driving.

Mistral is also reportedly in talks to raise new capital at a $5B valuation, coming on the heels of a $415M raise in December.

Snap announced that it will add watermarks to AI-generated images on the platform, using a translucent logo with a sparkle emoji for increased transparency.

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