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- 🍎 Apple to spend big on AI
The more brilliant AI gets the more normal it becomes. Welcome to the AllThingsAI newsletter. Let’s get into it.
The breakdown
Read time: 3 mins
Apple has plans to catch up in AI.
Instagram’s AI stickers are on the way.
IBM has developed a chip inspired by the human brain.
Some are building AI startups instead of going to college.
A batch of AI apps to check out.
Plus a few AI app recommendations and reviews.
AI news
Source: Leonardo AI. Prompt: A juicy red apple against a green backdrop.
Apple’s AI push
According to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman, Apple is set to spend as much as $1 billion a year in a determined effort to catch up with the rest of the AI industry. In his most recent Power On newsletter, Gurman explains that Apple's senior management were caught by surprise by the current AI trend, and the company is spending big to get back in the game.
Key among those efforts are a suite of generative AI tools including a reworked Siri assistant, which could arrive as soon as next year. Gurman also says we can expect AI updates to Apple Music, Pages, Messages, and other first-party apps as well. Additionally, Apple is reportedly looking to integrate AI features into development tools such as Xcode, which could streamline the app-building process.
Finally, Gurman says Apple is unsure whether to run the AI processing on-device, in the cloud, or some combination of both. Each strategy has its advantages and disadvantages, but with Apple making such a fuss about being a privacy-first company, there's certainly a lot at stake with how it rolls out AI.
Instagram is getting into AI stickers
Everyone's favorite time-wasting app Instagram is working on an AI-powered sticker-creation feature. As Engadget reports, Instagram head Adam Mosseri has shown off a yet-to-be-released feature that lets a user grab the subject of an image and then turn it into a virtual sticker that can be placed on top of other content.
In his demonstration, Mosseri noted that users will also be able to create stickers from other people's eligible images. Mosseri did not say when the feature will roll out, though it’s expected soon.
IBM builds great-but-limited AI chip
A team of researchers at IBM have developed NorthPole, an AI chip that can run image recognition tools more than 20 times faster than commercially available silicon.
The IBM Research unit, which is made up of engineers and computer scientists, say they have arranged the NorthPole's memory blocks and CPUs in such a way as to make communications more efficient than comparative chips. The researchers note the chip's architecture was inspired by how the human brain is able to pass information across different regions.
The IBM team says their chip can outpace silicon from Nvidia and other chipmakers, but they say NorthPole is not well-suited to training or running LLMs, thus limiting its long-term commercial viability.
These entrepreneurs are skipping college to chase their AI goals
The Wall Street Journal profiles several young entrepreneurs who have decided to forgo college and instead focus on building their own AI companies.
The piece talks to 19-year-old Govind Gnanakumar, founder of AI startup Automorphic, which was accepted into the prestigious accelerator program, Y Combinator. 20-year-old Kevin Lu, a fellow college dropout, has established Sweep AI, a company for automating programming tasks.
There are some dissenting voices when it comes to the opportunity that AI presents;. Tricia Martinez, an executive at accelerator Techstars, believes that using AI as a branding tool will not be effective in the long term. Despite such concerns, many entrepreneurs are not deterred. Jay Dang, the 21-year-old founder of FlowGPT, says that college is always a backup option if things don’t work out in the AI industry.
Poll
Is it wise for young people to give up college to focus on building AI startups?Tell us what you think. We'll share the results in our next newsletter. |
Results from our last poll: Does it make sense to restrict China’s access to AI chips?
🟨🟨🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️ ✅ Yes. There are legitimate concerns underpinning the US decision.
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 ❎ No. Preventing a global partner from accessing important technologies only leads to further mistrust.
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AI tools you should try
Maket (free with paid options): Maket is a generative AI platform for coming up with architectural plans and interior spaces. From mocking up floor plans to creating interior layouts, Maket’s pitch is to cut out wasted hours trying to think up ideas. The service also has a generative text feature that lets you ask the AI about building materials and more.
Fronty (free with paid options): There are a lot of AI-powered tools for building websites, but chances are you’ve never used something as straightforward as Fronty. With Fronty, you upload a screenshot and it transforms into an SEO-friendly website, built with CSS and HTML. This is a great tool for anyone looking to move their website from one platform to another without having to rebuild the site from scratch.
Spline AI: 3D modeling is great - if you have the time, patience, and skill to master apps like Blender or Unreal Engine. Fortunately, there’s Spline AI, which has a prompting feature to create generative AI models. As a note, the AI feature is currently offered as an alpha, so you’ll need to sign-up to the waitlist before you can try it out, but your patience will be rewarded once you get access.
Best bets
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