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Meta layoffs hit entire ML research team focused on infrastructure

After Wednesday’s layoff of 11,000 people, Meta initially signaled that those working in AI might be spared from the brunt of the cuts. However, it is now known that the entire ML infrastructure research team, Probability, was let go from the company. The team consisted of researchers working in Bayesian Modeling, Ranking and Recommendations, ML Efficiency, and AI for Chip Design. Zuckerberg wrote:

As we build our AI infrastructure, we’re focused on becoming even more efficient with our capacity, […] Our infrastructure will continue to be an important advantage for Meta, and I believe we can achieve this while spending less.

Our take: The broader economic environment has been looking grim for tech companies in recent weeks. For large companies trying to rein in costs, cuts to teams that are not critical to core missions are not surprising. However, it is still jarring to see Meta laying off what some may consider a very important research team that underpins many of the AI efforts the company has staked itself on. November has already surpassed June as the month with the most tech layoffs, and we’re only halfway through the month. The story is probably still developing, as hiring slowdowns will likely continue well into the next year.

Mythic bet big on analog AI but has run out of cash

Among the crowded AI accelerator space, Texas-based Mythic has taken a unique approach in its bet on analog chips. The chip company, however, ran out of capital before it could become profitable. It did, however, leave the world with its ideas. Mythic's vice president of engineering Ty Garibay said Mythic's unique technology promised performance-per-dollar and performance-per-watt gains for edge AI. In a crowded market where no one seems to be able to compete with GPUs and a staggering economy, Mythic is not the only one suffering: UK-based GraphCore said it was planning job cuts in September while Intel's Habana Labs laid off 10% of its workforce in October.

Our take: The accelerator space is a crowded and difficult one--as investor and State of AI Report author Nathan Benaich commented in my conversation with him, it seems harder to gain traction than many expected. It is unfortunate that Mythic's run has come to an end, but I am hopeful that the industry will continue to invest in different types of innovative approaches to hardware. We will need to back different horses and watch the technologies compete on their merits over time to determine what hardware architectures we need to enable the future of AI.

Other News

Research

Meet Prompt-to-Prompt: An Artificial Intelligence AI Model That Brings Image Editing Capabilities to Text-to-Image Models - "An intuitive and effective textual editing approach for semantically modifying pictures in pre-trained text-conditioned diffusion models using Prompt-to-Prompt manipulations is proposed in this study. "

Neuroscience of electric fish gives jolt to advances in machine learning at WVU - "Electric fish and robots may hold the key to achieving “autonomous lifelong machine learning,” based on research conducted at West Virginia University with the aid of a $2 million National Science Foundation grant."

Perceptron: AI that sees with sound, learns to walk, and predicts seismic physics - "This column, Perceptron, aims to collect some of the most relevant recent discoveries and papers — particularly in, but not limited to, artificial intelligence — and explain why they matter."

Learning to Imitate - "Many approaches have difficulty doing anything in an open-world Minecraft map, but IQ-Learn can navigate the world with ease."

AI System to Leverage Social Media to Predict, Prevent Future Pandemics - "Researchers at the University of California have received a $1 million grant to develop an AI-based early warning system that will examine social media posts to help predict future pandemics."

New Chip Expands the Possibilities for AI - "An energy-efficient chip called NeuRRAM fixes an old design flaw to run large-scale AI algorithms on smaller devices, reaching the same accuracy as wasteful digital computers."

Applications

Using machine learning to optimise agriculture in Brazil | AI by you - Vitor’s story - "For Vitor, machine learning and artificial intelligence provide the means to optimise agriculture in his home country.

Every day, DeepMind scholars like Vitor are making thei"

Inside Alphabet X’s new effort to combat climate change with seagrass - "A previously unrevealed program would use cameras, computer vision, and machine learning to track the carbon stored in the biomass of the oceans."

New Tool Allows Users to See Bias in AI Image Generators - "According to Motherboard, the simple tool lets users combine descriptive terms and see firsthand how the AI model maps them to racial and gender stereotypes."

“Too easy”—Midjourney tests dramatic new version of its AI image generator - "On Saturday, AI image service Midjourney began alpha testing version 4 ("v4") of its text-to-image synthesis model, which is available for subscribers on its Discord server."

Machine Learning’s Potential to Improve Medical Diagnosis - "Diagnostic errors are some of the most common, catastrophic, and costly of medical errors, according to the Society to Improve Diagnosis in Medicine. It also estimates that errors affect the more than 12 million Americans each year, with associated costs likely in excess of $100 billion."

Dirty shrimp farms are punching a huge hole in the environment. A.I. could cut it in half - "“The software does all the heavy lifting,” Daniel Russek, CEO of Mexico City– and Indianapolis-based Atarraya, tells Fortune during a tour of the company’s newly launched U.S."

Business

Chinese employers sought a million hard core AI techies in five years - "Chinese employers have recently advertised for nearly a million employees with technical AI skills, according to an analysis from US think tank the Center for Security and Emerging Technology (CSET)."

Zoom to Launch Virtual Co-Working Space and AI Chatbot - "With people’s work habits continuing to evolve, Zoom has debuted features the video conferencing platform says are designed to improve the modern work experience."

Nvidia said to establish autonomous driving units in Israel - "US gaming and computer graphics giant Nvidia has been expanding its R&D operations in Israel and recently established two engineering units to develop software and hardware solutions for Nvidia’s autonomous driving programs."

