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By Stephanie Palazzolo

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Recent Editions

OpenAI COO Mira Murati

OpenAI Plays Catch-Up with Anthropic on Calculating Catastrophic AI Risks

By Amir Efrati and Natasha Mascarenhas · Dec 19, 2023 7:30am PST

OpenAI’s technology and revenue is ahead of Anthropic’s, but when it comes to practices aimed at making sure people don’t use generative artificial intelligence to harm society, OpenAI seems to be playing catch-up. In a 26-page document published Monday, OpenAI discussed how it evaluates AI models for “catastrophic risks” before selling them to... OpenAI’s technology and revenue is ahead of Anthropic’s, but when it comes to practices aimed at...

Photo via Midjourney.

Quant Trading Firms Take NeurIPS; AMD’s Chip Claims Irk Nvidia

By Stephanie Palazzolo · Dec 18, 2023 7:55am PST

As the tech industry slowed down for the holidays, thousands of artificial intelligence researchers, engineers, founders and investors revved up in New Orleans at the Conference on Neural Information Processing Systems—NeurIPS for short.While researchers presented papers on large language models and diffusion models underlying image generators... As the tech industry slowed down for the holidays, thousands of artificial intelligence...

Tomato.ai cofounder and CEO Ofer Ronen. Photo courtesy of Tomato.ai.

A Tale of Two Startups; Xooglers Land $10 Million To Soften Your Accent

By Stephanie Palazzolo · Dec 14, 2023 7:10am PST · 2 comments

There’s something ironic about publishing a story on early-stage AI startups struggling to raise money and, over the next two days, writing about a one-year-old legal AI startup landing a $700 million post-investment valuation and a Xoogler-founded AI startup nearing a $2 billion price, as Natasha and I did yesterday. But these stories don’t... There’s something ironic about publishing a story on early-stage AI startups struggling to raise...

Photo via Midjourney.

The Rise of ‘Small Language Models’ and Reinforcement Learning

By Aaron Holmes · Dec 13, 2023 7:00am PST

Photo via Midjourney.

The Rise of ‘Small Language Models’ and Reinforcement Learning

By Aaron Holmes · Dec 13, 2023 7:00am PST

This week, several companies staked out new ground in the latest forefront of AI research: trying to prove that their models can do more with less. On Monday, the French AI startup Mistral—fresh off its $415 million funding round—published a new model called Mixtral 8x7B. The model, which is open-source, quickly racked up plaudits from AI... This week, several companies staked out new ground in the latest forefront of AI research: trying...

Chalk's cofounders Elliot Marx, Andrew Moreland and Marc Freed-Finnegan. Photo courtesy of Chalk.

What Separates the AI Winners and Losers; The General Catalyst-Backed Startup Taking On Databricks

By Stephanie Palazzolo · Dec 12, 2023 7:05am PST

This past year has been a blur of nine-figure funding rounds and billion-dollar-plus valuations for artificial intelligence startups that investors hope can be the next OpenAI or Midjourney. I can’t tell you how many times investors have justified the money they’ve put into a brand new startup by saying things like: “Well, he was one of the lead... This past year has been a blur of nine-figure funding rounds and billion-dollar-plus valuations...

Photo via Getty.

How Real is the GPU Shortage?

By Stephanie Palazzolo · Dec 11, 2023 7:57am PST

Startups have gone to extreme measures this year to get a hold of graphics processing units, the rare chips needed to train and run AI models. They’ve tried everything from raising capital from cloud providers like Microsoft, Google and Amazon to building bots that scour hyperscalers’ websites in search of open servers.One AI founder, though,... Startups have gone to extreme measures this year to get a hold of graphics processing units, the...

Google's London office. Photo by Anadolu Agency via Getty.

Why Gemini Probably Isn’t as Good as Google Says It Is; A New Open-Source Security Threat: AIJacking

By Stephanie Palazzolo · Dec 7, 2023 7:15am PST

After months of build-up, developers were excited to finally see the long-awaited release of Google’s Gemini models yesterday. But their enthusiasm was tempered by the fact that the only model available right now is Gemini Nano, which you can guess means it’s small—so small it can run on Google’s Pixel phones. Developers have to wait until next... After months of build-up, developers were excited to finally see the long-awaited release of...

Google CEO Sundar Pichai. Photo by Bloomberg via Getty Images.

A First Look at Google’s Gemini AI

By Jon Victor · Dec 6, 2023 7:00am PST

Google CEO Sundar Pichai. Photo by Bloomberg via Getty Images.

