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- Sam Altman's new safety squad
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Welcome, AI enthusiasts.
OpenAI just unveiled its new safety committee… But a roster comprised of Sam Altman and his allies likely has detractors feeling anything but secure.
With old board members speaking out, a former safety lead joining a rival, and more conflicting commentary — is Sam’s latest squad just a PR play? Let’s investigate…
In today’s AI rundown:
OpenAI begins training the next model
Former OpenAI safety co-lead joins Anthropic
Create unique AI music tracks in seconds
Google Chromebooks get AI infusion
6 new AI tools & 4 new AI jobs
More AI & tech news
Read time: 4 minutes
LATEST DEVELOPMENTS
OPENAI
Image source: Financial Times
The Rundown: OpenAI just announced the formation of a new Safety and Security Committee to oversee the development of its next frontier AI model, which the company also said it has recently started training.
The details:
The new committee is led by CEO Sam Altman and includes board members Bret Taylor, Adam D’Angelo, and Nicole Seligman.
The group will provide evaluation of safety and security processes over the next 90 days, with plans to share adopted recommendations publicly.
OpenAI said the new model will ‘bring us to the next level of capabilities on our path to AGI’.
Why it matters: The new safety squad (made up exclusively of Altman backers) won’t bring comfort to those who feel OpenAI’s current leadership can’t be trusted. The vague new model commentary is also sure to get the rumor mill churning, with many interpreting it as GPT-5’s release being imminent and the next system already being trained.
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ANTHROPIC
Image source: Jan Leike (@janleike on X)
The Rundown: Former OpenAI executive and AI safety lead Jan Leike just announced that he is joining rival Anthropic — leading a new superalignment team focused on safety and security.
The details:
Leike resigned from OpenAI in mid-May alongside Ilya Sutskever, which resulted in the company’s dissolution of the superalignment safety team.
Leike shared that his new team at Anthropic will focus on ‘scalable oversight, weak-to-strong generalization, and automated alignment research’.
The move comes weeks after Leike said OpenAI’s safety culture had taken a backseat to ‘shiny products’.
Why it matters: It didn’t take long for Leike to find a new AI safety home — and it comes at one of OpenAI’s biggest rivals. The move lends credibility to Anthropic as a haven for more safety-focused development, and maybe even lures another major AI safety free agent (who may or may not have seen something at OpenAI).
AI TRAINING
The Rundown: AI Jukebox is a free tool on HuggingFace that allows users to generate fun, custom music tracks in their browsers from just a text prompt.
Step-by-step:
Visit AI Jukebox in HuggingFace
Describe a desired music in the "Prompt" field
Select the track's duration, choose a musical style, and set the mood for the composition.
Click "Generate music", wait a few seconds, and enjoy your AI-generated track!
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Image source: Google
The Rundown: Google just unveiled a suite of new AI-powered features for its $350 Chromebook Plus laptops, aimed at enhancing productivity, creativity, and collaboration for users.
The details:
Google’s Gemini assistant is integrated directly into the Chromebook Plus home screen, allowing quick access to AI tools.
The “Help Me Write” feature brings AI capabilities to all text entry fields, providing suggestions, changing tone, and rewriting text.
Google Photos’ Magic Editor gives users advanced AI-powered image editing capabilities directly within the Chromebook Plus.
Generative features like AI wallpapers and video call backgrounds also offer users new customization options.
Why it matters: Google’s budget-friendly laptops aren’t being left behind in the AI push. If anything, this indicates that the next wave of computers will be infused with advanced capabilities like never before — regardless of price point.
NEW TOOLS & JOBS
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QUICK HITS
French AI startup Mistral is reportedly expanding into the U.S. market, ramping up hiring in an aim to provide businesses with an alternative to large providers like OpenAI and Google.
Lmsys released new performance results for Google’s latest Gemini 1.5 models, with Pro/Advanced moving into second just below GPT-4o, and Flash nearing GPT-4 on the leaderboard.
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman recently signed the Giving Pledge, committing to donate the majority of his wealth to philanthropy alongside other tech moguls, including Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg.
Helen Toner detailed claims of Sam Altman ‘outright lying’ to the previous board in an exclusive interview with Bilawal Sidhu, saying she was pushed out after Altman manipulated other board members.
Microsoft unveiled a new Copilot Telegram bot, allowing users to search, chat, and ask the chatbot questions directly in-app.
Opera integrated Google’s Gemini AI into its browser, adding new image generation and text-to-audio capabilities to its own built-in Aria AI assistant.
THAT’S A WRAP
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