Senators demand OpenAI answers

PLUS: Create 8-second videos with AI

Welcome, AI enthusiasts.

Another week, another round of OpenAI drama — with five U.S. Senators now demanding answers about the company's AI safety practices.

Could these constant legal hurdles stifle OpenAI's momentum and create an opening for a new leader in the AI race? Let's investigate…

In today’s AI rundown:

  • Senators demand answers on OpenAI's practices

  • Meta's Llama 3.1 takes on GPT-4o

  • Create 8-second clips with new AI video model

  • Adobe’s new AI features for Photoshop

  • 5 new AI tools & 4 new AI jobs

  • More AI & tech news

Read time: 4 minutes

LATEST DEVELOPMENTS

OPENAI

Image source: ABC News

The Rundown: Five U.S. Senators have just sent a letter to OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, demanding details about the company's efforts to ensure AI safety following reports of rushed safety testing for GPT-4 Omni.

The details:

  • Senators question OpenAI's safety protocols, citing reports that the company rushed safety testing of GPT-4 Omni to meet a May release date.

  • The letter requests OpenAI to make its next foundation model available to U.S. Government agencies for deployment testing, review, analysis, and assessment.

  • Lawmakers ask if OpenAI will commit 20% of computing resources to AI safety research, a promise made in July 2023 when announcing the now disbanded "Superalignment team".

Why it matters: With allegations of rushed safety testing, potential retaliation against whistleblowers, and the disbanding of the "Superalignment team," OpenAI is under intense scrutiny. This letter also marks a critical moment for the entire AI industry — with the potential to lead to stricter government oversight and new industry standards.

TOGETHER WITH OCTOAI

The Rundown: OctoAI is delivering a deep dive into optimizing small, open-source models like Llama3-8B to overpower the big closed source providers — all while controlling your own data and slashing costs.

Join the technical session on Aug. 7 to see:

  • An interactive path to optimal model performance

  • Efficient approaches to fine tune the new Llama 3.1 model family

  • The continuous development cycle for LLM-powered apps

  • +47% quality improvements and +90% cost reduction over GPT-4

Sign up for the session here. All registrants will receive the post-session materials, even if you can’t attend live!

META

Image source: Kiki Wu / The Rundown

The Rundown: In case you missed our exclusive deep dive with Mark Zuckerberg yesterday, Meta released Llama 3.1, including it’s long awaited 405B paramater model — the first open sourced frontier model that beats top closed models like GPT-4o across several benchmarks.

The details:

  • The 405B parameter version of Llama 3.1 matches or exceeds top closed models on several benchmarks.

  • Meta is offering open and free weights and code, with a license enabling fine-tuning, distillation into other models, and deployment anywhere.

  • Llama 3.1 features a 128k context length, multi-lingual abilities, strong code generation performance, and complex reasoning capabilities.

  • For exclusive insights on Llama 3.1, open source, AI agents, and more, read our full deep dive with Mark Zuckerberg here, or watch the full interview here.

Why it matters: Meta’s release of Llama 3.1 405b is a significant moment in AI history because it’s the first time an open-source AI model matches or outperforms top closed AI models like OpenAI’s GPT-4o. By offering a private, customizable alternative to closed AI systems, Meta is enabling anyone to create their own tailored AI.

AI TRAINING

The Rundown: Haiper’s new AI video generation model allows users to generate up to 8-second videos for free and even upscale them to HD resolution.

Step-by-step:

  1. Visit the Haiper website and click on "Create video with text".

  2. Craft your video prompt by selecting pre-defined options or inputting your own description.

  3. Submit your video generation request.

  4. Log in to your account (or create one) to view your AI-generated masterpiece.

  5. Enhance your video with HD upscaling if desired, then download and share your creation.

PRESENTED BY NORTHERN DATA

The Rundown: Northern Data Group's AI Accelerator program provides the resources startups need to thrive in the AI landscape, helping you benefit from the best tech and expertise in the market.

The program provides:

  • Complimentary access to powerful NVIDIA H100 Tensor Core GPUs

  • Eco-friendly computing with 100% clean energy

  • Expert guidance through mentoring and workshops from industry leaders

Click here and apply now to start shaping the future of AI while accelerating your startup's growth. Applications close on July 28th.

ADOBE

Image source: Adobe

The Rundown: Adobe just unveiled major AI-powered updates to Illustrator and Photoshop, leveraging its Firefly AI model to accelerate creative workflows and introduce new generative design capabilities.

The details:

  • Illustrator introduces Generative Shape Fill using Firefly Vector AI to add detailed vectors to shapes and create scalable patterns via text prompts.

  • Text to Pattern in Illustrator creates scalable, customized vector patterns for designs like wallpapers.

  • Photoshop's new AI-powered Selection Brush Tool and Generate Image function are now generally available.

  • Photoshop also gets an enhanced version of its popular Generative Fill for improved sharpness in large images.

Why it matters: These updates could dramatically increase designers' productivity by automating tedious, time-consuming tasks. We’ve always preached that the best AI products are those embedded into everyday workflows — and Adobe is doing just that by putting powerful tech directly into designers’ everyday tools.

NEW TOOLS & JOBS

  • 💻 DeepL - Software Engineer - Backend

  • 💼 Luma AI - VP of Finance

  • 🛠️ Coreweave - Manager, Customer Support Engineering

  • 📋 OctoAI - Staff Product Manager - Platform

QUICK HITS

Meta AI unveiled a new 'Imagine me' selfie feature, allowing users to create stylized AI-generated selfies based on prompts, alongside expanded language support and integration with Meta's Llama 3.1 405B model.

OpenAI announced GPT-4o fine-tuning — offering 2 million free daily training tokens until September 23 to help developers customize the model for specific applications.

The FTC launched an investigation into eight companies offering AI-powered "surveillance service pricing", seeking information on how these technologies use consumer data to personalize pricing.

Harvey, an AI platform for legal services, secured a $100M Series C funding round led by Google Ventures, valuing the company at $1.5B, with plans to expand its AI capabilities in the professional services sector.

Cohere launched Rerank 3 Nimble, a new foundation model for enterprise search and RAG systems, offering 3x faster performance than its predecessor while maintaining accuracy and supporting 100+ languages.

Elon Musk proposed a $5 billion Tesla investment into xAI, subject to shareholder and board approval, potentially boosting Tesla's AI leadership and FSD capabilities.

THAT’S A WRAP

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