California blocks AI safety bill

PLUS: OpenAI's funding round rumors heat up

Author

Rowan Cheung
October 01, 2024

Welcome, AI enthusiasts.

The tug-of-war between AI acceleration and safety just took a new turn — with California vetoing a controversial AI bill set to shake up the tech landscape.

Is this a decisive victory for Silicon Valley and Big Tech, or is the AI regulatory battle just getting started? Let’s get into it…

In today’s AI rundown:

  • California’s controversial AI safety bill vetoed

  • OpenAI secures SoftBank funding as Apple exits raise

  • Unlock multiple ChatGPT tools in one chat

  • Liquid AI unveils efficient new LFM models

  • 5 new AI tools & 4 new AI jobs

  • More AI & tech news

Read time: 4 minutes

LATEST DEVELOPMENTS

AI REGULATION

Image source: Associated Press

The Rundown: California Governor Gavin Newsom just vetoed S.B. 1047, a groundbreaking AI safety bill that would have imposed stricter regulations on Silicon Valley AI firms and the release of new models in the state.

The details:

  • The bill would have required safety testing for AI models before their public release and held AI companies liable for any ‘severe harm’ (over $500M in damages) caused.

  • Tech giants, including OpenAI and Google, VCs, and politicians like Nancy Pelosi lobbied heavily against the bill, arguing it would stifle innovation.

  • The bill had notable support from Elon Musk, Anthropic, the ‘Godfather of AI’ Geoffrey Hinton, and over 120 Hollywood actors, directors, and workers.

  • Newsom said the bill was ‘well-intentioned’ but flawed, vowing to consult with AI experts to craft guardrails for future legislation efforts.

Why it matters: As the U.S. federal government continues to lag in AI regulation, states are stepping up to fill the void. While S.B. 1047 is shelved for now, the debate over AI governance is far from settled—and will likely continue to pit AI safety advocates against those pushing for rapid development throughout Silicon Valley.

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

OPENAI

Image source: Midjourney

The Rundown: Despite Apple reportedly no longer participating in OpenAI’s upcoming funding round, the AI giant has secured billions of dollars from Japanese investment giant Softbank, Microsoft, and Thrive Capital.

The details:

  • OpenAI is rumored to be raising up to $6.5B via convertible notes, at an eye-popping $150B valuation.

  • Microsoft plans to participate with an additional $1B, adding to its previous $13B investment in the AI giant.

  • Investment firm Thrive Capital is also investing $1B, with a reported option to add an additional $1B the following year based on revenue goals.

  • The Wall Street Journal reported that Apple is no longer involved in the funding round, despite partnerships with OpenAI and its inclusion in Apple Intelligence.

  • The raise comes amid OpenAI’s controversial restructuring to a for-profit entity, with Sam Altman denying rumors that he will receive equity in the move.

Why it matters: OpenAI’s latest raise and for-profit turn is another saga in its convoluted and controversial business structure. Despite the recent high-profile departures and continued drama, the ChatGPT maker is still clearly seen as a top horse to bet on in the AI boom—and there is no shortage of major players who want in.

AI TRAINING

The Rundown: ChatGPT's new shortcut feature lets you instantly switch between image generation, web search, and advanced reasoning tools directly in one chat—avoiding the need to reset chats.

Step-by-step:

  1. Start a new chat in ChatGPT and type "/" in the input field.

  2. Choose from three options: Picture (DALL-E), Search (web), or Reason (GPT-o1).

  3. For images, use "/picture [description]" (e.g., "/picture quantum computer").

  4. For web searches, use "/search [query]" (e.g., "/search quantum computer").

  5. For complex reasoning, use "/reason [task]" (e.g., "/reason Explain quantum computing").

Pro tip: When using the /search command, try adding "latest" or a specific year to your prompt.

PRESENTED BY SECTION

The Rundown: Join Section and Ed Ortega of Machine + Partners on Oct. 29 for a free event tailored to leaders looking to build AI applications.

In this session, you’ll learn how to:

  • Prioritize which AI projects to tackle first

  • Avoid AI “traps” and build winning AI products

  • Get beyond the “hype” and get real ROI with AI

RSVP for free today and start making AI work for your business.

LIQUID AI

Image source: Liquid AI

The Rundown: Liquid AI just introduced a new series of AI models called Liquid Foundation Models (LFMs), challenging the traditional transformer architecture while achieving state-of-the-art performance and enhanced memory efficiency at smaller model sizes.

The details:

  • The company released its LFMs in 1.3B, 3B, and 40B parameter sizes, based on a new architecture utilizing computational units rooted in dynamical systems rather than traditional transformers.

  • The models surpass transformer-based counterparts like Meta's Llama 3.2 and Microsoft's Phi-3.5 on major benchmarks like MMLU.

  • LFMs require significantly less memory for inference, particularly with long-context tasks — supporting up to 32k tokens while maintaining memory efficiency.

  • The models are not open-source and are only currently available via the company’s Lambda (Chat UI and API) and on Perplexity AI.

Why it matters: Liquid AI's LFMs are a significant shakeup from the transformer architecture standard that has dominated models since 2017. The benchmarks show that there is more than one formula for achieving state-of-the-art AI performance—and could open new possibilities for more efficient and accessible AI systems.

NEW TOOLS & JOBS

  • 🎤 Udio Lyric Editor - Create and refine song lyrics based on melody

  • 📷 Expression Editor - Easily edit facial expressions

  • 🚀 PandaETL - Automate document processes with AI and data

  • 🤖 Gaia - Train and deploy neural machine translation models

  • 🔍 Lumona - AI search engine leveraging social media insights

QUICK HITS

Google agreed to invest $1B into Thailand to expand AI and cloud infrastructure in Southeast Asia, aiming to build new data centers amid increasing regional competition.

TikTok parent company ByteDance is reportedly planning to develop a new AI model primarily using Huawei chips, diversifying from U.S. suppliers like Nvidia to counteract export restrictions.

Artisan AI secured $7.3M in seed funding for its sales-focused AI virtual employees, with its first AI assistant Ava already assisting over 120 companies on the platform.

Luma Labs upgraded its Dream Machine AI video model speed, allowing for full-quality generations in under 20 seconds.

Qodo announced a $40M funding round for its AI-powered code testing software, with plans to expand services and target larger enterprise clients.

AI reading coach startup Ello launched ‘Storytime’, a new feature allowing kids to create personalized stories using AI.

THAT’S A WRAP

That's it for today!

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See you soon,

Rowan, Joey, Zach, and Alvaro—aka The Rundown Team

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