Friday, March 7, 2025

Source: Microsoft has completed training a family of models, codenamed MAI, and is experimenting with swapping out OpenAI's models in Copilot for the MAI models (Aaron Holmes/The Information)

Aaron Holmes / The Information:
Source: Microsoft has completed training a family of models, codenamed MAI, and is experimenting with swapping out OpenAI's models in Copilot for the MAI models  —  Mustafa Suleyman wasn't getting the answers he wanted.  —  Last fall, during a video call with senior leaders at OpenAI and Microsoft …



Investors are turning to "AI wrappers", startups that leverage existing LLMs by other developers to build tools for coders, clinicians, lawyers, and others (Kate Clark/Bloomberg)

Kate Clark / Bloomberg:
Investors are turning to “AI wrappers”, startups that leverage existing LLMs by other developers to build tools for coders, clinicians, lawyers, and others  —  Forget LLMs.  Silicon Valley investors have a new favorite AI play.  —  Not long ago, Silicon Valley was dismissive of startups like Harvey.



Analysis: the $TRUMP memecoin generated $314M from token sales and $36M in fees within three weeks of launch, likely raising conflict of interest concerns (Financial Times)

Financial Times:
Analysis: the $TRUMP memecoin generated $314M from token sales and $36M in fees within three weeks of launch, likely raising conflict of interest concerns  —  Donald Trump's crypto project made at least $350mn from the launch of his memecoin, a windfall that is likely to fuel concerns over conflicts of interest arising from the token.



An in-depth look at TSMC's $165B US investment plans: three new Fab 21 phases, two new advanced packaging facilities, and an R&D center, all based in Phoenix (Anton Shilov/Tom's Hardware)

Anton Shilov / Tom's Hardware:
An in-depth look at TSMC's $165B US investment plans: three new Fab 21 phases, two new advanced packaging facilities, and an R&D center, all based in Phoenix  —  Timing, locations, and technologies not disclosed.  —  On Monday, TSMC announced plans to invest $100 billion in expanding its U.S. manufacturing capacity.



Wednesday, March 5, 2025

Meta brings its anti-scam facial recognition test to the UK "after engaging with regulators", letting celebrities opt-in "to receive the celeb-bait protection" (Ingrid Lunden/TechCrunch)

Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch:
Meta brings its anti-scam facial recognition test to the UK “after engaging with regulators”, letting celebrities opt-in “to receive the celeb-bait protection”  —  Last October, Meta dipped its toe into the world of facial recognition with an international test of two new tools …



Turing winners Andrew Barto and Richard Sutton warn over unsafe AI deployment, saying releasing models "without safeguards is not good engineering practice" (Financial Times)

Financial Times:
Turing winners Andrew Barto and Richard Sutton warn over unsafe AI deployment, saying releasing models “without safeguards is not good engineering practice”  —  Two pioneers of reinforcement learning have won the $1mn prize from the Association for Computing Machinery



Reinforcement learning pioneers Andrew Barto and Richard Sutton win the 2024 Turing Award; their work played a vital role in the rise of AI, including ChatGPT (Cade Metz/New York Times)

Cade Metz / New York Times:
Reinforcement learning pioneers Andrew Barto and Richard Sutton win the 2024 Turing Award; their work played a vital role in the rise of AI, including ChatGPT  —  Andrew Barto and Richard Sutton developed reinforcement learning, a technique vital to chatbots like ChatGPT.



Tuesday, March 4, 2025

Sources: the US office responsible for the $52B CHIPS Act will lose ~40% of its staff, including ~40 who are probationary, as Trump cuts the federal workforce (Mackenzie Hawkins/Bloomberg)

Mackenzie Hawkins / Bloomberg:
Sources: the US office responsible for the $52B CHIPS Act will lose ~40% of its staff, including ~40 who are probationary, as Trump cuts the federal workforce  —  The US government office responsible for a marquee $52 billion chip subsidy program will lose about two-fifths of its staff …



Nothing unveils the $379 Phone 3A and $459 3A Pro, both with 6.77" displays, Snapdragon 7s Gen 3, and new AI tools to help organize files, shipping this month (Allison Johnson/The Verge)

Allison Johnson / The Verge:
Nothing unveils the $379 Phone 3A and $459 3A Pro, both with 6.77" displays, Snapdragon 7s Gen 3, and new AI tools to help organize files, shipping this month  —  Because of course there's AI. … The Nothing 3A phones were just announced with a new take on the company's “make tech more fun again” ethos.



Bybit CEO Ben Zhou says 77%+ of the funds stolen remain traceable, including 417,348 ETH, and 20% have "gone dark"; the hackers converted 83% of the ETH to BTC (Shaurya Malwa/CoinDesk)

Shaurya Malwa / CoinDesk:
Bybit CEO Ben Zhou says 77%+ of the funds stolen remain traceable, including 417,348 ETH, and 20% have “gone dark”; the hackers converted 83% of the ETH to BTC  —  Some 417,348 ETH, valued at approximately $1 billion remain traceable on the blockchain after being moved using privacy-focused THORChain.



TSMC's US investment is a win-win; dropping one advanced node protects its interests, while an advanced packaging plant and R&D center boost US chip prowess (Ming-Chi Kuo)

Ming-Chi Kuo:
TSMC's US investment is a win-win; dropping one advanced node protects its interests, while an advanced packaging plant and R&D center boost US chip prowess  —  TSMC's newly announced US investment plan, unveiled on March 4, 2025, differs from the original by adding $100 billion …



Chinese robotaxi operator Pony AI and Toyota begin commercial production of an autonomous Toyota bZ4X; Pony AI aims to have 3,000+ robotaxis by the end of 2026 (Chester Dawson/Bloomberg)

Chester Dawson / Bloomberg : Chinese robotaxi operator Pony AI and Toyota begin commercial production of an autonomous Toyota bZ4X; Pony ...