A First Look at Google’s Gemini AI

By Jon Victor · Dec 6, 2023 7:00am PST

After months of anticipation, Google executives are sharing details about Gemini, its high-stakes effort to catch up to OpenAI. There’s a lot to talk about but the bottom line is that Google’s competitor to OpenAI’s GPT-4 isn’t ready yet.Google today is letting developers sign up to access a miniature version of the model, named Gemini Nano, to... After months of anticipation, Google executives are sharing details about Gemini, its high-stakes...

Chart by Shane Burke.

All I Want For Christmas is GPUs

By Stephanie Palazzolo · Dec 5, 2023 7:01am PST · 2 comments

If anyone knows anything about me, it’s that I’m terrible at giving gifts. But, if I were BFFs with any of the model developers, I’d know what would be at the top of their Christmas lists: AI chips.These pieces of specialized hardware—known as “graphics processing units'' in industry parlance—have been the hottest commodity of 2023, so much so... If anyone knows anything about me, it’s that I’m terrible at giving gifts. But, if I were BFFs...

Amazon Web Services CEO Adam Selipsky delivers a keynote address during AWS re:Invent 2023 on Nov. 28 in Las Vegas. Photo by Noah Berger/Getty.

What’s Missing From Amazon’s Big New AI Product; OpenAI’s Interest in Human Brain-Inspired Chips

By Anissa Gardizy · Dec 4, 2023 7:00am PST

Over the weekend, my colleagues Jon Victor and Amir Efrati reported that Google has scrapped the launch next week of Google’s would-be GPT-4 killer, Gemini, providing further evidence that the product has been delayed until 2024. Why? It’s just not ready yet and, according to the report, recently had trouble handling some non-English queries.... Over the weekend, my colleagues Jon Victor and Amir Efrati reported that Google has scrapped the...

Ahmed Rashad, founder and CEO of Sapien. Photo courtesy of Sapien.

An Ex-Executive of Scale AI is Taking On His Former Employer; A Stability-Amazon Showdown

By Stephanie Palazzolo · Nov 30, 2023 7:46am PST · 2 comments

In the lucrative world of artificial intelligence, data are king. Model developers like OpenAI have inked multi-million dollar deals with companies such as The Associated Press to get access to hard-to-find data with which to train their AI models. And startups like Amsterdam-based Adaptive have landed eight-figure sums of capital just with the... In the lucrative world of artificial intelligence, data are king. Model developers like OpenAI...

Hugging Face CEO Clement Delangue departs the closed-door "AI Insight Forum" on Capitol Hill on Sept. 13. Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty.

Hugging Face CEO on What Comes After Transformers

By Stephanie Palazzolo · Nov 29, 2023 8:10am PST

Hugging Face CEO Clement Delangue departs the closed-door "AI Insight Forum" on Capitol Hill on Sept. 13. Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty.

Hugging Face CEO on What Comes After Transformers

By Stephanie Palazzolo · Nov 29, 2023 8:10am PST

Clem Delangue‘s got some hot takes on AI, and he’s not afraid to share them.Yesterday, the cofounder and CEO of Hugging Face, a popular large-language model repository, joined the company’s chief ethics scientist Margaret Mitchell and head of global policy Irene Solaiman to share their thoughts during a press briefing on the past year of AI and... Clem Delangue‘s got some hot takes on AI, and he’s not afraid to share them.Yesterday, the...

Photo via Getty

Be Like Microsoft: How OpenAI Customers Bend the Rules to Save Money

By Stephanie Palazzolo · Nov 28, 2023 7:15am PST

This might not be at the top of Sam Altman’s priority list now that he’s back at OpenAI, but the CEO may soon have to deal with a looming threat to the business. Customers, such as fintech startup Ramp, are using OpenAI models like GPT-4 to customize cheaper-to-run open-source alternatives. Technically, that behavior goes against OpenAI’s... This might not be at the top of Sam Altman’s priority list now that he’s back at OpenAI, but the...

Gary Marcus. Photo by Bloomberg via Getty.

Why OpenAI’s Breakthrough Isn’t a Harbinger for Humanity-Ending AGI

By Stephanie Palazzolo · Nov 27, 2023 7:00am PST · 4 comments

OpenAI’s boardroom drama was barely resolved on Thanksgiving Eve last week when forums and news sites exploded in speculation at the implications of a scientific breakthrough that the company was reported to have made. A Reuters report suggested this discovery could “threaten humanity,” although our article was a tad more circumspect (you... OpenAI’s boardroom drama was barely resolved on Thanksgiving Eve last week when forums and...