AI Precision Medicine Partnership Aims to Improve Chronic Disease Outcomes - "Maryland-based MedStar Health and Zephyr AI, Inc., have launched a partnership to leverage artificial intelligence and precision medicine to improve chronic disease outcomes."

After 40 million app downloads, PhotoRoom raises $19 million - "The company develops a popular photo editing app for e-commerce vendors and small businesses. In particular, it helps you remove the background behind objects you are about to sell so that your photos look more professional."

Humanoid robots could generate $154 billion in revenue over next 15 years, Goldman Sachs report - "The investment giant was also inspired by Tesla’s new unveiling of its own robot to conduct the report. “The launch of Tesla’s humanoid robot prototype, the “Optimus”, has again sparked debate about the financial opportunities of such innovation."

Sanofi signs latest billion dollar AI drug discovery deal, this time with Insilico - "In an era when biopharma research in drug R&D continues to be costly and slow, and artificial intelligence (AI)-based drug discovery platforms are rapidly growing, Paris-based pharmaceutical leader Sanofi announced its latest massive AI drug discovery deal, this time with startup Insilico Medicine, worth up to $1.2 billion. "

GitHub rolls out Copilot for business, experiments with voice control for Copilot - "On Wednesday, GitHub announced expansions to Copilot, the service that uses AI to help programmers write code. After launching Copilot in GA earlier this year, GitHub is now introducing Copilot for business, enabling whole teams to use the service."

Honda’s new AI-powered ‘golf cart’ look-alike will drive you around without a license - "The new “Honda CI Micro-Mobility” self-driving EVs are set to hit the streets, combining Artificial (AI) and Cooperative (CI) technologies."

Waymo can now charge for fully driverless services in San Francisco - "The California Department of Motor Vehicles approved an amendment to Waymo’s existing deployment permit Wednesday to include driverless, as well as drivered, operations."

SoundHound, the voice AI platform, lays off 10% of staff citing ‘challenging market conditions’ - "SoundHound — maker of the voice AI technology used by Mercedes-Benz, Deutsche Telecom, Snap and Mastercard and more — has laid off about 10% of its workforce amid ongoing economic turmoil across global markets."

OpenAI leads $23.5M round in Mem, an AI-powered note-taking app - "Last year, OpenAI announced the OpenAI Startup Fund, a tranche through which it and its partners, including Microsoft, are investing in early-stage AI companies tackling major problems. Mum’s been the word since on which companies have received infusions from the Fund."

Amazon introduces 'Sparrow' robotic arm that can do repetitive warehouse tasks - "Amazon on Thursday showed off a new robot that could one day assist warehouse workers with some of the more tedious aspects of the job."

Airgram Raises $10 Million for AI Meeting Assistant in 2022 - "Airgram is one of the top-ranked meeting productivity software programs that provides its users with a whole suite of features, including voice transcription and real-time recording. After Airgram was founded in 2020, it quickly amassed a huge user base in under a year."

Design platform Canva launches text-to-image AI feature - "Australia design app Canva is the latest creative platform to launch a text-to-image AI tool. The company began testing the feature in September and is now rolling it out to the app’s more than 100 million users."

Anything World raises $7.5M to assist content creators using AI-based animation - "The London company is also launching its high-fidelity 3D animation system that enables rigging and animations for any 3D model. The system is being launched in stages with its first version available now."

Amazon, in Broad Cost-Cutting Review, Weighs Changes at Alexa and Other Unprofitable Units - "Amazon.com Inc. Chief Executive Andy Jassy is leading a cost-cutting review of the tech giant and paring back on businesses at the company that haven’t been profitable, according to people familiar with the matter."

DeviantArt Has a Plan to Keep Its Users' Art Somewhat Safe From AI Image Generators - "The art hosting site is releasing its own AI art system called DreamUp, and users can decide if they want to let their work be picked up by the system."

Concerns

The lawsuit that could rewrite the rules of AI copyright - "Microsoft, its subsidiary GitHub, and its business partner OpenAI have been targeted in a proposed class action lawsuit alleging that the companies’ creation of AI-powered coding assistant GitHub Copilot relies on “software piracy on an unprecedented scale."

AI shows that women get fewer speaking opportunities on cable news - "Female speakers on news networks got out an average of 72.8 words per chance to speak compared to 81."

Who Is Working to End the Threat of AI-Generated Deepfakes, and Why Is It So Difficult? - "Like many of the world’s best and worst ideas, MIT researchers’ plan to combat deepfakes started when one of them was watching their favorite not-news news show. "

The AI Image Generator: The Limits of the Algorithm and Human Biases - "But as we exist in a digital landscape filled with human biases—navigating these image generators requires careful reflection."

Analysis

AI and the Future of Pixel Art - "Creative industries are undergoing a 0 to 1 moment. If you didn't know, now you do. The impact that AI will have and is already having on creativity cannot be understated."

Are Robots And AI Really Going To Displace All Workers? Probably Not – OpEd - "Among the components of the World Economic Forum’s Great Resetare a drastically reduced population and the replacement of human labor with robots and artificial intelligence (AI)."

Robots are taking over jobs, but not at the rate you might think - "It's easy to believe that robots are stealing jobs from human workers and drastically disrupting the labor market; after all, you've likely heard that chatbots make more efficient customer service representatives and that computer programs are tracking and moving packages without the use of human ha"

Policy

U.S., EU plan AI road map at upcoming trade, technology council meeting - "The United States and the European Union plan to release a new artificial intelligence road map that prioritizes security and risk management at the next meeting of their joint trade and technology council, a senior U.S. official said on Thursday."

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