weekend ai reads for 2024-01-12

📰 ABOVE THE FOLD: HARDWARE

• Rabbit r1

  • keynote (25:29)

  • the price point is unreal

  • related, Rabbit unveils r1 AI pocket companion to handle tasks for you Venture Beat

• Mobile ALOHA — Learning Bimanual Mobile Manipulation with Low-Cost Whole-Body Teleoperation   Stanford University, Github

• LG announces walking, talking, ‘Jetsons-esque’ smart home robot Mashable

  • if you squint, it kind of looks like Rosie

• Bedrock Galactica

  • personal computer that is web-integrated and seemingly privately-integrated with AI

  • looks like a mac mini; costs more than seven mac minis

• Microsoft Adds AI Key in First Change to PC Keyboard in Decades Bloomberg

  • unrelated, Open ChatGPT Instantly with a Custom Hotkey on Mac - Easy Step-by-Step Guide (5:44)   Jason T. Demorest, YouTube

• Samsung made a rolling robot called Ballie that runs your smart home Engadget

  • related, Samsung's New AI Robot Vacuum With Mop Finds Stains and Steam Cleans Them Cnet

• Apple’s iPhone Design Chief Enlisted by Jony Ive, Sam Altman to Work on AI Devices Bloomberg

• A $3,500 Toaster for Steak: The Wild AI Perfecta Grill Promises Sizzling Meat in 2 Minutes Cnet

📻 QUOTES OF THE WEEK

and

Bill Gates, 1986 (source)

🏗️ FOUNDATIONS & CULTURE

• Can AI Be Contained? — A conversation and Q&A with NYU Stern Professor Scott Galloway and Inflection AI co-founder Mustafa Suleyman (1:00:09)   Section, Vimeo

• These six questions will dictate the future of generative AI — Generative AI took the world by storm in 2023. Its future—and ours—will be shaped by what we do next.   MIT Technology Review

• Dark Corners of the Web Offer a Glimpse at A.I.’s Nefarious Future — In the hands of anonymous internet users, A.I. tools can create waves of harassing and racist material. It’s already happening on the anonymous message board 4chan.   New York Times

  • related, A New Kind of AI Copy Can Fully Replicate Famous People. The Law Is Powerless. Politico

• AI Alignment Research Is More Science Fiction Than Science Teaching computers how to talk, Substack

  • mostly misguided, but the closing is correct

• The Year Ahead: How Gen AI Is Reshaping Fashion’s Creativity — After generative AI’s breakout year in 2023, The State of Fashion 2024 examines emerging use cases across creative industries.   Business of Fashion

• Deloitte rolls out artificial intelligence chatbot to employees — About 75,000 staff to be given access to ‘PairD’ tool with advice to validate ‘accuracy and completeness’   Financial Times

• How to Build an AI-Enabled Service Company The Information ($)

  • posits that ai-first companies will have a considerable advantage over legacy companies incorporating ai into their processes

🎓 EDUCATION

• Billionaire investor Bill Ackman is taking on higher education National Public Radio

• Generative AI in Education: Three Year Outlook Morgan Stanley

• To Understand ChatGPT’s Impact on Higher Education, Think Like a Scientist EdSurge

• AI can transform education for the better — Meet the companies trying to make it happen   The Economist

  • listen here (7:09)

• Survey: How AI Is Impacting Students’ Career Choices — The rise of artificial intelligence is influencing what many students want to study and pursue as a career, according to a new flash survey from Student Voice. Students also say they want to be prepared for AI and the workplace.   Inside Higher Ed

• What Can Artificial Intelligence Do For Us In 2024. — AI and Learning Analytics   Intelliboard

📊 DATA & TECHNOLOGY

• Can LLMs Replace Data Analysts? Getting Answers Using SQL Freedium

  • technical deep dive into creating an agent that interacts with SQL databases

• Deep Dive into AI with MLX and PyTorch Neobundy, Github

• DocLLM: A layout-aware generative language model for multimodal document understanding arXiv

  • uses the bounding boxes of text extracted via OCR to understand the layout of complex forms, rather than relying on a more expensive image encoder

• Improve your RAG application response quality with real-time structured data Databricks

• AI Has a Trust Problem. Can Blockchain Help? — Business uses of blockchain, like supply-chain tracking, have floundered. But some say the technology could find relevance as a tool to vet AI algorithms   Washington Post

• Top Python libraries of 2023 Tryolabs Blog

🎉 FUN and/or PRACTICAL THINGS

• The George Carlin AI Standup Is Worse Than You Can Imagine — As a long time Carlin fan, I was morbidly curious. I wish I had never clicked the link.   Vice

• Invstr — Analyze financial reports, chat with AI-driven insights, and stay informed with what matters.

• Inspired by ‘Her’: 7 AI interactions we'd like to see in the world Ideo Journal

• The Beatles did not take place Internal Exile, Substack

• GeoSpy AI v0.1.1

  • identify the location any photo was taken; impressive and scary

  • related, Stanford Students Develop AI That Can Pinpoint Your Photo Locations KQED

    • the paper: PIGEON: Predicting Image Geolocations arXiv

🧿 AI-ADJACENT

• Column: The worst tech of 2023 (an anti-gift guide) Los Angeles Times

  • Ring doorbells lead the list, obviously

• 2024 Creative Playbook [PDF] — 30 creatives share their tips, tools + places they go for creative inspiration   Recess