Sam Altman on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C. on Sept. 13. Photo by AP.

The Unknowns Left in the OpenAI Saga; A Silver Lining in Nvidia’s Blowout Earnings

By Stephanie Palazzolo · Nov 22, 2023 8:00am PST · 3 comments

This morning, OpenAI employees, investors, customers (and exhausted tech reporters) woke up to the long-awaited news: Sam Altman’s back. The embattled CEO may have had to compromise on a few items to land his old gig back: His new board still includes Quora CEO Adam D’Angelo, who was part of the old board that fired him in the first place,... This morning, OpenAI employees, investors, customers (and exhausted tech reporters) woke up to...

Dario Amodei, CEO of Anthropic. Photo via YouTube/Microsoft Research.

Anthropic Goes It Alone

By Stephanie Palazzolo · Nov 21, 2023 7:29am PST · 5 comments

Dario Amodei, CEO of Anthropic. Photo via YouTube/Microsoft Research.

Anthropic Goes It Alone

By Stephanie Palazzolo · Nov 21, 2023 7:29am PST · 5 comments

Just when I thought the OpenAI saga couldn’t get any crazier, I learned last night that OpenAI’s board had approached Dario Amodei, the co-founder and CEO of its biggest startup rival Anthropic, about a potential merger of the two companies as part of an effort to persuade him to replace Sam Altman as CEO.The idea didn’t get very far. In fact,... Just when I thought the OpenAI saga couldn’t get any crazier, I learned last night that OpenAI’s...

Photo via Shutterstock.

The War Within OpenAI and What Comes Next

By Stephanie Palazzolo · Nov 20, 2023 7:11am PST · 9 comments

What a weekend! The OpenAI drama continued on Monday morning, as Ilya Sutskever—OpenAI’s chief scientist and a key figure in former CEO Sam Altman’s firing—tweeted, “I deeply regret my participation in the board’s actions.” Meanwhile, hundreds of OpenAI staffers, including Sutskever himself, reportedly signed an open letter threatening to quit... What a weekend! The OpenAI drama continued on Monday morning, as Ilya Sutskever—OpenAI’s chief...

Photo by Midjourney.

Regulation Drama in Silicon Valley; Why AI Agents Haven’t Lived Up To The Hype

By Stephanie Palazzolo · Nov 16, 2023 7:00am PST · 2 comments

Before we get into today’s main topic, here’s a piece from our editor in chief Jessica Lessin and me that will be interesting if you’re into the drama of Silicon Valley and AI regulation.The article digs into the divisions between tech investors—well known to be an opinionated bunch—around how to regulate new AI technology. The most recent... Before we get into today’s main topic, here’s a piece from our editor in chief Jessica Lessin and...

Martian cofounders Etan Ginsberg and Shriyash Upadhyay. Photo courtesy of Martian.

NEA Leads Funding of Startup That Helps Customers Cut AI Costs; A Chinese Startup Seizes on Meta’s Open-Source Llama Model

By Stephanie Palazzolo · Nov 15, 2023 7:20am PST

In September, I wrote about an emerging group of startups that help developers manage the exploding costs of AI. These companies figure out what tasks can be handled by cheap-to-use AI models so their customers don’t end up paying for a more expensive model from OpenAI that they don’t really need. There’s signs these companies have legs, at... In September, I wrote about an emerging group of startups that help developers manage the...

Puzzle cofounder and CEO Sasha Orloff. Photo courtesy of Puzzle.

Nvidia Steals AMD’s Thunder; The Generative AI Startup Hoping to Making Accounting Exciting Again

By Stephanie Palazzolo · Nov 14, 2023 7:00am PST · 1 comment

Puzzle cofounder and CEO Sasha Orloff. Photo courtesy of Puzzle.

Nvidia Steals AMD’s Thunder; The Generative AI Startup Hoping to Making Accounting Exciting Again

By Stephanie Palazzolo · Nov 14, 2023 7:00am PST · 1 comment

Those who follow the fast-growing world of artificial intelligence chips may have noticed fanfare on Monday surrounding Nvidia’s new H200 AI chip, a successor to the vaunted H100 that everyone has been trying to get their hands on this year.But Nvidia’s announcement simply may have been an attempt to steal the spotlight from its biggest... Those who follow the fast-growing world of artificial intelligence chips may have noticed fanfare...